Weight Loss / Appetite Reduction Protocol

 1. Don't have consistent weight loss goals in mind when you're eating or exercising. Vary the goal you have. Sometimes have a goal of, let’s say, “lose three pounds this week,” sometimes 0.5 pounds a week, sometimes 0.5 pounds a day, sometimes 0.1 pounds a day, sometimes have a goal of not losing weight at all, sometimes don’t have a goal. 

2. Do empty mind meditation, concentration exercises, and relaxation exercises for about 20 minutes a day on average. Don’t focus on doing a good job of them, being thorough, etc. Just go with pretty much the easiest, most seamless route. 

3. Do qigong / tai chi for an average of 15+ minutes a day, but go about the whole thing in a high variety way; don't make it the same from session to session, day to day, etc. Do different exercises, perform them at different speeds, do different repetition counts, different duration workouts, sometimes do the standard accompanying breathing with the exercises (i.e. inhale during a specific portion and exhale during a specific portion), sometimes don’t follow that strict breathing pattern. 

4.Aim for a balanced diet using not just conventional standards but also this one: Some foods (individual ingredients) are more balanced, some are more unbalanced. Unbalanced foods are ones that naturally have darker colors, strong flavors, or are concentrated fat sources. Unbalanced foods can balance out your overall diet when used correctly, but if you consume an unbalanced ingredient too often or in excessive quantities, that leads to imbalance. 

Books

I'm a very sophisticated man. I'm so sophisticated, that sometimes I open books and turn the pages. And every once in a while, I even read the pages. If a book says, "Joe ate a turkey sandwich," I read the words, "Joe ate a turkey sandwich. Or if a book says, "Joe ate a bologna sandwich," then I read the words, "Joe ate a bologna sandwich." Whatever the words say about Joe and his sandwich, that's what I read. Turkey sandwich, bologna sandwich--even a burrito. That's how I do things. I'm a book reader. I read books. Books like The Cat in the Hat. It's a magnificent tale of a cat. Spoiler alert: the cat wears a hat. You flip through 61 pages, and guess what? Even if you read all the words on those pages, you still never find out why the cat is wearing a hat. The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. 11 million copies sold. Don't forget to read the book's bestselling and even more ludicrous follow ups: The Goat in a Boat, The Ape in a Cape, The Whale in a Pail, and The Cheetah in a Fajita.

The Thousand Dollar Bill

The United States used to have a $1000 bill, and they got rid of it. They took that sucker out of circulation, in favor of relying on the hundred dollar bill. Hm. Interesting. I'm not an economics expert or anything like that, but isn't there, like, inflation and shit? Shouldn't you increase the max denomination instead of decreasing it? "No. The heck with that. We're the US government. We're expecting 137 consecutive years of deflation, which is why we need to get rid of thousand dollar bills." 

What if you want to buy something expensive and use cash? Do you really have to bring over a bunch of hundreds? Me personally, I wholeheartedly support higher denominations. Otherwise, you feel poor. Loading up your wallet with $100 bills--that ain't balla, you know what I'm saying? It's hard to really elevate your feeling of status if you have $100 bills. 

I think I'm going to load up my wallet with some foreign currency, as in some sort of unit, some denomination that's worth a shitload of money. You know what? There should just be a shitload of money bill. If you want to buy a Bentley, you tell the dealer, "Here you go. Here's a shitload of money bill. It has a picture of Elon Musk, Jeff Bezos, and Bill Gates wrestling each other. There you go. This is the type of bill that's hard to find, unlike them bitch ass hundred dollar bills, which I don't believe in, cuz I'm a straight up balla, you better recognize, you know what I'm saying, I'm not fucking around, I'm trying to buy some shit that's expensive, so, like, put some truffles in my Bentley, you know what I mean, just load up the trunk with truffles."

Going For It

Back when I was a car mechanic, one day I thought, "Today, I'm gonna shoot for the moon. I'm just gonna go for it!" Some guy came in and had an issue with his radiator. I told him, "Alright. I can fix your radiator. It'll take half an hour and cost $400,000." And he replied, "Well, that's too much. I'm gonna go to a mechanic who charges less." So, I didn't get the $400,000. But at least I went for it. I went for it in life. I had ambition. Moxie. Enthusiasm. 

