May 24th, 2004:
Runaway Jury
By the fact that it was written by John Grisham and starred Gene Hackman, John Cusack, and Dustin Hoffman I was enticed at Blockbuster into renting the DVD Runaway Jury. I was not in any way disappointed with the mechanics of the production. The acting, as expected was superb. However, I had forgotten how disappointed I was with the film version's ending of the great Grisham tome, "The Firm." I did not realize that "Runaway Jury" was about a wife widowed by a multiple-murderer with a gun, suing the gun manufacturers. Apparently Mr. Grisham has deservedly earned enough money to where he doesn't need to get out and about and mingle with the rest of us. Or the speed freaks. Or the felonious illegal aliens. Or the car-jackers. Or worry about his home being invaded by masked and armed bandoliero's. He has become, or maybe he always was, a slinky-spined-liberal. Liberals believe in these United States, that firearms may be possessed by only two classes of individuals. One class is governmental agencies comprising of marshals, police, sheriffs, county constables, game wardens, postal inspectors, National Guard Troops, DEA, CIA, FBI, INS, IRS, Secret Service Agents, the five branches of the Armed Services, and of course, themselves, or their personal or corporate private security forces. (My reader's do realize that not too very long ago, an armed guard employed by Madonna, who is currently protected by the Kabbalah, shot and killed an intruder who came onto her property?) The other group that has the Liberal's permission to own firearms, simply because this class of individual will never willingly surrender their, zip-guns, bar guns, automatics, revolvers, machine-pistols, rifles, shotguns and machine guns, are those who have every intention to defy the law and using these weapons visit violence against their fellow American. In the eyes of the Liberals and the DeMedia, the single class that should, at all costs be prevented from owning firearms, is the everyday, law-abiding, honest, tax-paying, hard-working citizen. Oddly this is the same type of citizen (although very much tenderized by our 21st Century conveniences) who fought the Redcoats back in the 18th Century. They still teach that in public schools do they not? Do teachers not educate our children that the transplanted European's of 'The Colonies' were finally exhausted by the capricious remote control rule of the English Crown and that by using firearms, battled with the professional soldiers of the Army of Great Britain? And that these same armed Colonial civilians won the war and founded the American Republic that has so blessed this planet? What the DeMedia and The Liberals cannot comprehend, is why the Founding Father's of this incredible experiment placed only the freedom of speech ahead of the right of the average, law-abiding citizen, to own firearms. Using pistols and muskets to overthrow the oppressive rule of King George III of England during the Revolutionary War, it would be quite a stretch for any sentient being to believe that our Founding Father's would then turn around and grant to their new government the sole right to own and bear arms. I think it is unconscionable that Hollywood has raked in billions of dollars (with the exception of Kill Bill Volume 1 and the more recent The Passion of the Christ ) by moviefying violence that is most often committed with firearms. But yet, these same movie-makers, absolutely abhor the ownership of pistols and rifles by mere law abiding citizens. Individuals who have absolutely no intention of willful criminal violence, but only, in an attempt to protect the lives of their loved ones against violent criminals who may be younger, stronger, swifter and illegally armed, arm themselves. Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

May 10th, 2004:
Russert to Rumsfeld, "You're Fired!"
