Gunner Alan Lindbloom's Blog: Once Upon A Gangster
January 24, 2018
The Death of The American Alpha Male
Okay, this is a subject that has been on my mind for quite some time. And it has to do with all of us, our kids, our future leaders, how we are seen on the world stage, and so much more.
But before I get into the current pussification of our youth, I'd like to talk a little about my own youth, particularly the culture I grew up in. I imagine most men and women ages of 35-and-up will relate to what I'm about to say, at least to some degree, depending on where you grew up. I am personally about to turn 45 years-old, and when I was growing up, boys were boys. There was no such things as gay boys and girls. Parents weren't teaching their kids how to be gay, or that it is okay to want to act and dress like a girl if you're a boy. Boys were boys and girls were girls. Boys played sports and played rough with each other, establishing their alpha pecking order. Girls played with dolls, or did their makeup, or sprinkled glitter... Okay, I have NO idea what young girls did, but there was a certain social norm. I remember being outside all day long, playing from sun up till sun down. Baseball in the morning, basketball in the afternoon, maybe some tackle football before dinner. Girls... aw, forget it, I'm 45 and still don't know what girls do. But I CAN talk about boys. We roughhoused, we wrestled, we fished, we played sports, we built forts, we climbed tress, we swam in the lake, and we got in fights when we disagreed with each other. We were physical, and I can proudly say I was usually the most physical of all my friends. The only kids who could beat me up were three grades ahead of me and a foot taller. I loved to fight, and I had a temper like an angry bull. I was the personification of a testosterone-fueled alpha male. Think I'm joking? I was suspended three times in kindergarten for fighting. True story.
When I reached my teens and entered high school, I quickly realized I was no longer the big dog, the alpha. There were bigger kids, older kids who were much tougher than me. I had to settle into a subservient role, one I was not comfortable with. Consequently, got kicked out of school after only 9 weeks, for fighting and generally being a jackass. Since all my friends were now playing organized sports in high school, I was unable to really continue playing sports. Which sucked because I was always a really good athlete.
I ended up getting into lifting weights, mainly because I wanted girls to like me. YES! Back then girls liked guys who were buff and bold and brutish. Can you believe it??? Imagine that! What really inspired me was a neighborhood tough guy by the name of Gino Bianchette. Even though he was kind of a dick who threw his weight around, he was a handsome guy with big muscles, and all the girls fawned over him. Now, there were other handsome guys around, but the girls loved Gino for three reasons: (A) He was musclebound, (B) he liked to fight, and (C) he was musclebound. He was a typical alpha. I wanted to be like him, and through a strange series of events, which included me almost shooting him, we became friends and I started working out with him, hanging with him and his pack of alpha males. Soon I gained some muscle and edged my way up the pack hierarchy, mostly by fighting and proving I could kick asses. Girls who once looked through me like I was invisible, were suddenly flirting with me, feeling on my muscles, slipping me their number, whispering in my ear how they wanted me to meet them at their house after the party. And they would do it while my girlfriend was standing ten feet away, looking in the other direction. Oh, it was good to be an alpha male back then.
Eventually, by the time I was 19, I was co-pack leader with Gino, as we were the two toughest in our crew. All my boys were alpha males in their own right, tough guys who loved to fight and brawl, guys who lifted weights by day and chased girls by night, but there was a pecking order for sure. And me and Gino stood firmly atop it.
Now I am not saying that every male back then was an alpha male. Of course there were lesser "packs," so to speak, and even the nerds, but they all wanted to BE an alpha male. Guys from the lesser packs wanted to be part of our pack, our crew, because we were the true alpha males in the neighborhood. That's just how it was. When we walked into a party, all attention was on us. All the girls wanted handsome, musclebound guy to call their own, someone who looked tough and WAS tough, someone who would fight for them, a guy who looked like he could protect them. This is NOT the case today. My, times have changed!
