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As everyone who breathes oxygen knows, Israel launched a pre-emptive attack on Iran last week which has started a regional war. Of all the wars that have ever occurred inside this volatile region, this one can escalate very quickly into a global battle and potential World War III scenario. Iran (Also known as Persia) and Israel are two ancient civilizations going back over 4000 years. The Persians have had multiple empires lasting thousands of years throughout its history as ChatGPT explains below.
Achaemenid Empire (c. 550 – 330 BCE): Founded by Cyrus the Great, it became one of the largest empires in history, encompassing vast territories from the Indus Valley to Europe. The Achaemenids were known for their administrative efficiency, infrastructure projects (like roads and canals), and religious tolerance. Parthian Empire (c. 247 BCE – 224 CE): Following the Achaemenids, the Parthians (also known as the Arsacid Empire) established a powerful kingdom in Persia, characterized by a blend of Persian and Hellenistic culture. Sasanian Empire (c. 224 – 651 CE): The Sasanian Empire, also known as the Second Persian Empire, rose after the Parthians and played a significant role in shaping Iranian identity and culture. They oversaw a period of artistic and architectural achievements. Safavid Empire (1501–1736): Reasserted Iranian identity and established a national state, known for its artistic accomplishments. The Persians have always been more cultural and financial influencers on the planet not known for conquering foreign countries through violent wars. Jewish history is one we are all familiar with. They are a culture and religion that moved from place to place and faced oppression all over the planet throughout thousands of years of history. With the establishment of Israel in 1948 by the UN, the Jewish people got their first official state (Even though the Jewish people got an autonomous state inside the Soviet Union that they have effectively abandoned). Opinions on this war are strong, and this blog is not meant to inflame those tensions. Instead, I am going to promote the idea of non-violence and peace. I understand the repression that the Ayatollah has brought onto Iran but am also aware that the Iranian Revolution would never have happened if the West had not initiated a coup in 1953 to overthrow their democratically elected leader and replace him with a tyrannical Shah. Israel has been under bombardment since its founding but has also been responsible for being the initiators of much of the region’s violence. The area is complicated, and the dynamics of the Middle East would require a one-thousand-page book to hammer out all the details and perspectives. But I want to post three things here to give a little bit of perspective on the underlying cause of the war. If this Iran-Israel War breaks out into a global conflagration, there is plenty of evidence to show that the people who were pushing this war were completely and totally full of shit. First, no matter what you think of Tucker Carlson (The obnoxious laugh, the sometimes-lecturing demeanor), I truly believe that he is having a moment of spirituality. On his podcast, he constantly mentions the regret he had supporting the Iraq War in 2003 and how he felt deceived by his own government. This past week, he had warmonger Ted Cruz on for a two-hour interview. About thirty minutes in, they start arguing vociferously. Tucker than spends the next 90 minutes destroying Cruz’s narrative (Yes, he uses that word. Cruz insists that his “narrative” is fact) about Iran. This is a master class in oppositional journalism and should be heard by everyone. Link is here. Second, even though this is an Al-Jazeera link, this is a wonderful summary of Netanyahu worrying about Iran developing the bomb going back to my freshman year in Junior College. None of this has ever proven to be true. Back in March, the US Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard not only said that Iran is not pursuing a nuclear weapon but would take a year to “Break Out” to create the enrichment capacity and weapon capability to deliver it. Basically, Iran has no ability even if they enrich to weapons capacity to even launch a nuke on a rocket. So, the excuse for Israel’s attack does not pass the “fact” test. Finally, if Ted Cruz above did not prove how morally bankrupt so many Americans are regarding war, watch this debate on Matt Gaetz’s show between Dave Smith and Robert Spencer. To say that Spencer was destroyed in this debate would be an understatement. Another debate that happened a few years back between Scott Horton and neo-con extraordinaire Bill Kristol was also a one-sided obliteration. What is the point of posting these videos? The people pushing us into war have NOTHING. No factual arguments, no historical understanding, no empathy. They are warmongers and psychopaths, and our society needs to deal with them as such by ignoring everything they say. A functioning, healthy society would put these people in their proper place venting inside the dark corners of the internet with only anonymous crazy people listening to them spouting off crazy conspiracy theories. TO PEACE AND JUSTICE FOR THE FUTURE. Let’s hope so.
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Over this past week, my family and I went to see Tom Cruise’s latest big budget spectacle, MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: THE FINAL RECKONING which is Part 2 of the finale of the series that started with last year’s DEAD RECKONING. Totaling almost six hours of non-stop action content, the movie is the encyclopedic definition of the word SPECTACLE. My review for this film will be very simple and is not going to be the focus of this blog. Both films are fun with amazing action sequences done by stunt doubles (And in some cases, Cruise himself), has a very minimal story that allows the actors to move from one location to another, and is a grand finale to a movie franchise that dates all the way back to the mid-90s. But watching this movie made me realize something. With Marvel and DC movies effectively taking over the action genre with studio-controlled franchises stuck inside defined comic book universes, is the big budget action film dead? And keeping this in mind, is the future of action low-budget films going to be small scope but entertaining pictures like NOBODY with Bob Odenkirk which is now also being franchised and getting its own sequel?
