GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1078: PLAYING MUSK

 It's been a staple of SF for so long I'm not sure I even remember when I first heard about the concept of terraforming a planet. I suspect it was Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan, but I don't know for sure. All the same, it seems like the only way we'll be able to live on planets within our reach. Because outside of our solar system? That's a pipe dream, at least for now.

The most obvious subject would be Mars, and Elon Musk has been jacking himself off thinking about making that planet habitable for humans. Whether he's doing it for altruistic purposes (for humanity) or dictatorial purposes (the first private person to make it there gets to rule the planet), I'll leave up to your imagination. You know my thoughts on this.

But how likely is it to actually transform Mars from the wasteland it currently is to a thriving planet-wide metropolis? Is it even possible?

Why not try your hand at playing Musk? Nature put together a simulation. Go ahead. See how successful you are.

It's harder than it seems. I generally have a good understanding of science, and it was a lot harder than I expected. In fact I scored 50%, which would be a solid F- if I was still in school.

Brave enough to share your results in the comments?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1077: HOGAN'S HEROES

 I watched a lot of classic TV shows when I was a kid, always in reruns, as I wasn't alive for the first-run episodes. My favorites were the westerns, but I also loved stuff like Dennis the Menace and My Three Sons and Laugh-In, etc. I wasn't into Hogan's Heroes because, at the time, I believed history was boring.

Due to the recent political climate I thought it would behoove me to watch the whole series, and I got what I wanted, but I also got something very unexpected.

In this very space I've compared Trump to Schultz, in the "I KNOW NOTHING!" sense. It's a bad comparison, as Trump has more in common with the Dunning-Kruger-ish Klink, but even that doesn't hold up. I'll get to that soon, but what really impressed me was Hogan's MO.

In case you're unfamiliar, Col. Hogan is a POW in a Luftwaffe prisoner camp. He's the ranking officer, so he's in charge of his fellow occupants, among them Kinch, the comms officer; Newkirk, a horny Brit; LaBeau, an equally horny Frenchman; and Carter, an idiot who is somehow an explosives expert. They're not there simply because they got caught. Allied intelligence put them there as a sabotage squad, and they chose Stalag 13 because the commandant, Col. Klink, and his second in command Sgt. Schultz, are exceptionally stupid. So they have no idea about the comm tower Hogan has in their own flagpole, the network of tunnels under the camp and even the submarine Hogan has at his beck and call.

Klink and Schultz (and a few other regulars) are so inept that Hogan is able to easily pull off his missions. The first season is the best. The others are good, but the cons they pulled then required all the Nazis to be stupid. That first season? Even smart people would fall for the shit Hogan and his friends pulled.

Hogan's Heroes is about Allied prisoners tricking Nazis for a laff riot, but only on the surface. It's really about how to manipulate people into doing your bidding. I suspect the show's creators worked for the CIA--or maybe they continued in that capacity while filming!--they are that good at depicting manipulation.

There's a buzzword that I despise, but I'm going to use it because no other will suffice. Hogan specializes in "psyops."

A psyop is the use of propaganda to influence a person or group of persons into doing things they ordinarily wouldn't do. Short for "psychological operations," it's how the military approaches things in regions where American "interests" just so happen to belong to other nations. These days the phrase is almost exclusively used by YouTube con artists trying to teach you how to influence people.

Which is fairly simple when you understand human nature, and Hogan does, very much so. He knows to appeal to ego without sucking up. Never ask questions but make observations that offer opportunities to explain or correct. Give pieces of evidence but don't connect them, leaving your target to connect the dots and therefore feel clever for doing so. Etc.

The thing that stops most people from doing this is a lack of confidence, ie. the word "con" is short for in "con artist." It's shocking what you can make people believe if you sound like you know what you're talking about. If you're good at this, people won't even check your work.