Wrapping up my wearying seventy-six hour work week Sunday morning, I wasn't sure I could stomach watching the forty-eight minute advertisement for the Democratic Party, also known as Meet the Press, starring former Democratic Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan aid, Tim Russert. But, putting the loyal visitor's to this web site ahead of my own disgust, I managed to witness the entire program. Of course the topic was the horrible, unforgiveable, inhumane abuse of Iraqi prisoner's by their Coalition captors. Of course, I'm being tongue-in-cheek here. Because, any literate individual knows what Iraqi's have done to the prisoner's they have held in the past: rape, sodomize, torture and made them into human-beef-hash by running them and half a bag of potatoes through a wood chipper. In contrast, this abuse incident, simply the teasing of grown men in an attempt to pry information out of, is being given more importance than the fact that Saddam Hussein, a man who murdered with the same aplomb Southpark's Eric Cartman farts, has been dethroned. The "Butcher of Baghdad" no longer holds the scythe of death over the 27 million men, women and children of the nation of Iraq. As other's before me have mentioned, this prisoner abuse is not just about a naked man held on a leash by a female soldier. (A bedtime game I never could get the soon-to-be ex-Mrs. Wonderful to play.) Oh no, this is about apostates (all non-Muslims) flouting dominance over a follower of Islam. And to have a female soldier holding the leash of a hairy, naked Iraqi combatant, is worse than death for an Islamic man. For, in the eyes of Islam, and most certainly that of Muslim men, a woman, even a wife, is held in far less esteem than the presumptive Presidential candidate, John F. Kerry, holds his skiing Secret Service agents in. Do not believe the absolute falsehoods you hear put forth about 'mainline' Islam. Understand, that to an Islamic man, a Muslim female is little more than a favored falafel-flipper and receptacle of spent sperm whose life, under Islamic law, can be poured out by her husband, for virtually any reason he cares to create. Now, as to why any Coalition soldier would take pictures of this prima facie ("on its face") illegal treatment of these captured terrorists, is beyond my comprehension. I'd imagine these soldier's were educated in the mamby pamby, "everywhere is love", public school systems and that rather being taught how Middle Eastern Muslim men relegate their women to a position lower than that which most American's hold a pet store puppy in and instead of allowing them to learn in what absolute and total disdain those who are not strict follower's of Islam are held in, they were most likely spoon-fed a bite-sized line of caramel-coated camel droppings that Persian Gulf Muslim's were simply more akin to drape wearing Methodist's, who, instead worshiped in buildings with pointy tops rather than in steeple peaked churches. Had the soldier's realized just how extremely denigrating their actions were, in particular to the one murderous bastard on the leash, and in general to all Muslim men on this planet would they have still done this? Would they have still done this and taken pictures? Nothing can explain the insanity of taking pictures, unless it was purposely actioned to discredit the Coalition Armed forces, by accidentally leaking these illegal-in-wartime photos to the worldwide left leaning media. Of course, only could our DeMedia, on a jihad to get the blood-hound-faced Kerry elected, completely ignore the thousands of civilians who were no longer dying at the hands of Saddam, to focus on this internal armed services situation. Consider this, what if the information gained by this 'torture' saved one soldier's life? Ten lives? One hundred lives? Would Tim Russert dare ask his guest, the Sainted Senator John "Maverick" McCain if he would have rather been handled in this manner by his Vietnamese captors? Would Mr. Russert query Senator McCain to recount how he and hundreds of other American POW's were beaten and starved at the Hanoi Hilton? No. (And remember too, American POW's during the Vietnam War, were being tortured in an effort to force confessions of non-existent atrocities, not for battlefield information that could save lives.) But Russert, as a card carrying celebrated member of the DeMedia, would certainly dare to ask the Congressional visitor's to his Sunday show if the Secretary of Defense, Donald Rumsfeld, should be asked to resign. Russert was panting as he promoted the firing of the most capable Secretary of Defense this nation has known since World War Two. He wants Rumsfeld to step down, which would, as Senator John Warner pointed out, throw our War on Terror into neutral. A halt in action which would surely encourage terrorists world-wide and could do nothing more than get more innocents and soldiers killed. All over this maltreatment of terrorists who would have not a qualm in the world to kill any one and every single one of us. Russert kept advancing the idea that the United Nations could have done a better job. However when it came to them pulling the trigger on their own ultimatum to Saddam Hussien, these ultra-elitists, seeing their food-for-oil scams facing international exposure and confronting the fact that the millions of dollars Iraq owed their countries for war matériel could go unpaid, voted with their pocketbooks and remained in their mountainside chalets. In any case, the United Nations is packed full of coward countries, whose treasuries are so depleted by their decades of institutionalized socialism (aka: buying votes) that there is no way they could ever mobilize a global, multi-national and potent military force that could chase down, corner and kill these Islamic evil-doers.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

April 16th, 2004:
The APPRENTICE. Who Gives a Shiite?