I spent last week down in the Detroit area. While we were in one particular restaurant having dinner, I glanced around and took in all the young males. Most were clad in ridiculous skinny jeans, showcasing their sickly frail legs. Most were skinny, pale, and had bad skin. Almost all of them were staring down at their phones, narrow shoulders slouched, as they ate their food or talked to their girlfriend or the other scrawny guys with them. At one point I looked over and saw two SUPER effeminate gay guys sitting across from each other. One was wearing a pink button-up and he had a perpetually scared look on his face, as if the air around him was simply terrifying. My ears tuned to their conversation and it sounded like two women talking. They were just bantering back and forth, gossiping like two teenage girls. I was waiting for one of them to pull out his purse and apply some makeup. When I went to use the restroom, I was lost because I came to two doors that said "Gender Neutral." WTF? So I can be standing there at the urinal, draining the main vein, and an old lady or young girl can just walk in? LOL As if their age matters. Every single day, more and more I think to myself, "Yo what and the hell happened to this world while I was in prison???"
Today, young boys don't want to go outside and play sports, or go fishing, or ride their bikes. No, they can play video game sports right on their Xbox or PSwhatever. Fishing? Bike riding? Oh, I'm sure there is a game for that too. I see these little kids with their mothers at stores. Pale, grey-eyed little zombies who eat processed garbage and play video games all day. If they go outside in the sun, they might wither and die like a vampire. I saw one kid who had to be at least ten bump his arm on the corner of a shelf at the grocery store. He literally bust into a fit of crying, as if he had just broken a bone. I was like "Really, kid? I fell out of a tree from 20 feet up when I was your age. Bruised my body from head to toe. Had a two inch gash on my head that was leaking like a sieve. I literally stood up and started laughing. Then I walked a half mile home, where my dad stitched up the gash with no anesthetic because his cheap ass didn't want to pay the doctor bill."
I think a lot of it has to do with two major factors: First, bad parenting. Parents, listen to me, take away their phones and devices. Encourage them to get outside and engage the REAL world. It will make all the difference when they grow up. Second, nutrition. Poor nutrition results in low hormone levels, which results in, well, the development of a pansy. Feed the kid some meat, some real fish, some chicken. Get rid of the chips and sugary cereals, the instant dinners and canned whatever. Have protein bars laying around instead of candy bars. Teach them to look up to people like football and basketball players, not professional gamers and gay talk show hosts. Encourage them to play real sports and exercise. Take them fishing. For the love of God, take them fishing!!!! I promise it will make them have a better future.
There is nothing wrong with being an alpha male, even if this new era of pampered millennials like to project that it is. They liken being an alpha to being a sexist and male chauvinist. They are intimidated by a masculine man. This new culture seems to want everyone to be equal--men, woman, transwhatever. No, we will never be equal. There will always be alpha males, and they will always have an edge over the weaklings, the scrawny mush-brained zombies with weak jaws, narrow shoulders, and twig legs. I'm coming to realize that in this new world the alpha male is a dying breed. And I am a relic, a dinosaur left over from a bygone era, when packs of alphasaurs rex ruled the land and ate the weak, because it was the Darwinian way. So much has changed. Everything is so different. Up is down, right is left. But I am a time traveler. I went in one world and came out into this one 13 years later. "The Land of Confusion." <--My homage to Phil Collins and Genesis.
But alas, all is not lost. I may be aging but I am still an alpha male. I can bench press almost 400 lbs and deadlift almost 600. I can whup any 5 skinny-jean-wearing millennials, and destroy them at their sport of choice. I can out fish them, out hike them, out bike them, out whatever them. And from time to time I will see another alpha. In a store, at a gas station, in the gym. Wherever. Our eyes will lock and we size each other up, as two alpha lions might do as they pass each other in the jungle. Sometimes we might offer a nod, a sad acknowledgement that we may be the last of our kind. When we are gone, there will be no more. The only thing left will be skinny jeans and dead-eyed phone zombies who subside off of soda and fast food.
That is, unless we start right now teaching our boys, from a young age, that it is okay to be a tough, rough-housing, fighting, ass kicking male who eats the weak and smashes everything in his path till he stands at the top of the heap. Not all will get there, but it is the fight that counts. It will teach them character and ready them for the cold hard realities of the real world, where there are no participation trophies, and the toughest, smartest, and baddest badasses are the ones who will win the game of life. The alpha males.