Luckily Hogan's cup of confidence floweth over . . . and spilleth all over the floor.* He's so confident he routinely tells Klink what he's up to *for real* and Klink always dismisses it as a joke. Hogan is digging tunnels under the stalag? Very funny. But confidence alone won't do it. The key to getting someone to do something they wouldn't normally do is to find a way to fit that thing into their worldview and feed them enough disinformation to make it feel like the righteous thing to do. It helps to also mold that worldview if you can help it, and in that first season, this last bit is where Hogan excels.

This show was on for six years, so it did get old after a while, but one of the reasons it lasted so long was because Klink and Schultz, despite being Nazis and exceptionally stupid, are kind of likeable. Or, at least, you can't hate these fools. It's clear they didn't know about the Final Solution, for example. Klink got his rank because of family connections, and his position keeps him safe from the horrors of the Russian front, where the deadliest fighting of WWII occurred. Somehow his cowardice redeems him, which would be next to impossible on any other show. The same goes for Schultz. He enjoys the simple things in life. Actually fighting in a war? That's unthinkable to him. All he wants to do is eat and relax. It's difficult to understand how he got so far as a sergeant. He doesn't know anyone in High Command, nor does he have important relatives.

Hogan's Heroes naturally didn't know they were getting canceled, so we never get to see the end of his operations. Over the course of the years, guests he helped escape to England always wanted to know why he never escaped himself. Hogan always said that when it came time to leave, he would walk out the front gate in full view of everyone. I really wanted to see that moment of victory. Ah well.

As with The Rat Patrol, I did find myself wondering what happened to everyone after the war. I'm not going to get too much into that. I like to think Newkirk and LaBeau remained best friends and spent much of their civilian life in pubs and maybe some brothels, too. Carter probably went home and became a cop. I imagine Kinch became an engineer. Schultz went home to his wife and had a passel of children exactly like him.

Klink probably got captured and put on trial for war crimes. Not that he actually did any of them, but I suspect General Burkhalter framed Klink for *his* crimes. And so he hanged at Nuremburg with Julius Streicher and friends.

As for Hogan? Who knows? Maybe I'll write about him, too, someday.

__________________________

*I forgot who I stole that joke from. I suspect it was Mel Brooks, as I am currently reading his memoir, but I don't recall for sure.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1076: OUR SECRET

 If you're reading this, it's our secret. Shhhhhhh. I'm testing something. To quote a great man:

As you were. Goodnight, you lovely fuckers.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1075: A CLOSED MIND

 It's a little surprising how easily an open mind can snap shut like a trap. You might not even notice it happen. And then one day you find yourself in an argument, and someone accuses you of having a closed mind, and after you think about it, you realize holy shit. They're right.

When I was a kid I swore I'd never grow up to be like an adult in a horror movie. You know what I mean. The guy who won't believe the kids that there's a monster on a killing spree. Usually it's a cop or a parent, but it could be anyone.

I wanted to be more like Gary Busey in Silver Bullet. He didn't necessarily believe Corey Haim, but he played along and got the surprise of his life. Because he did this and was thus prepared, he survived the fight (unlike, say, John Vernon in Killer Klowns from Outer Space).

(Spoiler, I guess.)

But the thing about getting older is, the more years that pass, the more you think you know everything, especially when it comes to what you believe to be impossible. Because you've gone through so much, you think you know what reality is like, and your mind closes to anything that can't fit into your worldview.

This is something I'm prone to, and I'm also an obstinate son of a bitch. I give no ground when I think I know something. Do you know how long it took me to recognize this about myself, despite everyone I've ever argued with telling me about it to my face? Forty fucking years. Unfortunately getting your mind stuck in this state makes you more likely to make knee-jerk reactions.

I recently mentioned in this space that not responding with a knee-jerk reaction is the key to a saner life. It's also the key to a better understanding of the universe, the key to having an open mind.

The Trump Administration specializes in causing knee-jerk reactions. This is what they want. They want people freaking out and saying angry things, and we easily fall into their trap. People I know for a fact who would never threaten someone's safety or lives routinely wish death on Trump or anyone in his Cabinet of Douchebags and Sychophants. Sometimes this extends to anyone wearing a MAGA hat regardless of their ability to influence those around them.