Shooting for the moon. It's an important ingredient. You gotta go for it sometimes--and that's precisely what I did that day. I'm very satisfied with the fact that I shot for the moon. Although I suppose the specific way I went about the whole thing might not have been particularly great. There are different ways to go for it. My approach might have needed some sort of modification--for instance, I could've talked for a few minutes about radiators, and then followed that up with the whole thing about $400,000. So, my approach was a little bit off. Nevertheless, I really went for it, and I can really hang my hat on that fact.

Songs I Recorded in 2014

OneDrive folder containing songs I recorded in 2014:

https://1drv.ms/f/s!Aqx0o_4e7wjBoUndtUM-W_N8X8SP?e=mNPdi3

Songs I Recorded in 2019

 OneDrive - 19 

Mainstream Media?

If you call up the typical American lottery winner and ask him what he bought with his winnings, which of the following three answers are you most likely to hear?

A - "I bought a coffee shop--the one I always go to with Phoebe and Ross and Chandler and the rest of the gang."

B - "I've built myself a portfolio consisting of real estate, stocks, bonds, and fine art. I own two Renoirs and four Cezannes. I'm also planning to take a trip to Europe. I hear Croatia is quite breathtaking this time of year."

C - "I bought a white F150, and I also bought a grey Silverado, and a blue F150, and a red F150, and I bought a black F150 for my brother Billy, and a green Dodge Ram for my cousin Bobby, and a blue F150 for my grandma Billie Jean, and a grey F150 for my other grandma Bobbie Joe. I'm currently homeless--but I got a fleet of pickup trucks parked on Flatbush Avenue." 

The correct answer is C. The fact of the matter is, in 70% of America, the general public pretty much has a love affair with pickup trucks. Does the mainstream media educate you on such matters? Hardly. Instead, the mainstream media focuses on showing you sedans and compact cars and SUVs in Los Angeles and New York City. 

The mainstream media specializes in selective information and disinformation. They even promote the myth that New York City is in New York State. New York City is in New York State? I beg to differ. New York City is in Puerto Rico State. I know. One time I went to New York City, I approached 100 random men there, and I asked each one the following question: "Is your name Luis Rivera?" The survey said, 4 out of every 100 New York males are Luis Rivera. I went through the city records, and it confirmed my findings. A plethora of Luis Riveras. There are also 8,873 women in New York with the name Jennifer Lopez. In any given month in New York, you can find a wedding where a man named Luis Rivera is marrying a woman named Jennifer Lopez. 

Meanwhile, the show Friends is set in New York--and yet, if you go through all 236 episodes with a fine comb, there's no Rivera-Lopez wedding of any kind to be found, and furthermore, all 236 episodes contain a grand total of one Puerto Rican person: he makes his sole appearance in Season 10, Episode 3 and has a delightful exchange with Ross, which involves Ross assuming that the man has a spray on tan, and the man correcting him by saying that his tan does not come from spray, but rather, from his Puerto Ricananness. I am not making that up. 

The point is, don't rely on the media to educate you on what the world is like. I've never been to Mexico, but I'll bet that it's vastly different from the Mexico presented to us by the media--especially if you visit the real parts of the country, as opposed to the touristy spots. If you go to an authentic Mexican restaurant in authentic Mexico, here's what will probably happen. As soon as you order a "taco," the waiter will say, "Taco? What the hell is a taco? Oh, you mean that fake Mexican food created by Americans. In Mexico, we don't eat tacos and burritos or salsa and guacamole. We eat real Mexican food. It's made of six ingredients total: nanche, pitaya, jicama, mangoes, pig intestines, and Chicklets. It's a good thing pigs have intestines. Otherwise, the average Mexican diet would be very deficient in selenium and magnesium." 