Ask yourself a question. When was the last time you went to a movie theater and were inspired or blown away by something you saw? What happened to the 1970s/1980s political pictures that often focused on the downsides of the changing United States (NETWORK and SERPICO) as well as historical documents about a recent era (GANDHI, THE KILLING FIELDS, THE LAST EMPEROR and EMPIRE OF THE SUN) in human history? When was the last time we had a comedy star in the Jim Carrey mold? When was the last time you went to a theater to see a comedy film? What happened to science fiction films with inventive ideas like DARK CITY or CUBE? Did superhero movies kill these films and turn the genre into nothing but franchises like ALIEN? There are a couple of reasons. First, the streaming services have effectively taken over content creation and distribution which has forced the big budget studios to take less risks. This risk-free mindset has led to half as many films being greenlit and released since the last Golden Age of film in the mid to late 90s. Second, limited series and well-written television shows have effectively taken over the entertainment industry since BREAKING BAD and MAD MEN broke through in the late 2000s. This content which took over the 2010s with Marvel films will be remembered as a second television Golden Age. Even our old action stars like Harrison Ford would move onto television with shows like 1923 and SHRINKING as well as Sylvester Stallone in his very underrated Paramount Show TULSA KING. But this content was expensive and the streaming services that produced much of this content created it as a lure to buy their subscriptions and produced it at a loss. Now, the industry is beginning to adjust by reducing much of this content. Plus, many well produced shows from Europe and Asia (South Korea specifically) have counterbalanced the decline in American productions. Streaming services are truly global. So, these reasons above are why this latest big budget action film fills me with nostalgia. As a 50-year-old male, I grew up with a Hollywood that would save all their action spectacles for every summer. Movies starring Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, Harrison Ford, Tom Cruise, Mel Gibson and Bruce Willis and to a lesser B movie extent, Jean Claude Van Damme, Jackie Chan, Steven Seagal and Chuck Norris were also ever present in movie theaters every summer during my childhood and college years. The three films that made me realize that these big budget action films are fading into history besides this in-theater Tom Cruise movie are: INDIANA JONES AND THE DIAL OF DESTINY RAMBO: LAST BLOOD And THE EXPENDABLES franchise, which is a riff on an era that has long since passed. Watching both films and the above-mentioned franchise felt like saying goodbye to a family member with terminal cancer. When compared to films from the 80s and 90s, these movies are still made with the same high-quality commitment to action that all these other 20th Century films were. It just appears that our culture has moved onto other things and is no longer committed to giving their hard-earned money for a brainless and fun two-hour entertainment experience. RIP ACTION FILMS! Every life involves choices. During your youth, decisions that are made during key moments (Like your choice of a college major, your choice of friends, your choice of romantic partners, whether to experiment with heroin or not, etc.) can often be more life changing than most people realize. Sometimes, these decisions change your life, permanently alter it, or prematurely end it. Bad choices can often lead to moments of regret. “Would my relationship had been better with “X” woman if I had not been such an immature idiot while we were dating?” “Why am I a Los Angeles Rams fan and not a San Francisco 49ers fan?” “If I had chosen this major instead, what would my professional career had been like?” This is why the idea of multiverses or multiple dimensions discussed in theoretical physics is a fascinating subject. What “if” I had made this choice instead? How would my life have turned out? These questions are asked because all of us (The Buddhist reincarnation theory notwithstanding) get only one biological life to enjoy. And once that body has had enough, the journey comes to an end. There is no rewind or pause button on your life. Time moves only in one direction. And everything always comes to an end.
At this moment, my life can be divided into five distinct sections. The fifth section is currently beginning with my relocation to Texas. But the previous four are in the history books and can be re-evaluated with perspective and a small dose of wisdom. My childhood was from 1974 to 1992 primarily in the South Bay, a suburban area about twenty miles south of downtown Los Angeles. Living primarily in Torrance and a wonderful six plus years next to the ocean in Redondo Beach, there was nothing particularly traumatizing about my childhood. My parents did their best. Both were flawed like any human born onto this planet. We had massive financial issues mainly because the world of the 1950s/1960s that my parents were accustomed to was coming to an end. A new financialized culture was developing in California that neither of my parents were prepared for. Besides this, the voices of wisdom (My grandparents) were dead before I turned 19 (My Dad’s parents were old when I was born and they died in 1980 at 83 years old and 1981 at 75). My Mom’s parents died younger. Her father was in World War II and went into Japan not too long after the nuclear bomb was dropped. He battled cancer in his 60s and it eventually killed him in 1987 at 66. My Mom’s grandmother lived the longest into my life until 1993 dying at 69 years old. My grandmother suffered from what is now called bipolar disorder and the biggest disruption in my childhood was watching my family members deal with this. The second section of my life involves college and the birth of my daughter. In 1995, I left the South Bay for the first time and settled in Orange County until 2003. I graduated from college and started my career in the television industry. These years were filled with college level courses, lots of dates, lots of concerts, and financial struggles after the birth of my child in 1998. Still being in my 20s, the ups and downs of this era were extremely difficult. Every time it felt like we were financially breaking through, something would happen like September 11, 2001, where my partner and I both lost our jobs forcing us to start over…yet again. This era is when the innocence of childhood and the fun of the high school and college years needed to be put aside. One thing that I do not regret about this timeframe was all the wonderful culture I got to experience. Nothing has been the same in California since the 90s era ended. This was the realization that was needed to put aside the FUN and begin to focus on the needs of the family. This brings me to the third section of my life which I will call the DESERT ERA (2003-2012). I want to begin with a comparison. As it is too early to compare my one month in Texas with my almost eight years in Arizona and forty-one years in California, there are a few things I would like to discuss about the differences between these states. CALIFORNIA: The two different eras I lived in this state could not have been more different from each other. But in summary, there are a few things that can not be beat about California (The incredible diversity mainly involving food and culture, the never-ending amount of things to do from bodysurfing in Malibu to attending Lollapalooza at Irvine Meadows, seeing the Rams play at SoFi, and everything else in between including the diverse amount of alcohol options, the interesting and more educated people that are always fascinating to chat with, the almost perfect seasonal weather, and the opportunities during my childhood). During my childhood, there were a lot more positive things about California than negative (For instance, the never-ending traffic, the terrible gang violence and drug problems, and the large sections of the city drenched in poverty and homelessness). During what will be discussed as the fourth section of my life (Below), my return to California was not nearly as joyous as the childhood era. The negatives of the state (The politics, the cost of living, the intolerant and incredibly self-centered people) had overwhelmed the positives mentioned above. But no matter how my feelings have evolved about my birth state, it will always hold a special place in my heart. Living in that state made me the individual I am. I take a massive amount of pride in that. ARIZONA: The third section of my life, the DESERT ERA, took place mostly in the suburbs of Western Phoenix. There was a short 20-month section in Palm Desert, California before the permanent move to Arizona in December of 2004. This era was marked with financial risk (That backfired), the growth and maturity of my daughter, the birth of another child, the ending of one career while another was birthed. Unfortunately, due to a massive real estate crash and financial meltdown, we got nothing out of our first home and eventually left Arizona with just 20,000 dollars in the 401k. But Arizona had its benefits. My partner was finally able to finish her education and got a BS degree at Arizona State as an electrical engineer. My daughter matured into a wonderful little person and graduated from 8th Grade in 2012. In fact, if evaluating the DESERT ERA and removing the financial losses, our family moved forward mentally and psychologically and became a stronger and more determined unit with more wisdom. We experienced six years of home ownership. On a personal level, I made a few good friends at my job that are still part of my life today. And the overall experience of the Phoenix years can be seen as positive. By the time we left in 2012, both my parents, sister and her children were in the Phoenix area. My father later died in Arizona in 2019. Arizona does have a few advantages over California (Wonderful freeway system with less traffic, a large amount of sporting events that were cheap and easy to attend, some very interesting landscapes and ghost towns, a better respect for individual rights, lesser laws) but also was loaded with a ton of negatives which eventually led my partner to want to leave (The oppressive heat, the unfriendliest people, the shockingly high crime rate where we lived, the terrible medical system, and eventually, the collapse of the job market in the late 2000s). The education system