The reason they want you to do that to them is so they can point at you and say, "See? They're monsters. They think we're subhuman. They want us dead." They don't even have to incite violence at that point. Once that idea is in the MAGA head, the job is done. Any crime they commit against those who wish them dead is an act of self-defense in their eyes.

Knee-jerk reaction = falling into their trap. So the next time these assholes make you angry, stop. Think. What do they want me to feel? How do they want me to act on those feelings? And who benefits from how I act? However you respond, remain calm. Don't panic. You have to take this tool out of their toolbox because it's cheap and stupid, but more importantly it is efficient.

The MAGAs have been sold a bill of goods. They think the left wants them dead because [place reason of the week here]. When you respond to Trump with violent rhetoric, you're giving him exactly what he wants. The key to getting that prick out of office is in his followers. Almost everyone has turned their backs on him. All he has left is the very small group of loyalists who won't believe anything you say, anyway. The Iran . . . adventure? . . . is a major nail in his coffin. All appearances to the contrary, he's on the ropes. He knows he's fucked if the midterms don't go his way. He flat-out begged his followers to vote Republican or "I'll get impeached." And if that happens, he'll have nothing to fall back on but the dementia act I think he's trying to run on us so he can avoid prison time when this is over. He stole everything else from Reagan. Why not steal the whole "I don't recall" thing?

Nearly everyone now sees the man behind the curtain for what he really is, but there are still people who hang on his every word. Please. Stop giving him ammunition to use against us. Because when he's gone, those diehards will still be around. If the spell finally breaks for them, we want them back in the fold. Because this is America, and despite the last ten years or more? We are all in this together. We don't have to like each other, but we do have to get along.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1074: A SPECIAL REPORT

 I can't believe it. I achieved something I didn't think I'd live to see. Remember, I thought I'd be dead by now. This means I have a chance. I actually have a chance!

When I finished reading The Black Star Passes by John W. Campbell, I finished the second (of three) notebook of my reading list. The third is only half full, and since I haven't been able to afford many new books lately, I'm not adding much to it.

I might actually finish my reading list before I die. Holy shit, that's huge!

When I was a kid I put together a list of all the books I owned. That was the first page and a half of the list. I was able to add to my personal collection thanks to several factors. The Hillside Public Library usually had a good rack of used paperbacks you could get for fifty cents each. Then there was the Book Exchange in Berkley, my favorite used bookstore of all time. You could get used hardcovers there for a couple of bucks each, and paperbacks were usually a quarter. And then there was the single biggest contributor to my collection: the annual Elmhurst Public Library sales. They'd give you a paper grocery bag, and you could fill it to the brim with as many books as you possibly could, and you'd pay five bucks for the bag. Every year I'd go home with five or six bags.

When I got my first job (at the Elmhurst Public Library, by the way), I only had two expenses: my student loans and books, except now I could afford to get books at actual stores like Borders. And when I got my first big boy office job? Think of all the books I got in those days before I had real life expenses like rent and groceries, etc. By then I realized I'd never live to finish my list, and I didn't even have two full notebooks yet.

But now I have a new problem. I'm having sight issues. I'm not going blind, per se, but I have huge floaters in both eyes, and they're so big it's next to impossible to blink them out of the way. I'm starting to have difficulty in reading because of them. The only cure for floaters is to have a procedure done where, when they're finished, you have to lie face down in bed for two weeks with your eyes covered up. I can't afford to do that, money- and time-wise. If I do that, I will lose my home.

So now it's just not a matter of living long enough to finish that last notebook. I also have to read it all before I go blind. This victory, though, has given me hope. I might actually succeed at doing this. And I've thought about what I would do if I ever finished the list. For the first time since I was a kid, I'd just go to the library and pick a book off the shelf. Or a bookstore, if we still have those in the future. It was always a pipe dream, but now that I have a chance?

Wish me luck.