Thursday evening, while the odd comb-over of The Donald was grabbing a 28 share, your Mr. Wonderful was enduring his second sixteen hour shift of the week. I was risking life and meaty limb behind the fake-leather wrapped steering wheel of the ice-cream-truck-white Chevy S-10 patrol vehicle out at 'The Maryvale of the North'. These effing reality series like The Apprentice, Survivor! and American Idol, have consistently garnered the glazed visual orbs of great numbers of Norté Americano's. I will never understand how my fellow citizens can sit on their flaccid fannies and watch other people live. However, they are not viewing 'real-life', but professionally choreographed, non-scripted scenes that require the participants to stay in the light, stay within the gate of the microphone, cheat out to the camera, refrain from using certain words, dodge around technicians, step over cords, avoid blistering hot bulbs and basically behave in a way they never would in real-real life. Having been on commercial and movie sets, I am acutely aware of how nonsensical it is to believe shows such as 'The Apprentice' reflect anything but a staged representation of real life. But, why would anyone want to sit and watch someone else participating in a Potëmkin Village life? Is it because the watcher's life is nothing more than 13,425 round, warm rabbit turds stacked to an approximate height of two meters? Speaking of real life, Thursday evening, after I stepped out of my patrol vehicle, I encountered a blooming cactus whose white coffee saucer-sized flowers, from over three feet away, smelled as delicious as any clean-room created fragrance peddled over the glass topped counters of Nordstrom's. And again look at how real-life has changed. Your MW, being involved in the private security industry realizes that, except for Iraqi terrorist-kidnapper's, I am looked down on as being totally worthless. However, while governmental police departments use photo radar, photo-speed-radar and photo-red-light-radar as a twenty-four hour means fill their holey treasuries, within the private communities we patrol with radar gun in hand, we use traffic fines to make our neighborhoods safer by changing the behaviour of the ticketed drivers. And yes, just like Sylvester Stallone in Judge Dredd, behind the closed gates of the communities I guard, I too revel in spitting out, "I AM THE LAW!" Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

March 12th, 2004:
Mad Mad House
The Teen Mr. Wonderful III just polished off, four ten-inch diameter flour tortillas, rolled and stuffed with marinated white chicken pieces while concurrently ingesting a foot-sized baked potato slobbered with cheese, bacon and sour cream. His stomach will probably be growling in another seventy-one minutes and at that time will gobble down a Marie Calendar's chicken pot pie. Teenage boys are just incredible in the quantities of food they consume. During supper, I was forced to end my viewing of the DVD movie "Freejack", featuring Mick Jagger, to sit through an atrocious show on the SciFi Channel titled "Mad Mad House". It's yet another rendition of the Survivor! style realty program featuring actors, acting like they aren't actors, acting. It is so insane. If this is considered entertainment, I no longer wonder why "Return of the King" took all of the Oscar's this year. MWIII knows it's all fake, but I wonder how many young people think this stuff bears any relationship whatsoever to reality. Like it isn't all scripted out in advance. I mean, how can you not behave differently while you're wearing a mic and a battery pack and always being admonished to stay in the light? Give me a break. I now know that my fear of millions of people believing in the reality of these 'reality' shows likewise voting Vietnam War Hero/Vietnam War Protestor, John 'Effing' Kerry into office is grounded in reality. This 'reality programming' is absolute garbage. It's no wonder I daily wade and wait through so many commercials that make outrageous claims and in turn make the promoter outrageously wealthy. I'm currently living in 21st Century poverty, because in sales I could not live with the daily lies and purposeful omissions required to earn a living as a salesperson. Regardless, every day I am bombarded with advertisements that make false, unproven, and impossible claims citing unconfirmed clinical studies, but yet reap thousands, tens of thousands and even millions of customers who are so brain-dead that, they order this crap. They make a multi-millionaire of a salesman who can live with his lies. Somewhat happily, your Mr.Wonderful, being one of those whacky Christian's, garners a small comfort from his belief that all accounts will be squared after death.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