The point is, if you want to know what America and Mexico are like, don't bother watching Friends and a bunch of Taco Bell commercials. You need to go through a 100 step procedure. I'm not entirely sure what steps 9 through 100 are, but I can give you steps 1 through 8 right now: 1 - buy an F150, 2 - drive the F150 to Mexico, 3 - eat the intestines of a pig, 4 - drive to New York, 5 - attend a Rivera-Lopez wedding, 6 - purchase the complete series of Friends on DVD, 7 - open a trash can, 8 - throw the DVDs in the trash can.

Kant

Immanuel Kant wrote Critique of Pure Reason. Here's one thing I can say for sure about that book: it's way more intellectually demanding than Kim Kardashian's Critique of Duck Face Selfies. Kant has a style of communication that is not very Kardshianesque. If you read all of Kant's books, you'll end up with two primary conclusions. (1) "I'm not sure what Kant said." And (2) "I am sure Kant spent 9324 pages saying whatever he said." Kant wrote a dozen confusing 700 page books instead of writing one understandable 63 page book in which he makes statements like, "...And, to make a long story short, my moral philosophy is that people shouldn't act like buttheads. Okay. And now let me talk about how you can't know the thing-in-itself. This is gonna take about 15 sentences, and it's gonna be very easy to understand." 

Kant's writing style is not that easy to understand. That being said, I would highly recommend reading Kant's 9324 pages and mastering the fine points of his philosophy. If you do, you'll be able to integrate it all into most of your day-to-day activities. 

Here's a fantastic example. Suppose you're ordering breakfast at IHOP. There's a Kantian way to do it, and there's a non-Kantian way to do it. Let me describe the Kantian way. Tell your waiter the following: "The manifold content of the meal can be given ostentatiously in an early consumptionary period which is merely palatal and copasetic--in other words, it delivers an abundance of qualities that, conjunctionally speaking, categorically makes pretences towards being rooty and tooty; and the form of this can exist a priori in the faculty of the batter, without being anything else but the mode in which the pancakes are stacked perpendicular to the handkerchief. This meal cannot therefore be contained in the pure form of the fresh and fruity sensuous intuition, for it is a multi angular, omni group juxtaposition of starch and sugar dominant sustenance materials, with the wheat based (as qualitative) complex carbohydrates and the general appellation of maple syrup, originated by the maple tree itself, in an act (homo homini lupus) of purely spontaneous syrup generation, modulating the salivary reaction of the man seated at table 23 (tabula rasa). But the conception of conjunction includes, besides the conception of breakfast sine qua non, ameliorates the 'I think, therefore I am,' but quagulates the 'I eat huevos rancheros, therefore I pass gas in Spanish.' The language of the flatulence has no pertinence to the nationality of the breakfast order, distinguishing it from empirical notions of allegorical sophistry, which relates to the use of Frosted Flakes as part of a balanced but wholly intuitive breakfast. A tiger, when not in a cereal commercial, is neither verbally expressive nor non-carnivorous. This breakfast, then, is, given a state of credo quia absurdum, and, having been attended to the consumptionary qualities of the person in question, will elucidate the manifold synthesis of the foundation anteceding the antecedent if approbated by the Corn Flakes rooster." 

At that point, after the waiter stares at you for a few seconds, tell him, "Don't you get what I'm saying? It should be obvious to any intelligent and educated person that I'm ordering two slices of French toast and three scrambled eggs."

My General, In-a-Nutshell Opinion Regarding People's Political Discussions and Disagreements

In the US, when people (i.e. the general public consisting primarily of the left and the right) engage in political discussions and they end up disagreeing, this can be good in the sense that when both sides have their say, this tends to result in the nation settling on a sensible, moderate, middle ground. But on the other hand, for most people, when the topic of politics comes up, it can easily bring out some of their worst qualities, whereas another topic can eaily bring out someone's best qualities. Also, sometimes I wish people would take the passion and intensity they bring to political discussions and affiliations, and direct that passion and intensity towards something else entirely.

How an Airplane Flies (Thrust & Lift?)