But before I get into the current pussification of our youth, I'd like to talk a little about my own youth, particularly the culture I grew up in. I imagine most men and women ages of 35-and-up will relate to what I'm about to say, at least to some degree, depending on where you grew up. I am personally about to turn 45 years-old, and when I was growing up, boys were boys. There was no such things as gay boys and girls. Parents weren't teaching their kids how to be gay, or that it is okay to want to act and dress like a girl if you're a boy. Boys were boys and girls were girls. Boys played sports and played rough with each other, establishing their alpha pecking order. Girls played with dolls, or did their makeup, or sprinkled glitter... Okay, I have NO idea what young girls did, but there was a certain social norm. I remember being outside all day long, playing from sun up till sun down. Baseball in the morning, basketball in the afternoon, maybe some tackle football before dinner. Girls... aw, forget it, I'm 45 and still don't know what girls do. But I CAN talk about boys. We roughhoused, we wrestled, we fished, we played sports, we built forts, we climbed tress, we swam in the lake, and we got in fights when we disagreed with each other. We were physical, and I can proudly say I was usually the most physical of all my friends. The only kids who could beat me up were three grades ahead of me and a foot taller. I loved to fight, and I had a temper like an angry bull. I was the personification of a testosterone-fueled alpha male. Think I'm joking? I was suspended three times in kindergarten for fighting. True story.
When I reached my teens and entered high school, I quickly realized I was no longer the big dog, the alpha. There were bigger kids, older kids who were much tougher than me. I had to settle into a subservient role, one I was not comfortable with. Consequently, got kicked out of school after only 9 weeks, for fighting and generally being a jackass. Since all my friends were now playing organized sports in high school, I was unable to really continue playing sports. Which sucked because I was always a really good athlete.
I ended up getting into lifting weights, mainly because I wanted girls to like me. YES! Back then girls liked guys who were buff and bold and brutish. Can you believe it??? Imagine that! What really inspired me was a neighborhood tough guy by the name of Gino Bianchette. Even though he was kind of a dick who threw his weight around, he was a handsome guy with big muscles, and all the girls fawned over him. Now, there were other handsome guys around, but the girls loved Gino for three reasons: (A) He was musclebound, (B) he liked to fight, and (C) he was musclebound. He was a typical alpha. I wanted to be like him, and through a strange series of events, which included me almost shooting him, we became friends and I started working out with him, hanging with him and his pack of alpha males. Soon I gained some muscle and edged my way up the pack hierarchy, mostly by fighting and proving I could kick asses. Girls who once looked through me like I was invisible, were suddenly flirting with me, feeling on my muscles, slipping me their number, whispering in my ear how they wanted me to meet them at their house after the party. And they would do it while my girlfriend was standing ten feet away, looking in the other direction. Oh, it was good to be an alpha male back then.
Eventually, by the time I was 19, I was co-pack leader with Gino, as we were the two toughest in our crew. All my boys were alpha males in their own right, tough guys who loved to fight and brawl, guys who lifted weights by day and chased girls by night, but there was a pecking order for sure. And me and Gino stood firmly atop it.
Now I am not saying that every male back then was an alpha male. Of course there were lesser "packs," so to speak, and even the nerds, but they all wanted to BE an alpha male. Guys from the lesser packs wanted to be part of our pack, our crew, because we were the true alpha males in the neighborhood. That's just how it was. When we walked into a party, all attention was on us. All the girls wanted handsome, musclebound guy to call their own, someone who looked tough and WAS tough, someone who would fight for them, a guy who looked like he could protect them. This is NOT the case today. My, times have changed!
I spent last week down in the Detroit area. While we were in one particular restaurant having dinner, I glanced around and took in all the young males. Most were clad in ridiculous skinny jeans, showcasing their sickly frail legs. Most were skinny, pale, and had bad skin. Almost all of them were staring down at their phones, narrow shoulders slouched, as they ate their food or talked to their girlfriend or the other scrawny guys with them. At one point I looked over and saw two SUPER effeminate gay guys sitting across from each other. One was wearing a pink button-up and he had a perpetually scared look on his face, as if the air around him was simply terrifying. My ears tuned to their conversation and it sounded like two women talking. They were just bantering back and forth, gossiping like two teenage girls. I was waiting for one of them to pull out his purse and apply some makeup. When I went to use the restroom, I was lost because I came to two doors that said "Gender Neutral." WTF? So I can be standing there at the urinal, draining the main vein, and an old lady or young girl can just walk in? LOL As if their age matters. Every single day, more and more I think to myself, "Yo what and the hell happened to this world while I was in prison???"