February 29th, 2004:
The Passion of the Christ
Skipping an invitation-only audition that might have netted a weeks pay for four hours of standing around and possibly even more high paid commercial work later in the year, your Mr.Wonderful drove directly from work early Wednesday afternoon to get in line at the Harkin's Shea 14 Theaters. I hurried there to cue-up to see The Passion of the Christ on its opening day. Finding no ticket lines, I sat inside, alone, around the corner from the screen it was showing on, memorizing lines for an upcoming foreign movie audition. I believe TPOTC was a pretty good visual rendition of the old Bible story. In addition it had a few everyday scenes from Jesus' non-New Testament recorded life. How sweet it was to see this strong carpenter assemble a 'tall table' and then swing Himself up to sit on it, testing its strength. While other religious messiahs and prophets were aesthetics, the-bored-wealthy, priests or warriors, my Jesus was simple woodwright trained by his woodworking step-father. I yearned for more scenes like that, rather than the virtually endless beatings Jesus endured. (However, it was no more bloody than Saving Private Ryan's first thirty minutes. And being most of the men who died on the beaches of Normandy were the same age as my own father, I was rightfully humbled at each and every one of their sacrifices. The tear spigots opened wide during that violent-film watching episode too, for as Jesus Christ explained, "Greater love has no one than this, that he lay down his life for his friends" John 15:13.) Even though I knew going in how the story ended, I was afraid the Roman's would kill Jesus before they got a chance to crucify him. The nonstop violence inflicted on Jesus made it hard viewing, but even harder viewing when the person on the screen being savagely beaten is the mortal manifestation of the same God you believe created the universes and everything in them. The tears ran down my face the entire two hours and six minutes. I finally gave up wiping the grief away and left my face wet as if my tears were some type of overly applied non-drying makeup. Satan, played by a female actress, was amazing. I have yet to decipher what the Devil was doing milling along with the crowd carrying an infant so ugly and lumpy-faced that it could have only been a precursor to Rosie O'Donnell. (Thank God she is currently enjoying a San Francisco-endorsed "parriage" with another woman. The curse is broken.) The claim of anti-Semitism is hard for anyone to defend with a straight face after having seen the movie, for not a Jew ever touched Christ. The movie sorely needed the subtitles, because even though one could comprehend the gist of what the Latin speaking Roman's were uttering, it was impossible to translate the spoken Aramaic. And a few speaking scenes had no subtitles, leaving me to do some hasty ad hoc translating. While I was not burdened by the enormous guilt that apparently visited the emotions of less realistic Christian's upon leaving the showing, I did feel quite sad, even though, responding to pre-release polls, in an effort to end on an upbeat note, a slapped-on fifteen second scene of the Resurrection ended the movie. An ending trailed by what must have been eight minutes of well-deserved credits. Which gave me time to sit and recover, while the one hundred or so others found their way out. Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

February 24th, 2004:
The Passion and The Temptation
Mr. Wonderful III, never could give me a time when he and one of his concubines would be able to accompany your Mr.Wonderful to see The Passion of the Christ movie. So reluctantly, I reserved a single seat for tomorrow, Wednesday, February 25th at 3:30PM. Why do I mention the exact time, risking that an al Queda member may make an appointment to meet me in the movie parking lot to discuss the Bush Child Tax Credit? Because God tests and tempts His children. A temptation which is promised never to be more than a sinful degenerate and spiritual weakling like myself could turn away. A few of my tens of thousands of reader's and all of my lucky-to-be-MW-sycophants not only are aware that I am a humble internet scribe and blogger, but also a master thespian. Acting is where my heart is. Acting is where I feel my future lays. Of course, being an actor, like so many actor's, I am whacked and racked and tormented in ways most not-so-emotional people couldn't even imagine. Sadly, many of my torments are imagined or exaggerated or both. I say