In case you were wondering, the first book on my list was The Adventures of Tom Sawyer by Mark Twain. The copy I had back then was an old hardcover from the 1930's that I picked up from my stepfather (and it had Twain's real name on it for some reason), but now I have a replica of the first edition, and if you didn't know it, nearly all of Twain's books originally came with woodcut illustrations. For some reason, scholarly versions of the text leave those pictures out. They're pretty amazing. You should read the books as the author intended, with those pictures.

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1073: DIMITSANA

 

As you know, I've been going through the family pictures before figuring out who should get them. I've saved pictures of people I don't know for last so I can do some detective work to find out who they were. This picture, among about a dozen others, was in an envelope addressed to Gramps in handwriting I now know belonged to his sister, Helen. She and a few relatives went to Greece in the 'Eighties, to Dimitsana in particular.

Gramps and his two sisters were first generation Americans. Their parents came to America in the 'Twenties (and I have their dad and theo's naturalization papers!), and they referred to Gramps as "their American son." Dimitsana is where they were from.

And that house above? Take a look at the back of the photo:

The John in question is Gramps. I was named after him. How many people have a picture of their great-grandfather's childhood home? And to find out that it's 300 years old? Holy shit. I also have his death certificate, so I know my great-great-grandfather was named Zaharis Kyriakopoulos. (No mother is listed.)

That leg of my family comes from a mountain town with more buildings that look like that one. In fact, here's another picture:

And here's the back:

Not sure who Dave is. All I know is, Dave's not here. Not a lot of people live in Dimitsana. Not even 800 souls populate the town, and Kyriakopoulos is a common name there. I almost certainly have blood relatives still living there. There were times when I was a kid when I thought, wouldn't it be weird to go to, say, Greece and look up the Kopoulos family? (I didn't know they shortened the name until I found the papers back in 2022.) Or maybe go back to Ireland and look up the Dunnes? (I actually did go to Ireland only to discover Dunne is one of the most common names in the country.) And then, because I know the least amount about the Bruni family, wouldn't it be nice to go to Italy and look them up?

(Three of my four grandparents were 100% one nationality. Grandma had a lot of diversity in her background, so I can't really pick a country to go back to for her family.)

Now that I've seen The White Lotus? Maybe not. I think that's probably the most realistic way something like that would go down. But it's nice to think about.

I've gone down some interesting paths looking up my family history. I'm pretty good with Mom's side. I come from families with names like Cota, Friend, Noanes, Demeroukas and so on. I just wish I'd thought to ask all the questions I have now back when Grandma and Gramps were still alive. My aunt is the only one older than me on that side of the family, and I've found she unfortunately doesn't have all the answers I'm looking for, just some of them.

Is anyone else at all curious about where they came from? Have you done research without resorting to stuff like Ancestry, etc.? So far I've done a lot of detective work without it, and I've done pretty good, but I'm reaching the brick wall point in my research. Any thoughts on what to do without sending my DNA off to a corporation that is most likely to use it in ways I couldn't possibly imagine?

And now I have an added bonus mystery, this one from Grandma's side of the family. I was under the impression all my life that the one great-grandparent I'd come closest to meeting was Grandma's mom. The reason I had that impression was because Grandma told me, herself. I found something today which she might not have been aware of. I asked my aunt, "When did Grandma's dad die?" She said she didn't know and didn't think Grandma knew, either.

The thing I found? Grandma's mom's death certificate. On it she is listed as married, not widowed. I learned lately that Grandma's parents separated early in her life. I know her dad didn't go too far because I found a picture of him with Grandma's sister sitting in his lap at the 50th anniversary of Grandma's maternal grandparents. That was back in the 'Fifties, and her mom would die in February 1978.

Because next to that MARRIED space on her mom's death certificate? It says she was survived by her spouse!

It is possible that he and I lived on this planet at the same time. I have tried everything to find out what happened to him, and I've come up with nothing. The internet has no idea whatever happened to Harold McKinley Cota, Sr. All I can find is Harry, Grandma's brother. So yeah, any suggestions?