Today, young boys don't want to go outside and play sports, or go fishing, or ride their bikes. No, they can play video game sports right on their Xbox or PSwhatever. Fishing? Bike riding? Oh, I'm sure there is a game for that too. I see these little kids with their mothers at stores. Pale, grey-eyed little zombies who eat processed garbage and play video games all day. If they go outside in the sun, they might wither and die like a vampire. I saw one kid who had to be at least ten bump his arm on the corner of a shelf at the grocery store. He literally bust into a fit of crying, as if he had just broken a bone. I was like "Really, kid? I fell out of a tree from 20 feet up when I was your age. Bruised my body from head to toe. Had a two inch gash on my head that was leaking like a sieve. I literally stood up and started laughing. Then I walked a half mile home, where my dad stitched up the gash with no anesthetic because his cheap ass didn't want to pay the doctor bill."
I think a lot of it has to do with two major factors: First, bad parenting. Parents, listen to me, take away their phones and devices. Encourage them to get outside and engage the REAL world. It will make all the difference when they grow up. Second, nutrition. Poor nutrition results in low hormone levels, which results in, well, the development of a pansy. Feed the kid some meat, some real fish, some chicken. Get rid of the chips and sugary cereals, the instant dinners and canned whatever. Have protein bars laying around instead of candy bars. Teach them to look up to people like football and basketball players, not professional gamers and gay talk show hosts. Encourage them to play real sports and exercise. Take them fishing. For the love of God, take them fishing!!!! I promise it will make them have a better future.
There is nothing wrong with being an alpha male, even if this new era of pampered millennials like to project that it is. They liken being an alpha to being a sexist and male chauvinist. They are intimidated by a masculine man. This new culture seems to want everyone to be equal--men, woman, transwhatever. No, we will never be equal. There will always be alpha males, and they will always have an edge over the weaklings, the scrawny mush-brained zombies with weak jaws, narrow shoulders, and twig legs. I'm coming to realize that in this new world the alpha male is a dying breed. And I am a relic, a dinosaur left over from a bygone era, when packs of alphasaurs rex ruled the land and ate the weak, because it was the Darwinian way. So much has changed. Everything is so different. Up is down, right is left. But I am a time traveler. I went in one world and came out into this one 13 years later. "The Land of Confusion." <--My homage to Phil Collins and Genesis.
But alas, all is not lost. I may be aging but I am still an alpha male. I can bench press almost 400 lbs and deadlift almost 600. I can whup any 5 skinny-jean-wearing millennials, and destroy them at their sport of choice. I can out fish them, out hike them, out bike them, out whatever them. And from time to time I will see another alpha. In a store, at a gas station, in the gym. Wherever. Our eyes will lock and we size each other up, as two alpha lions might do as they pass each other in the jungle. Sometimes we might offer a nod, a sad acknowledgement that we may be the last of our kind. When we are gone, there will be no more. The only thing left will be skinny jeans and dead-eyed phone zombies who subside off of soda and fast food.
That is, unless we start right now teaching our boys, from a young age, that it is okay to be a tough, rough-housing, fighting, ass kicking male who eats the weak and smashes everything in his path till he stands at the top of the heap. Not all will get there, but it is the fight that counts. It will teach them character and ready them for the cold hard realities of the real world, where there are no participation trophies, and the toughest, smartest, and baddest badasses are the ones who will win the game of life. The alpha males.
January 11, 2018
Who Are The Real Gangsters?
So I have had several interviews in the past months that asked if I was ever knew of the government's involvement in organized crime, or if I knew "where Hoffa is buried." LOL Of course growing up in my family, around the people I rubbed elbows with, I saw how the Mafia in Detroit was intertwined with the local government. I have lots of stories I'd love to share, but, unfortunately, I am not comfortable talking about them. There are still people out there I do NOT want to upset. But I will say that I attended various "events" where the highest echelons of the local government were rubbing elbows with well known organized crime figures, as if they were family or old friends. The first time I saw this I was 19 and thought I was in the Twilight Zone. At the time I was still naive and had no idea that the biggest gangsters in the world were in fact our own elected officials.
So what made me bring all this up? Well, the other day I got a bill for $1,700, from the orthodontist making my sleep "appliance." Haha, yeah, that's what they call it, an appliance. Maybe they think it will help justify the $5,000 they charge for the thing. The appliance, which is essentially a mouth piece to help my sleep apnea and snoring, required the reading of a CT scan. Hence the $1,700 bill.