all that as a preface as to why I have not achieved greater success. Not as an excuse or a reason, simply a preface. So what appears in my "In Box" last night? An individually addressed email from a casting director who had previously used me in a television commercial. (And similar to Mel Gibson in "The Passion of the Christ", one scene featured only my hand. However, in this case, it was seen inserting a 'Frequent Player's Card' into casino slot machine. And it took more than a few takes to stop my hand from shaking like John F. Kerry at a Heinz Catsup family reunion.) This particular casting director was so happy with my work that she'd like me to audition again. "Audition" because I've lost so much weight that my ruggedly handsome face has become even more handsome <grin>. So when is the one and only audition for the $480 gig? Right when I would either be at work or in line to see The Passion of the Christ. I sorely need the $480. I sorely need the additional professional, paid experience. However I also sorely need to experience this movie at the appointed day and time as explained in my previous Theophany, The Passion & Red Vines column.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

February 17th, 2004:
Theophany, The Passion & Red Vines
Due to an accidentally self-administered overdose of white-worm-enhanced mescal, and the fact that I was deprived of my afternoon nap, I missed Mel Gibson being interviewed about The Passion of the Christ by Dianne Sawyer on Monday night. This Tuesday pre-dawn AM, prior to tuning into The Nearly Famous Barry Young Show on KFYI-AM, while listening to K-LOVE Christian FM radio and upon hearing Mr. Gibson's excerpted comments from the interview, tears started flowing. Why? Who knows? I'm not THAT religious. Am I? Although without hesitation I admit that the only reason I am alive today, is because of two theophanies spaced thirty-six years apart. A pair of manifestations, during the midst of spirit-rending episodes (where Satan was tearing my soul like a bodybuilder carefully rips a phone book in half) in which I believe that God Himself stepped into my life. Once to comfort me and once to deliver me, while still squirming in this corporeal cocoon, to the vast and velvet-dark eternal Hell the damned must endure. ("Hell", which is not a galaxy-sized Tony Robbin's-like glowing, ember-filled pit, but simple separation from the Creator. Separation from everyone you ever loved. Forever.) Theophanies can be explained away, as neurologists on the recent Discovery Channel special did for Saint Paul's meeting with Jesus on the road to Damascus. They managed this by exposing these believed appearances of Diety meeting Man as simply undiagnosed mini-strokes of the human brain. (What a relief for Bill Clinton, Michael Jackson, all members of the Political Left and Saddam Hussien that there is no God. No final judgment.) Due to my celebrity status (I am after all, a legend in my own mind) I rarely go out to sit in one spot, in the dark, for ninety minutes or more. That is, since they closed down Scottsdale's risqué Portofino Theater in the 1970s. However, I must suffer this confinement in order to watch a movie such as "The Passion" on day one of its release. Although I could contact Mel for a private viewing, the reasons for your Mr.Wonderful to delve into the public arena, while being entwined by red vines, buried in grease covered popcorn, slurping Diet Coke and suffering an empty wallet, are to not only to experience this remarkable film, but to do my small part to ratchet up the "opening-day" take. The "take", i.e., dollars. Dollars which is one of the few things that counts in Hollywood. (That and sexual favors, else how would Halle Barry ever have a chance in the aforementioned Hell of getting cast again after her dreadful performance in "Die Another Day?") Know that many of the claims of anti-Semitism flung against this production have certainly come from the Hollywood Hills simply because the American Movie Industry is almost entirely run by Jews. And while Christ, Christians and our religion derived sensibilities can be spat and urinated upon, no one may dare do anything which casts Jews as less than God's holy, chosen and pure people. By way of explanation, anyone who believes that Jesus was "killed by the Jews" doesn't comprehend the prime tenant of Christianity, and, in my one sentence simplification, that is: from the beginning of time, that Jesus Christ, was doomed to suffer and die on a Roman cross. And that is what this movie is entirely about, the final one-half day of our Saviour's life on planet Earth.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