GOODNIGHT, FUCKERS #1072: BILLY THE KID

 

I recently got MGM+ again because FROM has a new season. I'm all caught up now. and I'm canceling after the season finale. But they also have BILLY THE KID, and I just watched the final season. (I also noticed they have the show, 12 MONKEYS. I lost cable before the final season aired, so I'm finally getting to watch that. I'll probably write about that experience at some point soon, because it's a little bizarre for me.)

When I first started watching BILLY THE KID, I was pleasantly surprised to see it was written by Michael Hirst. I love his historical shows, like The Tudors and Vikings. Now that he's turned his attention to one of my favorite western outlaws? I was all in.

And I watched as it did its best to distance itself from the Young Guns movies. I can't tell you how much I love those two flicks. But because they're such an important part of the legend, this show needs to steer the boat its own way.

Hirst obviously loves history, but he's not beholden to it. If it comes down to a decision between what really happened (or at least the agreed upon facts) and what makes more sense for the story, he will always go with the latter, never the former. So you can't watch his stuff and expect an accurate history lesson, but he gets the spirit of history rather than the letter.

So the whole time I watched this show, my biggest question was, is he going to go the Brushy Bill route? If you don't know, back in the 'Fifties, an old man named Brushy Bill Roberts claimed to be Billy the Kid, that Pat Garrett hadn't killed him, and that he'd been keeping a low profile for decades. He had a lot of scars that line up with injuries Billy the Kid was known to have had. There were still a few Old West outlaws alive at the time, and when they trotted Brushy Bill out in front of them, they more or less agreed: this really was Billy the Kid. But in an age where DNA testing didn't exist, and the actual location of Billy the Kid's corpse was unknown, it couldn't be definitively proved.

Here there be spoilers. If you're going to watch the show, you'd best stop here. If you've seen it, or you don't give a fuck, please continue.

After Pat Garrett shoots Billy and leaves, Billy still breathes, and a friend rushes to get him out of there. I thought, YES! They're doing Brushy Bill! Because I believe that he really was Billy the Kid. I think that's legitimately part of the story.

But Hirst actually *doesn't* do Brushy Bill. He takes a much bigger swing at history. Like, I'm talking a Babe Ruth kind of swing.

Because later, after Billy is nursed back to health, HE GOES BACK TO GET REVENGE ON PAT GARRETT. He flat out guns Garrett down, and that's it.

Holy fuck, that is huge. It then occurred to me that I actually didn't know how Pat Garrett died. I never had much interest in the guy, although I tend to agree with Young Guns 2, that Garrett was in on Billy faking his death. So I looked it up, and Garrett died under mysterious circumstances, much like the real life Johnny Ringo. In fact, it's very similar to the swing Tombstone takes when it suggests that Doc Holliday killed Johnny Ringo. I've read up on the subject, and the popular belief is that he committed suicide. I think that's the case. But we don't know for sure, just like we don't know who actually killed Garrett.

Could it have been Billy the Kid? If you believe the Brushy Bill story, like I do, then it's within the realm of possibility.

But then Hirst follows it with Billy going up against Thomas Catron, the local politician that was hellbent on eliminating Billy and his Regulators. In the series finale he shoots Catron in the head, which simply did not happen. Catron went on to become a US Senator and died in 1921. But that is par for the Hirst course. It made for a good ending to the series, something that ties up all the loose threads but wasn't necessarily true.

I'm certain that, if he went on for another episode, he would have depicted Brushy Bill. In the end Billy literally--and I mean LITERALLY, not figuratively as many people use that word today--rides off into the sunset with his wife and kid.

That last episode was good. It wrapped up everything. But I don't think it was great, which is also par for the Hirst course EXCEPT FOR THE TUDORS. That show had a final episode that was awe-inspiringly beautiful, one of those moments that takes your breath away. The only reasonable response is to stare in astonishment and silence.

BILLY THE KID was a lot of fun. I'd recommend it.