I really want to write an article about how airplanes fly. The thing is, I don't know how airplanes fly. Can someone please explain it to me? But don't give me one of those explanations where I have to think so I can understand what you're saying. Just tell it to me in a way that'll make it all go directly into my head, without me adding thought. I mean, if you’re an educator, it's your job to think when you explain something, so that I won't have to think when I learn something. I mean, I'm willing to do my half of the work, by blinking and staying conscious. But that's basically where I draw the line. Also, I don't want to blink and stay conscious for too long. So if you're teaching me something, don't give me a two hour explanation. Just get it all in there in four or five sentences.

One time I Googled "how does an airplane fly," and I read the beginning of some article that supposedly explains it all. It starts off by saying, "Flight requires two things: Thrust and lift. Thrust is the forward motion provided by a propeller or jet engine." I emailed the guy who wrote that article, and I told him, "What the hell are you talking about? I want to know how a gigantic hunk of metal with wings flies up in the air and goes 300 miles an hour--and for some reason, you're saying some horsecrap about thrust and lift. If I wanted to read about thrust and lift, I would've Googled the words thrust and lift."

Then I went to UCLA. I walked into a science teacher’s office and asked him, "How does an airplane fly?" He said, "Well, first things first--there's thrust and lift." And I told him, "English! Do you speak it? How does an airplane fly?" "Well, it's the thrust..." "Thrust ain't no country I ever heard of! Do they speak English in thrust?!" "I can't explain flight to you unless I say thrust." "Say thrust again! I dare you! I double dare you!"

So to make a long story short, I don't know how a plane flies.

Proverbs

While the sun is shining, bask in it! - Malawi Proverb 

No matter how big the whale is, a tiny harpoon can kill him. - Malaysian Proverb 

If the rabbit is your enemy, admit he can sprint fast. - Mali Proverb

He who lingers around will hear bad things spoken about him. - Mexican Proverb 

If you want to live in peace, you mustn’t tell everything you know, or judge everything you see. - Mexican Proverb 

If you don’t honor your wife, you are dishonoring yourself. - Mexican Proverb 

Sparrows who mimic peacocks are likely to break a thigh. - Myanmar / Burmese Proverb 

The zebra told the white horse, “I am white,” and told the black horse, “I am actually black.” - Namibian Proverb 

Even a small mouse has anger. - Native American Proverb 

Being happy in one’s home is better than being a chief. - Nigerian Proverb 

Until lions have their own historians, accounts of the hunt will always celebrate the hunter. - Nigerian Proverb 

Mulla Nasrudin Jokes

The Conqueror's Challenge

The town's new conqueror said to Nasrudin one day, "Hey Mulla, I have a challenge for you. Offend me in a way that your explanation will be a thousand times worse than the original offense."

The next day, Nasrudin came to the palace and kissed the conqueror right on the lips.

"What was that!" exclaimed the conqueror with great surprise.

"Oh," Nasrudin replied, "excuse me. I got you confused with your wife."

Cursing Fine

After tripping on a rock while walking, Nasrudin angrily yelled out, "Son of a butter-biscuit!"

Unfortunately, a man who happened to be standing nearby thought the comment was directed towards him, and was so offended that he took Nasrudin to court, much to Nasrudin's annoyance.

When the judge heard the case, he ruled that Nasrudin should pay the man five dollars.

Nasrudin then handed the judge a ten dollar bill, and as the judge searched for change, Nasrudin asked, "So I take it the fine for cursing at someone is five dollars, right?"

"Right."

"OK then--keep the change you son of a butter-biscuit."

Nasrudin the Liar and Exaggerator

Mayor: "Nasrudin. You are known to be a liar and exaggerator. Tell me a lie without thinking, and I will reward you with fifty dollars."

Nasrudin: "Fifty dollars? You just promised me a hundred dollars!"

Nasrudin the Proud Parent

Nasrudin and a friend were watching Nasrudin's children.

The friend asked Nasrudin's young son, "What is a dilettante?"

The son replied, "That is an herb used for seasoning."

A delighted Nasrudin turned to his friend and said, "Did you hear that? What a fine boy I have. Just like his father. He made up an answer all by himself!"

The Town Gossip

The Town Gossip: "Nasrudin. I just saw some men delivering a huge tub of stew."