February 3rd, 2004:
Super Bowl Slut
I tune into the Super Bowl to watch the first run of the commercials I'll be seeing for the next many months. I understood that the famous 1984-invoking, Apple Computer ad was to enjoy a rare showing this year, albeit, in an updated version. Sadly, I found many of the commercials not worth watching any more than cable's: ". . . but wait! There's more . . . " $19.95-plus-shipping-and-handling, commercials. However, I did enjoy the upbeat and cute jackass / Clydesdale Budweiser commercial and caught myself laughing involuntarily at the farting horse skit. However, the remainder of the multi-million dollar promotions were either bland or nonsensical. I was washing and drying clothes during the "Half-Time Show", so I missed most of it. During my occasional glances at the television screen (since apartment life allows my utility room to be one stride from my entertainment center) nothing interested me enough to halt my washing, whitening and folding. As a matter of fact, I remembered loudly announcing to no one, since my son's bedroom door was latched, locked and double-bolted, that if I was ever invited to perform at a Super Bowl Half-Time I would certainly decline. I just couldn't see rehearsing my fanny off for six weeks for maybe six seconds of airtime. Having missed the Nubian nipple nudity of Ms. Jackson, I'm forced to rely on what I've heard since and the two photos over on the Drudge Report link sight. Closely studying the photo, a not unpleasant task, I immediately noted that the uninspired Janet Jackson, had an uncomfortable-looking flaming sun style metal shield covering her ample areola with her pencil-eraser-sized nipple erupting out of a sunspot in its center. A nipple that had been horizontally pierced by an attachment of the metal shield. Ouch. And as KFYI talk-jock Barry Young noted on Monday morning, Janet would not be sporting such a barbarous boob bangle as that, unless she had planned beforehand to expose her surgically-enhanced love pillow. CBS claims no prior knowledge of the nudity. All concerned believe the flabbergasted and disgusted officials of the NFL certainly had no advance information. So, what we have here, is an incredibly stupid move by either the MTV employed producer or a couple of pallid performer's posing for more publicity. I'm not sure who is to blame. But in a era when Internet user's open their email and are greeted by screen-wide color photos of Apache amputee midgets having group sex with shaved-bare, albino, Himalyan Yeti's, the act of briefly viewing the vanilla-etched mammary of a steroid and silicone improved female, makes no sense versus the professional risk involved and is about as shocking as discovering Michael Jackson bumps the behinds of little boys.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

January 27th, 2004:
Atkins' After an Annum
In a very few days, your Mr.Wonderful will have been almost-adhering to the currently popular Atkins' Diet regimen for one full year. As usual, your MW was far ahead of the curve, but my millions, no, billions of readers, would expect nothing less. As I've stated before, a weight-loss diet without regular anaerobic and aerobic workouts, is alone, by itself, an exercise in self-flagellation. Over the past eleven months I have shed fifty-two pounds (a 20% drop in total bodyweight) and completely changed my facial appearance and chic Ross and T.J.Maxx furnished wardrobe. I realize the following requires a stretch, but, with as handsome as I was prior to losing over three stone (a 'stone' equals 14 U.S. pounds) I have become even better looking 'post-Atkins'. A fair and fine visage, which my new headshot amply attests to. However, like my compa Rusty Limbaugh instructs, the key to maintaining any weight loss is a lifetime of self control, smaller portions and balanced eating. Unlike Rusty, I absolutely would insist on a minimum of two hours and forty-five minutes of combined muscle-building, biking, jogging or treadmill toil three times each week. Amateur pursuits, such as racketball, basketball and most certainly tennis, don't count as aerobic exercise. Years ago, when I employed a personal trainer (who had been Mr. Europe for a pair of years and also served as the translator for the then unknown Arnold Schwarzenegger) I always marveled at the tiny, tiny portions of food he brought from home to consume during his twelve hour work day. And likewise, those of us bearing the genetically heavy, but massively strong European torsos, and still desiring to maintain a somewhat sleek physique, are sentenced to a lifetime daily dogma of designed movement and consuming far less food than what we'd really like to.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