So here comes the racket. Doctors, people, are some of the HUGEST cons and scam artists in the world. They love to string you along and keep you coming in so they can bill and bill and BILL you more. Especially if you have good insurance. Oh, if you have good insurance, their effing eyes light up like a starving dog looking at a T-bone. My cousin works in the medical field and he tells me this all the time. Half of the doctors are hooked on pills, the other half are sexual deviants and perverts. And let's not forget the four girlfriends on the side who need their bills paid. These doctors have their mansions and vacation homes and Jaguars to pay for. Sounds to me a lot like a crime boss!
Anyway, back to the $1,700 bill. It was to read a CT scan that I had gotten previously. To literally read it. How long it took to read it? Maybe 60 seconds. Just a one page report. I sat there and watched the doctor do it. Now this is at the University of Michigan Medical Center, one of the best doctors in the world, granted, but $1,700 bucks? Are you kidding me? Math is not my strong point, but by my numbers that means this doctor values his time at $102,000 an hour. Yes, let me write that out--one hundred and two thousand dollars an hour! This dentist is making more than a Wall Street hedge fund manager!!!
How in the freakin' hell do these doctors get away with this? Well, it's simple. There are MANY powerful doctors involved in our government. Why? Because medical coverage is always a HUGE issue when it comes election time. Capitol Hill gathers a cadre of some of the country's most affluent doctors to advise on policy. Of course those doctors push for policy that makes sure the law stipulates that EVERYONE has insurance. That way, they can gouge the ever living heck out of the insurance companies on everything from office visits to, yup, you guessed it, reading a simple CAT scan.
The end result is that we all end up paying unbelievably high insurance premiums, and ridiculous deductibles, if and when we get sick. We've all been there. And yet we elect officials who allow it. No, not just allow it, but propagate it. THEY are the criminals, the gangsters. I take several medications for my chronic migraines. When I filled a prescription the other day, the pharmacist told me that without insurance it would have been $800. Really, Big Pharma? A bottle of aspirin costs $1 dollar but this generic stuff is $800? Huh, how is this allowed to happen? Simple, Big Pharma is in cahoots with our government, same as the doctors. Oh, and don't get me started on my C-PAP supplies. $200 for a little plastic tube. $75 for the little plastic face piece that I have to replace monthly. $150 for the harness. Really? Guarantee the cost to make it all is $5 bucks. But since I have good insurance, they gouge away. We just pay in our insurance premiums and co-pays and deductibles. Nobody can start a small business anymore because the cost of insurance chokes them out. And the working man? He is tethered to his 9-to-5 because he needs insurance for his family. He can never strike off on his own and try to open a business or follow his dreams, because the government makes him buy insurance he cannot afford. Thousands a month. So he remains a sheep, a clone, a robot, just as Big Government wants it. They need the robots to keep their mafia alive. And guess what? It's those robots who elect those government mafiosi into office. Unreal.
Now tell me, who is the biggest Mafia in the world? Who are the biggest gangsters, the biggest criminals? What is the largest criminal organization in the world? Our own government conspires year after year to rob and steal from us, to rape us of our hard-earned money, and they get away with it. They don't need guns. They don't need the threat of violence. They just sign in some bill and BOOM, they steal your money. But guess what? If I sat in a room full of people and rubbed my hands together like a greedy antagonist from a James Bond movie, and conspired to steal billions of dollars from the innocent public, I would be locked away for life. I would be painted out to be a monster. In prison I would be treated by dim-witted corrections officers like I was the scum of the earth. Yet our government, our doctors, our legal system, they all do the same and are revered as the elite and upper crust of our society.
What the hell is wrong with this picture? I love life and enjoy every day like it's my last, but some days I can't help but think about the sick, twisted world we live in.
So what made me bring all this up? Well, the other day I got a bill for $1,700, from the orthodontist making my sleep "appliance." Haha, yeah, that's what they call it, an appliance. Maybe they think it will help justify the $5,000 they charge for the thing. The appliance, which is essentially a mouth piece to help my sleep apnea and snoring, required the reading of a CT scan. Hence the $1,700 bill.
So here comes the racket. Doctors, people, are some of the HUGEST cons and scam artists in the world. They love to string you along and keep you coming in so they can bill and bill and BILL you more. Especially if you have good insurance. Oh, if you have good insurance, their effing eyes light up like a starving dog looking at a T-bone. My cousin works in the medical field and he tells me this all the time. Half of the doctors are hooked on pills, the other half are sexual deviants and perverts. And let's not forget the four girlfriends on the side who need their bills paid. These doctors have their mansions and vacation homes and Jaguars to pay for. Sounds to me a lot like a crime boss!