Nasrudin: "What's it to me?"

The Town Gossip: "They were taking it to your house."

Nasrudin: "What's it to you?"

Nasrudin and Friend Prepare a Meal

Mulla Nasrudin - The Guarantee

The Missed Appointment

A philosopher made an appointment with Nasrudin to have a scholarly discussion. When the day came, the philosopher dropped by Nasrudin's house as planned. However, Nasrudin wasn't home. The philosopher angrily took his pencil out of his pocket, wrote "Jerk" on Nasrudin's door, and then left.

Nasrudin finally came home later and saw this. He quickly realized that he had missed his appointment, and he darted off to the philosopher's house.

"Forgive my error," Nasrudin told the philosopher when he got there. "I totally forgot about our appointment today. But when I got home and saw that you had written your nickname on my door, I came here as fast as I could."

A Great Home?

Nasrudin was inspecting a house he wanted to buy. The home's next-door neighbor noticed, walked over, and began telling him how great of a house it was.

When he finished talking, Nasrudin remarked, "Well, what you're saying might be true, but there is one drawback to living here that you neglected to tell me about."

"What's that?"

"A nosy neighbor!"

Mulla Nasrudin - Bravo

More Mulla Nasrudin Jokes

Proverbs & Quotes (Unknown Sources)

A friend is a person with whom you dare to be yourself

I will be your friend, but not your vice's friend.

A friend that you buy with presents will be bought from you.

He will never get to Heaven, that desires to go there alone.

Friendship and company are a bad excuse for ill actions.

Argument seldom convinces anyone contrary to his inclinations.

Men work but slowly, that have poor wages.

For one rich man that is content there are a hundred who are not.

A man may be happy here and hereafter without much fame or wealth.

Against the wild-fire of the mob there’s no defense.

Do as others do, and few will mock you.

Do as most do, and men will speak well of you.

A wicked man is his own hell; and his passions and lusts the fiends that torment him.

He that resists his own evil inclinations obeys God.

Do all you can to be good, and you'll be so.

Good deeds remain; all things else perish.

The true gentleman is God’s servant, the world’s master, and his own man.

The true measure of a man is how he treats someone who can do him absolutely no good.

He that lives a knave will hardly die an honest man.

Heaven is a cheap purchase, whatever it cost.

Man had perished long ago, had it not been for public spirited persons.

Money talks—mostly lies.

A nation reveals itself not only by the men it produces but also by the men it honors, the men it remembers.

Thirty is the turning point in a man's life.

You gain power over another person by winning his heart or by breaking his spirit.

The gods delight to see a man struggling to succeed.

It is easier to prevent ill habits than to break them.

A fair booty makes many a thief.

Adversity oftentimes leads to prosperity.

Anger is short-lived in a good man.

Even doubtful accusations leave a stain behind them.

Bad excuses are worse than none.

Better go back than lose yourself.

Best dealing with an enemy when you take him at his weakest.

Everyone thinks himself able to advise another.

He is not a virtuous man, that loves it not even in an enemy.

Truth may sometimes come out of the Devil's mouth.

Every fool can find faults that a great many wise men can’t remedy.

Fear can keep a man out of danger, but courage only can support him in it.

Everything has its time, and that time must be watched.

He invites future injuries, who rewards past ones.

Flattery fits in the parlor when plain dealing is kicked out of doors.

He is no wise man, that cannot play the fool upon occasion.

He shall have enough to do, who studies to please fools.

He that falls today may be up again tomorrow.

He that follows Nature is never out of his way.

He that will not sail till all dangers are over must never put to sea.

Everyone’s faults are not written in their foreheads.

He that would right understand a man must read his whole story.

At the end of the work, you may judge of the workman.

Our pity is often misapplied; for none can tell what another feels.

The maintaining of one vice costs more than ten virtues.

If we are bound to forgive an enemy, we are not bound to trust him.

If we be enemies to ourselves, whither shall we fly?

Kings have no power over souls.

Natural folly is bad enough; but learned folly is intolerable.

No man can always stand his ground.

One cannot live by selling goods for words.