in Arizona was also abysmal. If I had to compare the circumstances of living in California to living in Arizona, I still think the Golden State on the Pacific Ocean is a better experience. This leads to the fourth section of my life, THE RETURN (2012-2025). With my partner’s new degree, we returned to California as a family. My son was one year old at the time. My daughter graduated from high school and college upon this return. My son grew up in San Diego and Murrieta, CA and created his own friend base there. Financially, our return was beneficial. We became homeowners again and made a nice profit on our home after selling it four years later. But after being forced to end my television career so my partner could pursue her dreams, my professional career has been an endless struggle moving from one different industry to another and trying to stay ahead of the rapidly changing job market. What happened in California has happened to millions of others who love the state but had to leave it behind. During COVID, the insanity of California politicians was on full display and Constitutional Rights quickly took a back seat to the “protection” and “safety” of the people. During the Biden years, inflation got so bad, that my wife and I making close to 200,000 a year were struggling to save any money. Living in California since 2020 stopped being fun. Our son’s education got so bad that I pulled him out of public school and have been homeschooling him since 2021. Despite my partner and I having most of our friends living nearby, it was no longer possible to sustain our lives in a state that was becoming unaffordable just for daily living expenses. The hope of buying a retirement home died during the massive increase in home prices that occurred during COVID. California was good for us financially. But it was not good for us physically or mentally. It was time to make the change into the now current fifth section of our lives. This brings us to Section five, Texas (2025 - ?). During THE RETURN, my family decided to live outside of a suburban area for the first time. Every suburb we had lived in was part of a greater city that numbered millions of inhabitants (Los Angeles, San Diego, Phoenix). And though we are technically considered part of the Greater Houston area also filled with millions of people, we are far enough removed from the city to enjoy many aspects of rural life. We experimented with this in Murrieta, California being at least an hour away from San Diego and Los Angeles inside an exurban community that had its own identity. Our current home in Willis, Texas reflects the same circumstance. The key difference is that our land will be better for growing a garden and raising chickens, we have a clean and massive lake nearby, and the area is wetter due to the increased humidity. Murrieta was dry, had one of the most polluted lakes in the country nearby, and the area was known for its incredibly wineries. We will see what happens. But whatever comes out of this experience, let’s hope the family is happier and wiser. Onward with life!  Now that Texas is my home state, I want to discuss my journey from Southern California to Southeast Texas from April 11th to April 14th. The slightly over 1500-mile journey could have been done in three days and two nights if illness did not ravage the family during the drive. Having written a book about US 95 from the Mexican border through the United States to the Canadian border, it was interesting to take another long drive on an original US highway.
First, the topography of Texas needs to be explained. Think of Texas like a slanted plate with its highest end tilted up in the Agricultural Panhandle in Amarillo which sits at 3662 feet and the Western Desert from El Paso laying at 3740 feet. Both cities in Texas are on the east and south sides of the Rocky Mountains. During the drive down Interstate 10, the elevation does increase east of El Paso to over 4600 feet before the slow downward slide to sea level at the Gulf of Mexico (America?) begins. Once you enter Fort Stockton, Texas, you have driven four hours, 240 miles inside Texas already and are still at almost 4000 feet of elevation. Driving from California to this point, almost the entire drive has been desert topography from Palm Springs to this military town, a length of almost 1000 miles. To avoid the southern drift of Interstate 10, Google Maps recommended a new faster route to reach my destination of Willis, Texas, US 190. US 190 is considered with its three digits an auxiliary route of US 90 which runs concurrently and rarely strays from Interstate 10 through Texas. US 190 ends into US 90 on the far eastern side of Louisiana after the city of Slidell which is just north of the city of New Orleans after travelling 875 miles. Upon entering the highway about an hour east of Fort Stockton, US 190 goes north for a few miles away from Interstate 10 before reaching a stop sign and beginning its journey east. Not too long after this eastward transition, the first city on US 190 is the small town of Iraan, population around 1000, which is an old, oil town built around the nearby Yates Oil Field which is currently owned today by Kinder Morgan. In 2026, the drilling of oil on this land will reach one century. Iraan is a poor town loaded with shanties and trailers for the oil workers. Passing through this oil town begins the US 190 journey through the Permian Basin, the largest producing oil field in the United States. As you continue travelling eastward, this region has a very Billy Bob Thornton, LANDMAN feel. Ranches besides having cattle are often filled with oil rigs. In this part of Texas, the transition of the land from the desert to a more greenish and sandy brush-filled environment begins. So, a quick evaluation about the state of Texas before continuing. On a personal level, I despise a large portion of the state. Four of my least favorite large cities I have ever visited are all located in Texas: (El Paso, Amarillo, Midland, and Corpus Christi). Lubbock is only appealing due to Texas Tech university. Dallas is like Los Angeles but missing about 99% of the culture. And the people of that city didn’t replace it with anything. But as you move eastward through the state and learn to embrace its environment which is hilly in spots and very flat, Texas becomes very green and lush. This is why the Southern triangle of Austin (Hill Country), San Antonio (Edge of the desert), and Houston (Green Swamp Land) is my favorite section of the state. College Station is also a nice town sitting in the middle of the triangle with a university at its center. Nearby, Tyler to the east of Dallas is also very appealing. So as US 190 continues its journey eastward, the scenery becomes heathier and more beautiful. Upon entering the city of Brady where five major US highways meet in what is called the “Geographical Center of Texas”, all the remaining cities and towns on this highway are worth a visit. Brady has a loop in its downtown that takes US 190 around the courthouse sitting on an island in the center. After Brady, US 190 enters Hill Country, the most scenic part of Texas. Rolling hills filled with trees, open plains with two-foot-tall green grasses, and natural ponds littering the landscape sitting inside green meadows loaded with wildflowers that can be seen to the horizon, the homes and quality of the land gets increasingly impressive on this two-lane highway. The next town is San Saba, famous for being the birthplace of actor Tommy Lee Jones. Upon entering the “Pecan Capital of the World” (A crop that grows all over the hillsides nearby), there are rich communities of homes sitting to the north and the downtown is the nicest one that US 190 will intersect with on this long eastward drive. After San Saba and passing through a few more small towns, US 190 hits the outskirts of the Waco area with the town of Lampasas. After passing through Kempner and into Copperas Cove, US 190 becomes Interstate 14, a transition that began in 2017. Interstate 14 is like the currently being developed Interstate 11 in Las Vegas, Nevada that runs along the US 95 route. Until reaching Interstate 35, US 190 and Interstate 14 run together where they separate once again inside the city of Temple where the interstate ends. After leaving the Waco area, US 190 enters the Brazos Valley. This section of Texas is flat with large ranches either loaded with cattle or land loaded with vegetables and nut trees. Much of the land has luxury homes sitting on top of high-quality soil. This drive is also very green and passes by many waterways. Upon entering Bryan and College Station, my journey took me down Texas 6 while US 190 breaks off and begins heading northeast towards Madisonville. A few days later, our journey on US 190 began again. After settling, my wife and I wanted to look at the city of Livingston near Lake Livingston about an hour northeast of our location near Lake Conroe. Taking a fourth type of highway in Texas (Separate from an Interstate, US Route and State Highway) are Farm to Market roads that are two lane highways that intersect the tree-filled, forested land in this region of Texas. From just east of the college town of Huntsville (Sam Houston State University), US 190 journeys towards Livingston. This drive is scenic but not as impressive as the Brady to College Station drive. Being a little more rural, the towns that US 190 intersects like Point Blank look like their best days were fifty years in the past. Lake Livingston is not as beautiful as Lake Conroe looking very muddy, murky, and apparently loaded with alligators. After stopping our journey on US 190 just east of the new Interstate 69 in the rustic downtown area of Livingston, our drive on THE HEART OF TEXAS HIGHWAY was completed. On April 15th, 2025 (Tax Day), I became a resident of the state of Texas. An hour north of Houston is a beautiful area named Lake Conroe with the cities of Willis to the northeast, Conroe to the southeast, and Montgomery south. Outside the city limits in Montgomery County, I decided to rent a house for 12 months with the intent of buying property and land over the next year in this area. My family fell in love with this area upon visiting back in November of 2024. Lake Conroe is a massive 22,000-acre lake just a few minutes west of Interstate 45. Created by damming the western fork of the San Jacinto River, Lake Conroe and the area that surrounds it is known for its outdoor activities and water sports. From our community, the upscale suburb of The Woodlands is a short ten-minute jaunt south down the freeway.