Anyway, back to the $1,700 bill. It was to read a CT scan that I had gotten previously. To literally read it. How long it took to read it? Maybe 60 seconds. Just a one page report. I sat there and watched the doctor do it. Now this is at the University of Michigan Medical Center, one of the best doctors in the world, granted, but $1,700 bucks? Are you kidding me? Math is not my strong point, but by my numbers that means this doctor values his time at $102,000 an hour. Yes, let me write that out--one hundred and two thousand dollars an hour! This dentist is making more than a Wall Street hedge fund manager!!!
How in the freakin' hell do these doctors get away with this? Well, it's simple. There are MANY powerful doctors involved in our government. Why? Because medical coverage is always a HUGE issue when it comes election time. Capitol Hill gathers a cadre of some of the country's most affluent doctors to advise on policy. Of course those doctors push for policy that makes sure the law stipulates that EVERYONE has insurance. That way, they can gouge the ever living heck out of the insurance companies on everything from office visits to, yup, you guessed it, reading a simple CAT scan.
The end result is that we all end up paying unbelievably high insurance premiums, and ridiculous deductibles, if and when we get sick. We've all been there. And yet we elect officials who allow it. No, not just allow it, but propagate it. THEY are the criminals, the gangsters. I take several medications for my chronic migraines. When I filled a prescription the other day, the pharmacist told me that without insurance it would have been $800. Really, Big Pharma? A bottle of aspirin costs $1 dollar but this generic stuff is $800? Huh, how is this allowed to happen? Simple, Big Pharma is in cahoots with our government, same as the doctors. Oh, and don't get me started on my C-PAP supplies. $200 for a little plastic tube. $75 for the little plastic face piece that I have to replace monthly. $150 for the harness. Really? Guarantee the cost to make it all is $5 bucks. But since I have good insurance, they gouge away. We just pay in our insurance premiums and co-pays and deductibles. Nobody can start a small business anymore because the cost of insurance chokes them out. And the working man? He is tethered to his 9-to-5 because he needs insurance for his family. He can never strike off on his own and try to open a business or follow his dreams, because the government makes him buy insurance he cannot afford. Thousands a month. So he remains a sheep, a clone, a robot, just as Big Government wants it. They need the robots to keep their mafia alive. And guess what? It's those robots who elect those government mafiosi into office. Unreal.
Now tell me, who is the biggest Mafia in the world? Who are the biggest gangsters, the biggest criminals? What is the largest criminal organization in the world? Our own government conspires year after year to rob and steal from us, to rape us of our hard-earned money, and they get away with it. They don't need guns. They don't need the threat of violence. They just sign in some bill and BOOM, they steal your money. But guess what? If I sat in a room full of people and rubbed my hands together like a greedy antagonist from a James Bond movie, and conspired to steal billions of dollars from the innocent public, I would be locked away for life. I would be painted out to be a monster. In prison I would be treated by dim-witted corrections officers like I was the scum of the earth. Yet our government, our doctors, our legal system, they all do the same and are revered as the elite and upper crust of our society.
What the hell is wrong with this picture? I love life and enjoy every day like it's my last, but some days I can't help but think about the sick, twisted world we live in.
January 8, 2018
Being an Author... Part 1
Once of the things that I have found interesting as my career and popularity grows (and there are MANY), is that my job consumes me constantly. Although, in part, I think that is because I also own a new clothing line, which I am basically building from the ground up with no help other than my amazing wife. But it seems crazy to me how much work is involved in promoting my books and brand as a whole. It is a constant work in progress, a sun up to sun down (more like midnight) operation. And of course when I was in prison, the naive me figured I'd just publish my fist book within a few weeks and be a millionaire in a year, two at most. Haha, the joke is on me. It takes a crazy amount of work. And time. Not just from me but my wife also, who has a life of acquired skills in the publishing industry under her belt. Between the two of us, we probably work 30 hours a day. Its like a baby. It needs constant attention and nurturing. The marketing constantly needs to be fed. Dirty diapers (old promos) need to be changed and updated. And damnit, why am I NOT a millionaire yet?!?!