January 24th, 2004:
MW Goes Wild at Book Sale
Today was the first of year 2004 Friend's of the Phoenix Public Library book sale. From 9AM until 2PM one could purchase hardback books for a dollar and paperbacks for 50 cents with the awful romantic category titles selling for a mere 25 cents per each. I quickly filled up one Baker & Taylor provided book box and then another, only slightly more slowly. I finally dared look at my Citzen Eco-Drive solar powered wrist watch and discovered I had been there two and one-half hours and was most likely missing a semi-scheduled Saturday lunch with my sometime's patron, the smiling Mr. G, at the wildly popular Elephant Bar Restaurant on Mayo Boulevard. (Drink, eat, nibble a delicious 900 calorie desert, slurp a steaming Half & Half-lightened cup of coffee while sipping a hand-warmed goblet of Grand Marnier and collapse while suffering a heart attack. It's okay, the Mayo is only two minutes away. Note that, in this particular case, you wouldn't "hold the Mayo." <grin>.) Gawd I love books. I love reading. I loving adding to my already vast knowledge base. Many of the books I was tossing into my hand-carried carton (soon growing as heavy as a forty-four pound bag of dog food) this misty morning were for my distant wife and two of my three children. The other son is a fireman and you know what they do in Ray Bradbury's world! At 50 cents a book I could buy seven or eight titles for less than the normal cost of one shiny new paperback at my favorite retail bookseller. Simply incredible. Of course these used books aren't pristine, but the print inside remains readable. Oddly enough, I did pick up four brand-new, untouched, fresh-off-the-press titles which would have cost almost thirty dollars at Barnes & Noble, for only two bucks today. The books I bought for my wife were all literary-type hardbacks to be shelved in her personal library in Texas. For the kids, I plucked mystery, murder, mayhem and science fiction titles off the shelves. Every one a paperback. For myself, I grabbed some classic Gore Vidal hardbacks: "Washington, D.C.", "Burr"' and "The Golden Age". Even though Mr. Vidal is a rampant, monogamous-homo-boy, who will never be troubled with constipation, he is one hell of a writer. Just in case, I microwave for forty-five seconds all his books before I, so to speak, crack them open. While squeezing by the occasional individual who smelled as if their reading room was most likely a park bench or the floor of some urine blotched public restroom (or they might have been from France) I picked up a few play script books (the types you are handed when you are finally cast) while simultaneously noticing that their selection had dwindled to less than one hundred, versus entire aisles of hundreds if not thousands in year 2003. I also harvested a stack of "Cliffs Notes" for all the noteworthy books I don't care to read in their entirety prior to my perishing from Alzheimer's disease in 2034. I was imagining, that like the ancient Egyptian Pharaohs, I might be buried with my earthly possessions. Only in my case it will be the books that crowd my library shelves that I hadn't yet read. I've got to believe that by reading these hundreds of books the way I think and process information has forever changed and also fortified the unshakeably optimistic attitude I carefully conceal inside. I believe that's one reason the 'ignorant' and the 'unread masses' are so angry and sad and depressed and willing to believe whatever the current crop of Democratic Presidential candidates spew out. Those who do not read are simply not aware of the wondrous world they occupy. A wondrous world which cannot possibly be savored in 15 second CNN newsbites. It disturbs me greatly that anyone would purchase and actually read anything the scrappy-bearded, miserable, multi-millionaire, Michael Moore has ever written. When I arrived at the apartment (after fearing I would not be able to pay the rent with all the money I spent buying books . . . $60.54) I discovered that three shipments of Barnes & Noble provided books were waiting in the back room of the manager's office. Shortly, I had seven store-new hardbacks laid out on the coffee table. Not one costing more than $4.98. And shipping was free.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

January 15th, 2004:
AOL-Time Warner, Year Three