One may be confuted, and yet not convinced.

Solitude dulls the thought, too much company dissipates it.

Some men's No is better received than others Yea.

The greatest barkers are not the greatest biters.

The nature of things will not be altered by our fancies of them.

They love dancing well, that dance barefoot upon thorns.

This, or any moment, may be your last.

Math

Math is way more interesting than people give it credit for. The other day. I was doing math. And here's something I calculated.

For $800,000 a year, you can hire ten people to squeeze ketchup on their heads all day, every day. Just place an ad on Craigslist or wherever, and let people know that you’ll pay them to do the ketchup thing. Plenty of people will take you up on that offer. They'll follow you wherever you go, and take a continuous tomato shower. You can do that with ten people for just $800,000 a year--and yes, the price of the ketchup is included in that figure.

Jeff Bezos, Bill Gates, and Warren Buffet are each worth over $80 billion. That means they can afford to do the ketchup thing with over a million people. As in, go to Cowboys stadium, and look at the 100,000 people there. Bill Gates can do the ketchup thing with every single person there, times ten! I don’t think he’s gonna do it, though. As for me, I'm trying to save up enough money to do that. Tomorrow, I’m gonna call up my accountant and say, "Keep a close eye on my net worth. Once it hits $80 billion, we'll proceed with Operation Ketchup."

Unanimous Agreement

Some people are adamant in their stance that corporations should be taxed at a low rate. Others favor higher corporate taxes. Some people think soccer is a fantastic sport. Others feel like it lacks excitement.

People have different views on numerous matters. But if there’s one thing we can all agree on, it’s this: Japanese snack food commercials make no sense whatsoever. They are completely insane and remarkably entertaining. Go to YouTube and watch some Japanese snack food commercials. I’ve seen thousands of them. Including the dandy ones that feature American movie stars. Here’s the typical ad like that. Arnold Schwarzenegger is tap dancing on a flying carpet and he’s speaking Japanese and putting a chopstick in his ear while Aladdin is playing traditional Japanese music on a banjo. And Arnold’s objective in doing this is to encourage people to eat a sweet, sour, and spicy seaweed based snack food known as konsumeh arigati. And do you know who else wants people to eat plenty of konsomeh arigti? A pigeon in a samurai outfit who’s proposing marriage to Sacagawea. Watch the commercials. This is what goes on in the great nation of Japan. You got all these food companies competing to sell their snack food to the Japanese general public--and apparently, the key to victory is bombard the TV viewer with bountiful quantities of extreme ludicrosity.

Family

If you just sit around and observe your family members, you can easily build an argument that all of them are nutcases. I’m not saying they are nutcases. But there are certain things they do that clearly point in that direction.

So, let’s say you live at home with your mother, father, brother, and sister. You observe them, and you think, “Look at that dad character. He’s been arguing all day with Verizon over a $5 fee. He’s the same guy who makes $130 an hour working as an anger management therapist—but he’s more than willing to spend his free time waging a three hour war over $5 in phone charges. And for some reason, his argument keeps on mentioning Alexander Graham Bell and Watson holding two paper cups and a string. That’s my father. And then there’s that mom person. She’s making way too much potato salad. She has two jars of Hellman’s out and active, and she’s in the process of making several gallons of this food known as potato salad. I guess she’s doing that just in case an impromptu 50 person picnic breaks out in our backyard, and every person is armed with a massive craving for potatoes and mayonnaise. That’s how my mother does things. And then there’s my brother—the guy who’s developed a slight Cuban accent, because he watches the movie Scarface three times a day. He works at TJ Maxx, but he acts like he deals in yayo. And then there’s my sister. She’s got about 500 different creams in the bathroom, spanning every brand and every category of product there is. Aveeno, Elta MD, Erno Laszlo, Pure Biology, NYX, Neutrogena; controlling lotion, skin supplement sleep mask, marble treatment repair balm, exfoliating skin serum cleansing oil, detoxifying monopolizing foaming moisturizer, antioxidizing hypothesizing non-foaming remoisturizer. How could one woman possibly require that much maintenance? The Empire State Building doesn’t need that much maintenance.”