The other thing is fans. As I gain more and more of them, the creepier they get. Now that is NOT to say I don't enjoy interacting with my fans and readers. I do. I waited my whole life for this. But what the heck, there are some weird ones. And I'm not just talking about your run-of-the-mill overzealous fans who read my books and suddenly think I'm the main character in the book, or think they know me personally, so they send me messages telling me about their days or kids birthday or bad day at work. Nor am I talking about the occasional drunken person who pours their life out to me on Facebook messenger, telling me how their boyfriend ran off with their dog or grandma's wedding ring. Those are two real examples. I'm talking about the straight up weirdos! They message me strange pics of themselves or their kids. No explanations. Or the ones who comment on threads of my posts, bizarre remarks, like we grew up together when I have never even heard of them. I could go on all night about the weirdos and crazies I encounter now that I have thousands of "friends" on social media. Most people are kind and nice and have encouraging things to say. But spattered amongst them are all facets of freakazoids! I am still getting used to it. As is my wife. And that is another thing. Women. Some of them have no morals or class. They act like me being married means nothing. Say things that are desperate and inappropriate. Sometimes public! Ive received my share if inappropriate pictures too. I'm sure they feel two inches tall when I reply, "I'm happily married. You're desperation makes you look sad and pathetic. Unfriended!"
Anyway, that's my author's rant of the day. I think a lot of people think the life of a writer is easy, all glitz and glamour. Nope. It takes hard work to be success, even when you have a masterpiece to sell, which I do--check the reviews at Amazon, 5-stars. It is a fun job, don't get me wrong, but my mind never stops. It is constantly in work mode, thinking how can I gain more exposure. At least when someone goes to work at a standard 9-5, they know what they have coming at the end of the week. The routine is what makes it easy, and yet also oh-so-mundane. For me, everyday is a new job, a new way of marketing my book and clothing line. It's a constant "who, what, when, why, where" kind of job. If I want to make a living and fulfill my dreams of seeing my books movies, I have to grind. All day, everyday. And you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. I was born and built for this. I love every minute of it. Well, maybe not the freakazoids.
The other thing is fans. As I gain more and more of them, the creepier they get. Now that is NOT to say I don't enjoy interacting with my fans and readers. I do. I waited my whole life for this. But what the heck, there are some weird ones. And I'm not just talking about your run-of-the-mill overzealous fans who read my books and suddenly think I'm the main character in the book, or think they know me personally, so they send me messages telling me about their days or kids birthday or bad day at work. Nor am I talking about the occasional drunken person who pours their life out to me on Facebook messenger, telling me how their boyfriend ran off with their dog or grandma's wedding ring. Those are two real examples. I'm talking about the straight up weirdos! They message me strange pics of themselves or their kids. No explanations. Or the ones who comment on threads of my posts, bizarre remarks, like we grew up together when I have never even heard of them. I could go on all night about the weirdos and crazies I encounter now that I have thousands of "friends" on social media. Most people are kind and nice and have encouraging things to say. But spattered amongst them are all facets of freakazoids! I am still getting used to it. As is my wife. And that is another thing. Women. Some of them have no morals or class. They act like me being married means nothing. Say things that are desperate and inappropriate. Sometimes public! Ive received my share if inappropriate pictures too. I'm sure they feel two inches tall when I reply, "I'm happily married. You're desperation makes you look sad and pathetic. Unfriended!"
Anyway, that's my author's rant of the day. I think a lot of people think the life of a writer is easy, all glitz and glamour. Nope. It takes hard work to be success, even when you have a masterpiece to sell, which I do--check the reviews at Amazon, 5-stars. It is a fun job, don't get me wrong, but my mind never stops. It is constantly in work mode, thinking how can I gain more exposure. At least when someone goes to work at a standard 9-5, they know what they have coming at the end of the week. The routine is what makes it easy, and yet also oh-so-mundane. For me, everyday is a new job, a new way of marketing my book and clothing line. It's a constant "who, what, when, why, where" kind of job. If I want to make a living and fulfill my dreams of seeing my books movies, I have to grind. All day, everyday. And you know what? I wouldn't have it any other way. I was born and built for this. I love every minute of it. Well, maybe not the freakazoids.
Once Upon A Gangster
This blog is about my life both past and present, from the time in my teens and 20s when I was a young street hustler, to the things I experienced during my 13 years in prison, to what inspired the cr
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