For many of my readers, you know that I have a deep-seated love for my native state of California. Being a political lightning rod often undeservedly so over the past decade, remaining in California became unsustainable for a couple about a decade from retirement. The biggest issue with California is not the arrogant liberals, the misguided politics, or the mind-numbing traffic. These are irritating factors that are inevitable if you live inside the state. The main problem with California is the cost of living. Making 100,000 dollars a year is just not enough if you want to buy a home and enjoy a slice of the American dream. Food prices have skyrocketed, gas prices are some of the highest in the nation, and buying a new home is next to impossible. This is why more people are on federal and state benefits inside California now than ever before. These price increases, especially on assets, are not completely the politicians’ fault. But nothing they have done no matter how good-natured the policy can stop inflation. Recently, the large utility that directly and indirectly employed my wife and I had to purge workers due to bad green energy investments that did not pay off in the way that was promised. With my job basically being eliminated in California, there was no longer any reason to stay. As my experience living in Texas continues to develop, I will have more opinions about the state in the future. But here are a couple of cost comparisons between California and Texas. Not everything in Texas is cheaper. When we left California, these were our expenses 2655: Rent for a 2 bedroom, 1200 plus square foot apartment. This includes 105 dollars for water and trash. 205: GEICO Car Insurance 190: Cubesmart Storage 250: Average Electricity with So Cal Edison 45: Average Gas Price with So Cal Gas 150: Spectrum 500 MB Internet (79.99) plus basic cable package (19.99) plus sports add-on (15). With taxes, this bill was almost 150 dollars a month. 65: Mint Mobile Pre-Pay Unlimited Plan for two phones Over 1000 dollars on food a month Over 500 dollars on gas a month averaging around 4.59 a gallon. Adding all this up, the total is 5060 estimated dollars spent a month. This does not include extra expenses like streaming and internet subscriptions, yearly expenses like car registration, and other “emergencies.” Adding in recreation and the amount taken by the government through payroll taxes, you must make 140,000 as a couple to be comfortable and contribute to a 401k bi-weekly. While my wife and I were able to accomplish this, saving money monthly became an increasingly difficult problem. Now, here are our expenses in Texas. 1500: Rent for a 3 bedroom, 2 bath, 1665 square foot house 250: GEICO Car Insurance is 15 dollars higher than California, and we had to add 30 dollars of renter’s insurance, a new bill for our rental. 295: Average electricity bill through Entergy (A 45-dollar increase) 72: Frontier 2 GB Internet 31: Trash with Heritage Solutions 55: Washer and Dryer Rental, a new bill 65: Mint Mobile remains the same Food will be around 950 a month. Eating out is 10% cheaper but groceries are about the same as California. Gas will be about 300 a month averaging around 2.59 a gallon. We do not have a gas bill, water bill, or storage bill. The total so far is an estimated 3528 dollars a month. So, understanding the fact that we have saved over 1500 a month moving to Texas, can you really blame us? Next week, I will write about my journey down one of the most interesting US highways that dissects the middle of Texas, US 190. California (1974-2004, 2012-2025): Grew up and lived in Torrance and Redondo Beach until 1995, moved to Orange County and stayed till 2003, lived in the Palm Springs area until 2004 when we relocated to Phoenix. Came back to California in 2012 and lived in San Diego till 2017 and then we bought a condo in Murrieta where we lived until 2025. Arizona (2004-2012): Owned a home in the Avondale suburb of Phoenix from 2004-2011 until relocating back to California.  Due to an incredibly busy schedule which will be easing soon (Information provided on my next post), I have been unable to mourn one of my favorite creatives, the innovative and unique film director David Lynch, who died four days before his 79th birthday in January. With his signature combed back 50s rockabilly hair and distinct directorial aesthetic, the loss of Lynch is a tragedy for the film making world. With the current state of the independent film industry, there will likely never be another filmmaker like him.