In your day-today life, you learn about your parents and siblings. And then you got your other relatives. You learn about them mainly on one day every year. The learning opportunities are very abundant on that day. There’s a deluxe cornucopia of learning opportunities. The opportunities for learning about your family are fantastically cornocopiant on the fourth Thursday of November, a.k.a. Thanksgiving.  You really pick up a lot of good info about your family on that day. Because of three elements. 1—alcohol, 2—tryptophan, and 3—Thanksgivingholidayness. People drink the first element, they eat the second one, and they inhale the third one. Those three elements combine to really alter people’s state of consciousness, thereby generating absurdly low levels of viscosity, and amazingly high levels of looseness and unfilteration.

Do you want to know what Uncle Bernie thinks of Uncle Stu? Just go ahead and ask him on Thanksgiving. Just say, “Uncle Bernie. I want to know your opinion of Uncle Stu.” And then Uncle Bernie will reply, “Let me tell you something about that jackscallion rat bastard you call Uncle Stu. Every time I get divorced, this Uncle Stu character immediately tries to sleep with my new ex-wife.” 

Those are some of the illuminating and emphatic statements delivered to you by Uncle Bernie on Thanksgiving. Then an hour later, another person with low viscosity starts discussing a different theme with you. I mean, you’re having a fairly casual and benign conversation with your second cousin’s husband—some guy you hardly even know—and just out of nowhere, he starts telling you his detailed plan of how...


The rest of this article can be found in the book What I Think of Various Places and People by Rodney Ohebsion 

Do You Consider Yourself a Hero

Disneyland

Don't go to Disneyland on a summer weekend. If you do, you know what you'll see? A lot of people. Now, don’t get me wrong. I like people. As long as there’s an appropriate number of people for a particular thing. Disneyland is this thing where the appropriate number of people is 5,000, and the actual number of people is 100,000. That’s Disneyland on a summer weekend. The park is filled with way too many people. And most of them are in lines. It's just a bunch of people in a bunch of lines. And right when someone gets to the front of one line, he’s in the back of another line. Yeah. That's the scam Disneyland has going. There are no rides in between the lines. There’s no room for any rides, when 100,000 people are in the park.

If you’re one of 100,000 people in Disneyland, don’t get in the lines. Just spend the entire day hanging out with Donald Duck. Focus on Donald. Take some pictures with the guy, discuss politics with him, ask him for relationship advice. This is the ideal strategy for Disneyland when it’s got more than 5,000 people.

I went to Disneyland five years ago on a Saturday in July. Like a complete moron, I stood in a line holding my six dollar churro and eight dollar cotton candy. I waited in seven or eight back-to-back lines--and the last one took me out of Disneyland and to the Taco Bell across the street. They were like, "Welcome to Taco Bell. May I take your order?" And I said, "I want to ride the spinning teacups."

The point is, Disneyland should have a max capacity of 5,000 people. And no lines. They should replace all of their lines with waiting rooms. I’m not too into this whole line system. Lines are these things where you just stare at the back of some guy's head for an extended period of time. But waiting rooms are great. We need them at Disneyland. You go in one and say, "I have an appointment to ride Space Mountain." And they tell you, "OK. It'll be about 45 minutes." You sit down next to some other people, with a bunch of reading material on the table--most notably, People and US Weekly. You read a few issues, and you learn a lot about someone in the Kardashian family. And then you hear your name. "Albert Johnson. You're up. Space Mountain."

What a fantastic system. I should be running things at Disneyland, instead of Mickey Mouse. Mickey is the head honcho right now--and this mouse is out of control. He’s charging $100 a ticket! You know how much it would cost the Brady Bunch to go to Disneyland these days? $800. And that’s without Alice. If you want to bring Alice, that’s another $100. And knowing Mickey, he might charge Alice double. Just because he feels like it. That’s how Mickey does things. He’ll charge the nine person Brady Bunch $1,000 to enter DIsneyland.

And what about the musical group Kool & The Gang. You know how many members they have? If they want to go to Disneyland, that’ll run them 43 grand.

