Stonebeam 18: Open Letter to Class of ’67: Hive or Thrive?

Posted on December 25, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 18, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 25 December 2020

This is one of those open letters that’s taken me several attempts to get close to feeling right. If I were in that old Cary Grant, Rosalind Russell movie His Girl Friday, there would be discarded crumpled up typewriter sheets all over the floor.

Second, and related, I don’t want to stand out as a square peg unless I have to.

Third, I have a special fondness for my now-70-something-fellow-cocaptive_kids (i.e. forced to be there by the compulsory government-school system) with whom I was thrown together in a warmly structured suburban middle-class high school in a Leave it to Beaver/Ozzie and Harriet would-be Land of Oz.

And I don’t want to lose that 50-year-reunion-kindled fondness with several of you.

Still, let me take you through a story of our youth that haunts me now. Raise your hand if you haven’t seen Invasion of the Body Snatchers, the original 1955 version. [Spoiler alert!] Remember the scene toward the end where Dr. Miles J. Bennell and his restored sweetheart-beauty, Becky Driscoll, are on the run and wind up in the cave?

They manage to shake off the townsfolk-zombie posse on their tails, and are struggling to stay awake so as not to be turned into pod people themselves, when they hear this ethereal melody of voices. Miles goes to check it out and is horrified to find these voices are heralding an agricultural operation producing thousands-MORE PODS.

Miles rushes back to the cave, where Becky has fallen asleep. He’s carrying Becky, resuming their getaway to the highway, he stumbles, she exclaims that she can’t go on. He kisses her right there with mud puddle residue all over ‘em. But the true love of his life has TURNED… into “an alien being bent on his destruction.” [End Spoiler.] Continue reading →

Stonebeam 17. Covtardia by Way of Cadillac

Posted on December 17, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 17, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 17 December 2020

Another example of how covtardia[1] magnifies bad behavior.

I should have let this one go, but my writer-ego can’t resist.

To begin with, as a bona fide covtardia victim—I lost my good medtech-driver job because I refused to wear a mask inside the van—my stand on science and principle cost me ~$500 a month, which helped me to pay, you know, bills.

A retired golf buddy and cause-devotee of mine told me about his part time job as what they call a “dealer trade driver,” so I call around to sales managers in dealerships near me. Turns out, the local Cadillac sales manager—let’s call him Harry—does have a need.

We chat for a while and I show up next day to talk turkey. He gives me an idea of what the job entails, mainly shuttling Caddys from and to about 60 dealerships in a 200-mile radius. Sure, I’ll do it, 15 to 20 hours per week, I tell him. Harry says, “We need your driving record, too. These are $50,000-dollar automobiles.” Makes sense.

Trouble is my official driving record is maintained by our World-Famous-and-Now-‘Covid’-Slowed-to-Below-Crawl-Speed Secretary of State and I’ll have to go to a branch office to pick it up. “No probbem,” I say, “I’ll head over there right now.”

It’s on Beck Road in Wixom, maybe 10 miles away. Harry assures me that SOS doesn’t need an appointment for this kind of transaction. Yippee! [It sure did when I needed my eye test for license renewal: My birthday’s in mid-July, I call July 1, get my place in line in late September. Masks, distancing, you know the standard sheep drill.] Continue reading →

Stonebeam 6. Having the Furnace Checked Out…

Posted on November 7, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 6, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 07 November 2020

… and other common ground.

This is election week 2020, I guess you would call it. And sure enough on the Friday, at least among my Twitter contingent—and other real friends in the freedom ‘neighborhood’ here in the SE Michigan area—we’re still reading and hearing about major voting shenanigans by the Michigan, and other swing-state, Democratic machinery in the presidential race. It goes higher, of course.[1]

[Probably, this one will wind up in the Supreme Court, too.]

I have an appointment to clean out my old Bryant heater.

Chad—not his real name, but seems fitting in honor of the Republican Party machinations to steal the prez election in 2000— is on his way. I’ll give a plug to his real company, Efficient Energy of New Hudson, who has been doing my major appliance work since dear Mom was living here and oh so special. I believe it was she who first found E², while I was away contracting.

2020 is the “season of covtardia,”[2] as I’ve mentioned in previous beams.

The optimist in me believes the season will end as the facts come in, this year.

And part of this sense of optimism comes from the simple man-to-man w/Chad that commences almost at his point of arrival. Company image is likely the reason for the mask, though Chad wears his the better to breathe ‘round. They’re busy these days, as one might imagine, weather being springlike.