Becoming a massive fan of the Generation X filmmaking world that rose out of the 90s like a Phoenix during my high school days, I discovered Lynch as a junior in high school in 1990. The high school and college years are wonderful times of your life as your artistic tastes are first developed by the media, your cultural environment, and social peer pressure. A close friend of mine in high school, Chris, requested I spend the night, and we rented a few movies at THE WAREHOUSE. One of these was Lynch’s WILD AT HEART, his mixing of Southern Gothic stories and themes from the WIZARD OF OZ. The movie’s story is based off a novel written by Barry Gifford, but the film has its own unique artistic statement. Probably the one Lynch film that has a defined narrative (THE STRAIGHT STORY being the other), it revolves around the love story of Sailor played by Nicolas Cage and Lula played by Laura Dern, young, rebellious lovers looking to escape her domineering mother. The movie turns into a road trip film that ends in a burst of shocking violence. For me, I wasn’t sure what the hell I was watching. But it fascinated me. I also understood that a movie with these themes and imagery would never be played in my Catholic household as my parents were very sensitive to sexual and violent content in the media when I was a child. Then, the car accident scene occurs where our lovers come across Sherilyn Fenn, who has “survived” a car accident, and happens to be picking the large hole in her skull as she dies. The intensity and unintentional hilarity of it is shocking and quite emotional. Plus, this movie introduced me to another lifelong love, Chris Isaak, whose megahit WICKED GAME was first heard in this film before becoming a massive hit. The video linked above was the original that MTV played back in 1990. The later video with Chris wrestling with a stunning woman on the beach came later. Then there was the ending. Willem Dafoe’s Bobby Peru roping Sailor into a bank heist where his head met its unfortunate end with a shotgun. What the hell was I watching? And who is this, David Lynch? After this, I went back and watched some of his earlier work including the incredibly underrated original 1984 version of DUNE and BLUE VELVET, often called his magnum opus starring one of my favorite longtime actors known for playing crazy roles, Dennis Hopper. BLUE VELVET specifically is voyeuristic, erotic, and very disturbing. With so many serious themes going on, the movie has no problem embracing the weird as Hopper’s Frank Booth forces Dean Stockwell’s Ben to lip sync IN DREAMS by Ray Orbison after Kyle Maclachlan and Isabella Rossellini’s characters are kidnapped. The scene has Hopper lip syncing and intensely glaring at Stockwell as he performs, and the scene would not be complete without a dancing man holding a snake in the background. After this film which should have won Best Picture in 1986, I was a David Lynch fan. But nothing could have prepared me for what came next. TWIN PEAKS is often credited with changing television back in 1990 when it first aired on network TV. MANY, MANY articles have been written about this groundbreaking show. The show for about a year was equivalent to an internet viral phenomenon. From 1990 to 1991, “Who killed Laura Palmer?” was everywhere in the entertainment zeitgeist. The show was discussed by adults at bowling Mondays or kids on lunch break at high school. For me, I did not discover it until later. Mainly because I was not much of a television watcher as a teenager (I focused on films). TWIN PEAKS did not come onto my radar until Lynch’s accompanying film, TWIN PEAKS: FIRE WALK WITH ME was released in 1992. One of my favorite films of all-time, FIRE WALK WITH ME is the prequel to the TV show that chronicles the last week of Laura Palmer’s life. Still to this day, this movie blows me away with its innovation, its inherent darkness, its representation of supernatural evil, and outright frank depictions of nudity. Sheryl Lee, who starred in this movie, deserved an Oscar nomination as this remains one of my favorite acting performances of all-time. So many iconic characters came out of this amazing television show and film including The Log Lady and The Little Man from Another Place. TWIN PEAKS was so massive that two books were released later, both of which I bought, just to analyze and understand the incredible world that Lynch and Mark Frost created. Laura Palmer’s murder scene at the hands of her possessed father (It is complicated) still disturbs me to this day. It is one of the most intense scenes ever put onto film. Than there is the murder scene in TWIN PEAKS that mirrors Laura’s in intensity where Lynch ends the next episode with the recognition of her death at a bar set to Julee Cruise’s haunting voice which has an incredible emotional impact, Then, there is the opening theme and credits which is just musical perfection written by Lynch’s longtime composer Angelo Badalamenti. And this was on network TV in 1990. After TWIN PEAKS, I would be forever in on David Lynch even if his movies never reached the intensity of that genius work of art. LOST HIGHWAY, THE STRAIGHT STORY and his best post-TWIN PEAKS work MULHOLLAND DRIVE followed. I even went back and completed his filmography watching his incredible first film ERASERHEAD and his last movie, INLAND EMPIRE, starring the wonderful Laura Dern. After 2006, Lynch would never make another feature film again. But he never left the cultural zeitgeist. Younger generations started discovering him. Lynch began doing Weather Reports on YouTube. Even Netflix hired him to direct a short film where he interrogates a monkey about a murder in WHAT DID JACK DO?. Lynch released two albums and created a comic strip in the 1980s, THE ANGRIEST DOG IN THE WORLD. He was involved in directing dozens of music videos. The best final moment of David Lynch’s career is when SHOWTIME decided to reboot TWIN PEAKS for one final season which aired in 2017. These 18 glorious episodes were a wonderful career summary of everything Lynch has done and a glorious send off. Twin Peaks ends with a cliff hanger that was intense and will never be resolved, the David Lynch way. And props for creating a character like Dougie or turning what was a dying David Bowie’s character Philip Jeffries into a talking tea kettle. The man was endlessly creative. Because of the silencing of this voice and the inevitability of death, the world feels like a darker force without Lynch inside of it. Rest in peace, you unique genius. In the classic film LIFE OF BRIAN (1979) from the geniuses of Monty Python which satirizes the life of Jesus Christ, there is an intellectual group called “The People’s Front of Judea.” Talking and notating about the political issues of the day while discussing how to improve the scenarios of the citizens as a resistance group to the Roman Empire, the group gets bogged down into inane conversations and refuses to act when injustice rears its ugly head. See this clip. And this one. Welcome to the world of the 2025 Libertarian Party. It pains me to recognize this reality. As a person who has always had an anarchist/libertarian belief system wrapped around an American political reality that shifts my beliefs from right to left to right and likely back again due to the changing focus of each Party, the libertarians are the living example of the Buffalo Bills missing a field goal wide right. Over the past twenty years, wonderful websites like the Libertarian Institute and the Mises Institute have been correct about so many things like the threat of big government on our monetary system, the danger of crony capitalism, the misguided social theories of the Democratic left, and most importantly, the futility of imperial war. As these theories became reality over the past decade, the steady growth of government which libertarians believe is inevitable eventually leads to authoritarianism. In March of 2020 (Five years ago), the fruits of these beliefs became a frightening reality. With Trump in office and Biden taking over in January 2021, the United States was taken over by a cabal of public health experts who: Locked down our nation Forced us into wearing masks Forced many public workers into getting a controversial, untested vaccine Engaged in the greatest propaganda campaign in human history And who was wrong about all these things. Did the libertarians take advantage of this moment where so many of their theories were proven correct? Nope Like the People’s Front of Judea, they sat around debating the pros and cons of the COVID era and made no effort to act against the totalitarian injustices being implemented. Coercion was used to force people into getting a shot that they had questions about, people lost their jobs for not complying, and the media brutally attacked anyone who had legitimate questions about the public health opinion. The libertarian movement fractured while ignoring the loss of personal rights and Constitutional violations that these lockdowns enabled. Good Libertarians eventually woke up to this con job like Tom Woods, Tom Luongo, and Lew Rockwell. Ron Paul never stopped having doubts. I discovered the wonders of Dave Smith during this era. But the movement during its time for action and faced with the ability to put into practice its philosophies decided to drive their car off the bridge and