I’m telling you--no one from the 70s can afford to go to Disneyland. Not the Brady Bunch, not Kool & the Gang. Not even Sanford & Son. I know it’s just the two of them, Fred and Lamont Sanford--but we’re talking about two junkmen who live in Watts. They cannot afford $200 for one day’s worth of entertainment. If Fred wants to be entertained, he’ll have to go to the local pool hall and hang out with Bubba, Leroy, and Skillet. And as for Lamont, he’ll have to head over to Julio’s and hang out with his goat Chico.

Basically what I’m trying to say is, if you have no idea what I’ve been talking about over the last three paragraphs, maybe you need to go learn a few things about the years 1970 to 1979. You obviously don’t know a damn thing about the 70s.

President Trump and Food Fights

I’m a politically informed person. I know what’s going on politically. And here’s how I do it. I get 1% of my political news from TV, the radio, and the internet. And I get 99% of my political news by just listening to people. That's the key source. Actual people. Here’s how it works. One person tells me something like, "This guy, Donald Trump, this dictator, this racist warmonger, this non-recycler of bottles, did you hear what this fascist tyrant had the nerve to say yesterday?" Then a few hours later, someone else tells me, "President Trump, wow, he really loves his country, this man, this hardworking patriot, this relentless deporter of illegal immigrants, this economic genius, did you hear the brilliant thing he said yesterday?"

There it is.  News from people. Two different people relay information about what Donald Trump said yesterday. And then what I do is, I take the first person, and I take the second person, and I put them together in one room, and I have them fight for my entertainment. It’s great. It’s way better than those Floyd Mayweather fights that cost a hundred dollars on pay-per-view.

I seriously do try to get Trump haters together in the same room with Trump lovers. I’m not making this up. I’m constantly inviting those people over for dinner. I get three pro Trump people and three anti Trump people. And then at dinner, do you know what topic I bring up? Trump. I don’t even segue into it. I just bring it up out of nowhere. Some guy’s is like, “Can you pass the potatoes?” And then I tell him, “President Trump! What do you think of him?!” At that point, I kind of want to tell everyone, “Ladies and gentlemen. Live, in my apartment. Let’s get ready to rumble!”

I’m always hoping the Trump discussion will lead to a food fight. That’s why I serve potatoes instead of mashed potatoes. I want people to throw the potatoes at each other. Mashed potatoes are good for a food fight in a sitcom, like when you’re watching The Jeffersons, and George throws mashed potatoes at that honky Tom Willis. That’s great. But when I try to start a Trump themed food fight in my dining room, I want people throwing whole potatoes. Because this is the type of food fight where you want maximum violence.

So I serve potatoes and I bring up Trump. And you know who I don’t bring up? Lincoln. Because people have this tendency to agree when it comes to Lincoln. Have you noticed this? It’s hard to make people fight over Lincoln. Let me put it this way. If one guy says, “I like how Lincoln freed the slaves,” the other guy probably isn’t gonna reply, “He shouldn’t have freed any slaves! These damn abolitionists! They hate the Constitution!”

No one ever says that. So, the moral of the story is, if you want to have harmony at the dinner table, mention Lincoln. If you want have potatoes flying everywhere at the dinner table, mention Trump.

The time I met Tom Cruise

Most people are very star struck when they see a celebrity in person. I'm really like that. The other day, I was eating lunch at McDonald's, and Tom Cruise sat down at the table next to me. He started eating his Big Mac, and I continued eating my two Happy Meals. I get two, since I'm an adult, which means I need more food and more toys. So like I was saying, Tom and I were eating lunch at adjacent tables. And at one point, he started making this really annoying slurping noise while he was drinking his Diet Coke. So then I looked at him and said, "Wow. You're Tom Cruise" And then I got up, I grabbed his drink, and I threw it across the restaurant. And I said, "Next time don't slurp your beverage, butthead!" Yeah. I was very star struck. Ordinarily, when someone slurps a drink right next to me, I immediately punch that person right in the face. But with celebrities, I feel like being way more polite--like I'm talking to the King of England.