Forgot how I delved into it, something like, “The Biden rallies had, like, 10 people with face masks, Trump 10s of thousands, mostly muzzle free. What’s up with that? Did it seem to you, Chad, like a TV show with a foregone conclusion?” Continue reading →

Stonebeam 4: Election Day 2020

Posted on November 3, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 4, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 03 November 2020

Yessir, and I’m geeked. Well, not really.

See, I live in Michigan of the United States, and the governor of our state—her name is Gretchen Whitmer—just yesterday issued another “Emergency Order (EO).” This one’s a doozy… to have stores take part in tracking customers with a harsh penalty for noncompliance, like six months jail time! Imagine pulling up to the McDonalds’ drivethru:

“I’ll have a Big Mac and a coke.”
“What’s your name and contact information?”
“Clarabelle, c/o Buffalo Bob Studios.”
“Sorry, we don’t have you on our list, please fill out a form online.”
“Okay, what about my order?”
“We need you in our approved-client database first.”
“All right, don’t have my smartphone, need to go home to my computer.”
“Fine, sooner the better.”
“Why’s that?”
“This franchise is going out of business in two hours.”

My goodness. It’s like the outdoor tavern where you walk and sit in an inner tube to maintain social distancing. Or an NFL game with cardboard cutout fans and fake crowd noise. Or sharing a California family Thanksgiving sitting around in hazmat suits. Or… Variations on a Theme of ‘covid’ Bizarro World. Continue reading →

Stonebeam 3. Invasion of the Je Ne Sais Quoi Snatchers

Posted on October 31, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 3, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 31 October 2020

Most Americans of my Baby Boomer origin (born 1946-1964), and a few die-hard science fiction fans afterward, remember the short classic movie of 1955, Invasion of the Body Snatchers, starring Kevin McCarthy and Dana Wynter. Outstandingly thought provoking!

[Briefly, from outer space comes a life form that takes over a mind-equipped species (humans in the movie) in a process of absorbing the mind-souls of individuals—into giant seed pods that become a duplicate of the humans’ bodies while the target persons sleep. (Yes, the process presents a number of logical problems, call it poetic license.) The consciousnesses of the newly formed pod-bodies merge into a collective-brain ϋber-consciousness called the Democrats, kidding; no, the new organism at the individual level IS rather like a communist “ideal society:” no self-identity, no emotions, no ambition, no necking and petting with your girlfriend at the drive-in theater… pure soulless, sexless collective brain.]

Whew! It’s actually a bit of work to put the synopsis to words. Continue reading →

Stonebeam 2. Lions and Tigers and Distancing Inner Tubes, Oh My!

Posted on October 28, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 2, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 28 October 2020

Just could not let the reference in Stonebeam #1 to covtardia[1] go to waste with nothing left to say about it. After all, this disease is THE dictionary definition of “taking the cake for all time 900# (phantom) gorillas of human history.” Let me be the historian then and post one of my few photos in these story shots—I’m convinced that when parents of our time tell their grandchildren bedtime stories of real adult behavior in the ‘season of covtardia,’ none of the little ones will believe it for a second… even with photos and a Webpage.

That’s if the Web is even around in 40-some years.

Or people. Not taking any bets.

If a bunch of frat bros pulled a kegger one night, smoked some doobie, woke up on a sunny morning in La Jolla, then hatched an invention for naturally keeping six feet away from sandal-wearing hippies at the local beach club, I’d chalk it up to California fruit salad and think no more about it. But I believe it was actually a serious notion floated by a restaurant in, like, Baltimore. (!)

And lately Del Bigtree on The HighWire tells me that California governor Gavin Newsom is dictating the following rules for citizens of the state who gather at someone’s home for the upcoming Thanksgiving: Continue reading →

Stonebeam 1. The Unitarian Church on Livernois

Posted on October 21, 2020 by Brian Wright

Story Shot 1, by Brian R. Wright PDF Version, 21 October 2020

Brief handoff with the ex today, following my monthly chiro adjustment—now that’s a story for later, especially now hip deep in the season of covtardia,[1] with all the rotundo, snippy, old Karens watching and snitching on everyone, esp. businesses not taking masks and the other bizarro rules seriously—, Floei’s sweet, on time, lives a few miles away in same burb as the chiro, that would be Troy, Michigan. I’m giving her a flower pot, she’s got a bag for her sister up in Okemos whom I visit more often than she does.

We mostly have the kind of post partum where we try to help each other.

My idea: we decide to meet in the lot of the still-Unitarian-but-heading-toward-a-terminally-upper-middle-class-suburban-white-guilt-denouement (a Black Lives Matter service on the marquis) big ol’ barn style church where my brother was married… RIP, at a too-young 57. The betrothing ceremony would have been back in, what, the early 1980s? Continue reading →