drown themselves in a river. Donald Trump has cut more government spending than any libertarian has theoretically ever imagined. DOGE has been a wonderful implementation of executive power and has the majority of the American people’s support. Now if Trump can just get the Republicans in line and stop the insane House Spending Bill that will make every cut that Musk’s team has made pointless, maybe we can fix this increasingly broken country that is inevitably heading to a major recession at some point in the near future. But whatever you think about what the appropriate size of government should be, the libertarians should have no say about it. They are a political party whose bite is much larger than its inept bite. The libertarians are the Pomeranians of political parties. This tiny dog never stops barking and can be very aggressive and feisty. But once it bites you, the impact is so minimal that you can’t help but give the little overgrown rat a nice hug and some food. Don’t get me started on Chase Oliver. Dear God! Until next time! Being a citizen of the United States, it is often hard to grapple with the fact that the nation I was born into is an empire. When you read history, it never felt like the United States was comparable to the Romans, the Russians and the Brits on the imperial scale. Our Constitution was developed to limit the scope of the government, which should make an empire impossible. But if we are being honest, the expansion of the United States in the early to mid-1800s mixed with our agricultural prowess and the industrial revolution made our nation an economic powerhouse. During the presidency of William McKinley from 1897-1901, the United States engaged in its first war outside of its territory. Up to this point, every American War was on our soil; the American Revolution, War of 1812, Mexican War, Civil War and the Wars against the Natives. All of them to fulfill the goal of manifest destiny and the creation of one nation from the Pacific to the Atlantic Ocean. But in 1898 due to the controversial and still debated explosion of the USS Maine, the United States engaged in its first imperial war. After defeating the Spanish in eight months, the Treaty of Paris was signed which gave the United States possession of the territories of Puerto Rico, Guam and the Philippines. The war also allowed us to annex the Hawaiian Kingdom and take the Samoan Islands. Cuba became an independent nation in 1902 after three and a half years of American occupation after the Spanish defeat. Our first “nation building” war followed in the Philippines from 1899 to 1902, when the United States defeated the Filipino revolutionaries. From 1898 until the present day, the United States has been an EMPIRE. But our politicians since McKinley (Who was assassinated by an anarchist in September of 1901) have often downplayed American influence even though:
Approximately 750 military bases in 80 countries exist according to CATO. The United States dollar became the Reserve Currency of the planet due to the Bretton Woods agreement in 1944. The United States is the dominant economic powerhouse of the globe. We are the biggest financial empire that has ever existed. The United States is the largest cultural empire since Austria-Hungary. Despite these facts, the lack of territorial holdings creates a dispute about whether the United States is an empire. Well, enter DONALD TRUMP into this equation. Since Trump took the oath of office a month ago, the news cycle has gone into a cocaine induced overdrive. Every day, hundreds of different stories hit our wire. By the time you finish one story, four more have replaced it. All this is due to DOGE, the new Department of Government Efficiency, created by Executive Order by and run by Elon Musk and his crew of young tech nerds. There are too many discoveries to list here. But the purpose of this new “agency” was to reduce wasteful spending and corruption. And boy, has it done that. If everything that DOGE has discovered could be discussed, this blog would quickly reach novel size. Due to my own personal interests though (And a potential 4th soon), I want to focus on three incredible discoveries that have been unearthed. 1) INTERNEWS - This one is a personal victory for me. From 2002 to 2014, I worked in the television industry monitoring television networks and working on local newscasts. After moving into the utility industry, I pursued a master’s degree at Arizona State in Media Studies. During the time working in television and the media, I always felt there was something wrong with the information given to the American people. The opinion of one point of view always seemed to stick out over any counterarguments. This problem first appeared in 2002 when the pro-war crowd seemed to drown out the anti-war voices. This led to the Iraq War of 2003 as the very efficient propaganda promoted on the nightly newscasts led to the American people supporting an attack on that nation. The overwhelming narrative that existed in the media and posted inside dozens of websites, magazine, and newspaper articles always seemed to mirror identically to what the United States government wanted. Pointing this out to family members and friends, no one saw what seemed so obvious to me. We were being propagandized and brainwashed all the time. Last week, the twenty-year long theory I held was proven to be a factual truth. An NGO with the generic name of INTERNEWS was given 472.6 million dollars to basically control the global content of news and frame stories with a pro-United States bias. The scope of this propaganda is incredible when evaluated. Here are a few facts. Internews worked with 4,291 media outlets, producing 4,799 hours of broadcasts in one year alone, reaching up to 778 million people globally. It also “trained" over 9,000 journalists in 2023 and supported social media censorship initiatives. USASpending data shows that 87% of the funding, equivalent to $415 million, came from USAID in the last 17 years, while an additional $57 million was awarded by the US Department of State in the same period. USAID (United States Agency for International Development) was acting like its own intelligence agency not only influencing the American people domestically but a large portion of the globe. In addition, they encouraged and supported anti-Constitutional social media censorship organizations that began to escalate the removal of content online during the COVID-19 lockdowns (And were exposed in the Twitter Files). Even though I suspected this going back to the propaganda operation that got us into Iraq in 2003, I NEVER COULD HAVE BELIEVED that it was this large in scope and operating with such efficiency. 2) SUBSCRIPTIONS - I have been confused for years as to why any person on this planet would pay hundreds or even in a few cases, thousands of dollars, for a media subscription. It seems like a failed business model unless you promote a truly independent point of view like many successful Substack authors who charge between 50 to 300 dollars a year depending on the content. But these publications promote the same pro-government ideas with a slight ideological spin. They do create good journalism on occasion and many of them specialize in a specific topic. But often, a good media evaluator notices that the publication has the same opinion on climate change as NOAA, or Iran poses a threat to the United States inside every foreign policy publication which aligns with the Department of State, or that white people created a system of oppression that seems to infest all recent history books and is being pushed by our Federal education departments. Thinking about the scale of this manipulation is astonishing. Then, you read that the government basically kept many of these media outlets in business with thousands of paid subscriptions using your hard earned taxpayer money. When the government is keeping a business afloat with public money, this is not the free market. This is a government run form of capitalism where our politicians decide which media organizations survive. It is the definition of corruption. 3) SOCIAL JUSTICE ISSUES - DEI (Diversity, Equality, Inclusion) issues have never been my forte. Over the past half decade, it appears that the LGBTQIA movement as a minority appears to be the most well-funded oppressed group in global history. Some of their initiatives even appear to be racist by classifying certain groups as more important than others. The fact that we have a society trying to legitimize a biological male who identifies as female who proceeds to destroy females in athletic competition as a new normal always felt like one of the most unethical and crazy things ever. Because of this, the rapid acceptance of DEI never felt like an organic movement that sprouted out of the public. It felt like a psychological operation. Now, we know that this was the case. DEI money is why corporations and media figures jumped onto the bandwagon. DOGE has eliminated 100 million dollars from the Department of Education and put all the states on notice that the insanity of this movement needs to be halted. 4) MILITARY - This is in the process of occurring and will be discussed later. I do believe that the two trillion in savings promised by Musk can be accomplished by the time Trump leaves office in 2021, but this can only happen if Pentagon spending is reduced 40 to 50% via cutting its over bloated staff and the elimination and reduction of some of its programs. No cutting of Federal money will get me more excited than the reduction of the largest bureaucracy that has ever graced this planet, the Department of Defense. Next week: The failure of libertarianism and why Trump is reducing government more effectively than any libertarian could ever dream of.  Reaching a half century of age this past August, this landmark has created some self-reflection and a tinge of nostalgia for how this biological journey has developed up to this point. One of the things that has fascinated me over my 30 plus years of employment at over a dozen companies is that I can confidently say that my personality is NOT what employers want in terms of being the public face of their business. There is a physical, unbreakable brick wall I hit at every place of employment dating back to the late 90s. I have gotten promotions and raises for my knowledge of work, experience and sometimes, wildly creative ideas. If the company moves me into leadership, I can reach a team leader or supervisor position and be given permission to manage a time shift or small team. But once the word MANAGER or DIRECTOR is spoken, discussing promotion into that position causes the corporate leadership to disappear at light speed into empty nothingness. For over a decade, this really got under my skin. But as my own wisdom has increased and realities about the world become more apparent, I have come to understand a fundamental truth about myself. I am an outsider and free thinker. And if u understand how the business climate in the United States works, being an outsider is not what American corporations crave. I'm on the outside, I’m on the outside now This is where it all begins On the outside looking in Looking in at you I'm just an alien through and through Tryin' to make believe I'm you Tryin' to fit Just a stranger on the outside looking in ON THE OUTSIDE: OINGO BOINGO As the prophet Danny Elfman sang above in 1981, I have always been an outsider. Going back to childhood, my parents had me attend Catholic School from 1980-1988. I never felt like I belonged inside of church culture. Despite this, my personal morality, ethics and sense of righteousness did develop strongly during this time. This gave me a sense of naivety about the reality of the world (Which was kicked out of me in the 2000s) and a false sense of importance that the world needed to understand my vital and incredibly important point of view. My rebellious streak started in high school. During this period, calling me a REBEL WITHOUT A CAUSE but lacking the amazing James Dean pompadour would be appropriate. This rebellion was caused by a terrible depression. Because of this and my often-naïve positive outlook and trusting too many people who did not have my best interests at heart, I often found myself surrounded by the wrong type of friend or adult. One of the other interesting things was that throughout my entire childhood counting my Catholic school, high school and college years, I never had a mentor. Because many adults could sense my intelligence, they did not think guidance was necessary. This led to distrust towards authority figures who went against my own personal honor code. But my intelligence hid a lack of common sense which would not develop until much later in my adult years. My sense of moral righteousness got me into trouble many times during my high school and college years as my mind believed that doing the right thing often trumped respect shown to authority. This strong sense of righteousness is the primary reason for my failure to achieve leadership positions in the corporate world. No one who knows me would tell you that my leadership skills are terrible. In fact, many of my friends think I would have been an incredible manager. But the fact that I will question instructions from my bosses is just not allowed in a business climate that tries to eliminate any controversies or conflicts. So, understanding this flaw in my personality, do I regret my life as an outsider? The answer is NO. Understanding that corporations and churches function as monarchical or dictatorial systems in our society, the pressure to accept the rules, structures, and logic of these institutions by pushing aside my ethical code was not something I could ever do. My mind has its own sense of right and wrong. There are a few things I will never do no matter how much external pressure is applied. I will not kill someone for political reasons in a war I will not hinder any individual’s personal and natural rights I will not deceive other people out of their hard-earned money But being an outsider and independent thinker also had its advantages when looking back at some of my most nostalgic moments. Being involved in the grunge, gangster rap, goth, techno and swing dance scenes in the 1990s in Los Angeles allowed me to participate in the cultural zeitgeist that my group of friends helped push into the mainstream while it originated on the fringes of the culture. The women I dated and the one I eventually had children with were all the black sheep’s of their respective families. All of them are outsiders. This distrust of authority and my instinct of understanding that depriving people of their natural right of free movement and body autonomy was authoritarian made me immediately suspicious of Dr. Fauci’s intent (Later confirmed) back in March of 2020. This is what led me to reject the entire COVID narrative within about a month of the initial lockdowns. My partner and kids got NONE OF THE COVID-19 “VACCINES.” We often violated with impunity mask mandates and unlike many scared Americans, we travelled to almost a dozen states around the United States while many people around the globe were terrified to open the door to get their DoorDash order. As Google AI says about “outsiders”, “Being an outsider can offer benefits like a fresh perspective, the ability to challenge the status quo, increased objectivity, autonomy, and the chance to observe situations without being caught up in group dynamics.” This Experimental AI’s explanation of my personality is what I have become. My readers can either come along on this journey or disappear into the spiraling void like so many of my bosses did. The choice is yours. Because rebels, renegades and outsiders do change the world. RAGE AGAINST THE MACHINE was right. Many apologies for the delay on this final observation of my life-changing European adventure. Hopefully everyone had a wonderful Holiday season. After the New Year’s, the seasonal flu struck my family, and it has delayed much of my writing. So many things have occurred including the inauguration of a new president and over the next few months, there will be a few blogs regarding what has happened so far culturally and politically.
My first steps into Italy were on the port of Ravenna, Italy. Ravenna is south of Venice approximately 80-90 miles. The city is also about 50 miles east of Bologna. Ravenna sits a few miles inland from the Adriatic coast. Upon walking onto Italian soil for the first time, you realize that Ravenna maybe the most unimpressive port in Europe. The port is currently under construction. Upon leaving the port and going into the city, Ravenna is very industrial. There are wetlands surrounding the area. Many oil refineries and manufacturing buildings litter the landscape. There are a couple of beautiful basilicas and churches in the city. But if given the option on the cruise ship to do something outside of this city, take this option. Venice to the north, Bologna to the west, and the independent country of San Marino to the south are a better way to spend the day than walking around this coastal mosquito fest. My partner and I decided to do the latter. The ride to San Marino takes you through some of Italy’s nicest agricultural areas. From a tourist perspective, there is not much to see other than these farms and lots of grasslands, wetlands, small towns and an amusement park far off into the distance. But once you arrive with the signature Mount Titane (Mt. Titan) standing majestically off into the distance, you realize that San Marino is a special place. San Marino was founded by a Dalmatian named Marinus who grew up on the island of Rab off the Croatian coast. During Emperor Diocletian’s reign, Christianity began spreading throughout the Roman Empire. Diocletian soon began persecuting Christians as he saw their beliefs as a threat to his rule. Marinus fled this oppression and settled as a hermit on Mount Titane where a thriving Christian community began to develop. Marinus preached the idea as a devout Catholic of simplicity, humility, peace and religious freedom to his neighbors. The foundations of the country of San Marino were laid by his teachings and he eventually became a Catholic Saint. San Marino is recognized as the oldest and at one time, smallest republic in the world (Until the independence of the island nation of Nauru in 1968) and has existed as an independent nation state for over 1700 years. San Marino is the 4th smallest country in the world and the 3rd smallest in Europe after Vatican City and Monaco. There is a small retail area once you enter the country, and the oldest part of San Marino is built like a step ladder with the stone streets rising in elevation towards the mountain peak. Located at the top of all three peaks of Mount Titane are medieval forts which have protected this nation since its inception. Before diving into more of San Marino, a quick history lesson on Italy that will explain why a nation that is smaller than most large cities exists on an Italian mountain. Before Italy became a unified nation in 1861, the territory that makes up the present-day country was broken into city-states. These cities were so wealthy that they formed independent governments and were often run by wealthy families. Most famously, the Roman Empire remains the most powerful city-state to have ever existed while ruling over large areas of Europe, the Middle East and Northern Africa. Upon the Roman Empire’s collapse, Rome became a papal state and the headquarters of the Catholic religion with over one billion followers. The Venetians based out of Venice began to thrive after the Roman Empire fell and became one of the world’s first maritime republics and had over a century of peace with the nearby Byzantine Empire. Other famous city-states were Florence ruled by the Medici family that embraced art and was a hub for banking and textile production. Naples, Milan, Genoa and Pisa also became their own republics during specific periods of the Renaissance era. When Italy became a nation, the seven remaining city-states that formed the new nation were:
After Italy unified, San Marino remained an independent country. The country’s motto is LIBERTAS and respecting the idea of freedom is the foundation of what the nation is about. San Marino is very cheap. If you are looking to embrace human consumption, this is the best place in Southern Europe to do it. While the country does use the Euro, it does not pay the often-high VAT taxes that other EU nations are burdened with. This tax-free, low regulation environment allows products to be sold at bargain basement prices. Guns are sold in about a dozen shops at 80 to 90% less than they are in the United States. You can find real leather wallets for ten Euros. Anyone can have a wonderful authentic Italian dinner for eight Euros. The forts on top of the mountain must be seen and the city is loaded with beautiful and scenic vistas overlooking the Italian countryside and some interesting museums like one filled with ancient weapons, another that dissects the vampire myth, and my personal favorite, a very detailed display of the torture devices that existed during the Middle Ages. Behind my day in Krka National Park and the beaches of Split and our wonderful day in Albania, San Marino was one of the highlights of the trip. Going back for our final evening on the cruise ship, we woke up the next day in the port of Trieste, Italy where our ship permanently docked. The train station that would take us to Venice, Italy (Where our flight left in two days) was a one-mile hike north along the Trieste coastline. During this walk, we got to see probably the two most famous locations in this city, the Piazza Unita d’Italia which is a stunning square facing the ocean. This square was seen as one of the most important locations in Europe when it was a seaport for the Austrian Hungarian Empire and the buildings inside the square still have that influence. Many famous artists have given concerts, and many famous political figures have met inside of this square as a backdrop for negotiations. The Slovenes who surround this city on three sides still call it THE GREAT SQUARE. Trieste does not look like an Italian town. Despite being in the nation of Italy, the nearby Slavic and Austrian people have left a legacy on its appearance. The final tourist spot was the Grand Canal of Trieste before we reached the train station. Not counting Athens, Trieste was probably the poorest of the cities we got to experience. It was the only other place that had a large homeless population living in a park near the main train station. The city had lots of construction and appears to be under development. Upon catching the train to Venice, my partner and I got to understand firsthand why train travel is preferred in Europe. First, the trains run on time. Second, the seats inside these trains are like flying first class on a domestic American airline. They are incredibly comfortable, and waiters do come around and give you a snack and drink every other hour. The train ride from Trieste to Venice took a little over two hours as we ran around the top of the Adriatic Sea to arrive at one of the most famous cities in the world. What can really be said about Venice? Is it overpriced? Yup. Is it grimy and stinky in places? Yup. Is there a lot of graffiti scattered around the entire city? Yup. But experiencing the city is something that everyone who has the time and money should do. From the beautiful towering basilicas and churches overlooking the water on small islands off Old Town to the famous structures like the Palazzo Ducale that are on every postcard to the incredible food and coffee to seeing an opera in the evening while overlooking a canal to enjoying tea at the oldest tea shop in the world to taking water taxis all over Venice including to the island of Lido and having one of the best custom alcoholic drinks at the local bar while realizing that no one in this part of Venice spoke proper English, there is no other city in the world where you can have this interesting of an experience. At 11 pm when my partner and I were in a water taxi heading back to our hotel near the famous Rialto bridge and we passed restaurants that were mostly empty but had haunting candle lights on each table reflecting out onto the water, it was one of the most beautiful memories of my life. Even though there are downsides to Venice like overpriced hotel rooms that a family of rats would not have enough space to enjoy, there is something very magical about this city. And one other thing that will remain the most baffling experience of my life. On the previously mentioned Lido Island to the east of Venice, my wife and I needed to go to the bathroom. The toilets in every establishment including the bar and restaurant that we ate at were basically ground toilets with nothing to sit on. You just squatted and emptied the contents of your bowels into this open toilet pit. It was the most bizarre restroom experience of my life. And one more thing. All public toilets, no matter what country you are in, will cost at least one Euro to use. The good news is that these toilets are clean and not disgusting like most public toilets you find in California on the beaches, parks and inside rest stops. On the last day, I decided to buy a tour run by a Venetian couple that would take us into the famous Dolomites. On my bucket list of things to see in Europe, the Dolomites were in my Top 5. The Dolomites are only ninety minutes north of the city of Venice. So, after grabbing my warm cup of coffee early in the morning, we met our fellow tourists in the bus plaza in Venice at 8 am. The one downside of this trip. We apparently traveled on a day that was a national Holiday in Italy, so the Dolomites were VERY BUSY with lots of tourists. But once we got into Dolomites National Park, there is no mountain range on this planet that has more incredibly scenic vistas than this section of the Italian Alps. I have been to the Rockies, the Appalachians and my personal favorite mountain range, the Sierra Nevadas in California with its multiple national parks. None of them can beat the Dolomites. From Lago di Braies and its sparkling, clear water to hiking under the famous Tre Cime peaks at over 7000 feet to experiencing the sparkling lake of Misurina, the Dolomites do not fail to impress in all their majestic glory. The limestone peaks stand out throughout the multiple nature parks we hiked through and the valleys between the peaks with alpine trees, beautiful dark green grasslands and ponds and lakes with clear water that you can see one hundred feet down into never fail to impress. Scattered around the Dolomites are little Italian towns that have been under these peaks for centuries that are bursting with character and history with the most famous being Cortina d’Ampezzo where my partner and I had the best desserts on our European trip. Near Lago Di Braies, the Austrian influence takes over again as the architecture of the buildings gives the region an Austrian look. Even though we scraped the edge of Austria, we never crossed the border into the country despite being able to see it from the Tre Cime Peaks. My only regret about visiting the Dolomites. No snow had dropped yet so the ski resorts that line the mountains had not opened. But without a doubt, this mountain range and the surrounding valleys and agricultural land that lies against these wondrous peaks is the most scenic region of Italy. After returning late in the evening from our mountain adventure, the vacation was over. We took a water taxi directly to Venice International Airport and began our trip back to the States the following morning. Visiting southern Europe was a life changing experience for me. I hope to someday return and spend a longer amount of time diving deeper into the culture and history of the area. Until then…I hope you enjoyed my experiences. Thanks for reading. |
AuthorEXPERT OF SOME Archives
April 2025
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