(Update: The January 28th, 2004 W.S.J. reports that Time Warner took a $45,500,000,000 charge to write down the value of AOL.) During the Internet boom of the last century, your Mr.Wonderful, while scanning The Wall Street Journal, occasionally was seen to be shaking his head so violently left to right, right to left that he sometimes hurt his neck. What did I read in The Journal that could cause me to risk physical injury? Stock valuations. The incredibly overpriced share prices on any stock even remotely connected with the Internet. On a different day, I read in The Journal the writings of some forgotten columnist (probably paid more in one month than I now earn in a year) who put forth the incredible hypothesis that the market had to arrive at a new method of estimating share prices that was not contingent on the company ever actually earning a profit! Now, and then, your Mr.Wonderful, possessing merely a 1960s era high school diploma and some college classes, was and still is considered to be a dolt. But even this dolt could tell that the aforementioned columnist had been taken in by the soon-to-burst Internet stock price bubble. Back in October of 2001 I wrote about the failed Internet grocer Webvan. However, almost two years earlier, over at Infoworld in November of 1999, Bob Metcalfe, in his From the Ether column, cited statistics that while Internet IPO's (Initial Public Offerings i.e., when the company first sells shares to the public) over the period of 1995 to 1999 inclusive, had a cumulative value of $410,000,000,000 ($410 billion) the cumulative profit of these same companies was $3,000,000,000 ($3 billion) a sliver thin 7/10ths of one-percent Return on Investment. And considering one could lose every single dollar invested in these Internet entwined companies (and many thousands did) the return is laughable. In the January 2004 Vanity Fair, Nina Munk, in an excerpt from her new book, Fools Rush In, details the corporate and individual victims of the most spectacular Internet-bubble merger of all times. The take-over of Time Warner by AOL. To be fair to all concerned you certainly should read the article or purchase the book. Even as I heard of the proposed merger four years ago, I simply could not understand why Time Warner would do this. After reading Ms. Munk's article I learned that also many, hell most, Time Warner executives could not understand the 'why of it' either. Having used AOL as a provider back in my Diaper-days on the Internet, I knew them not to respond to e-mails, answer their phones and to ignore my repeated requests to stop charging my debit card long after I had dropped AOL. I considered AOL as the prime example of a vastly over-priced company that was in the Internet business. I considered Time-Warner as an old line company that had some actual hard assets and contracts to back up its stock valuation. One of Time Warner employees, who had faced AOL personnel in Washington, DC regulatory battles said, "I knew the AOL people well . . . They were slippery and very aggressive. These were not people of quality -- not in my mind. . ." Gerald Levin who was paid millions to make correct decisions, then the top dog at Time Warner, because he imagined Time Warner being left behind in the Internet age, had the grand idea to merge with AOL. To immediately merge with AOL long before Time Warner's accountants could even begin to investigate AOL's claimed multi-million subscriber's, which provided the vast majority of the corporation's cashflow. At the last moment Mr. Levin could have called it off. I have a feeling, and it hurts me to admit this, but if Gerald was a woman (who tend not to shelter egos the size of The Great Pyramid) he would have called it off. Called it off and saved thousand of employees their jobs and saved Time Warner investors billions of since lost dollars. But, he did not call it off. He's since left his wife, given up his post at, as of October 16, 2003, Time Warner, taken his hundreds of millions of dollars and moved to always sunny California. In his megalomanical way, I'm sure he doesn't even consider the vast mistake he made and that he was almost entirely the cause of it. I'm sure some other corporation will be happier than Bill Clinton at a Fat Lady's Brothel to sign up Mr. Levin as President for $10 million an annum. AOL is currently being investigated, among other things, for counting as paying customer's, all the user's who have merely signed up for their free 90 day trial. The AOL-Time Warner's stock price has dropped 70% since January of 2001. In January of 2003, Steve Case, founder of AOL, was run out of town pocketing his ill gained hundreds of millions of dollars.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

January 1st, 2004:
Oh Four: Lose Weight, Get out of Debt
I learned that the pair of the most popular New Year Resolution's are: 1) "Get out of debt" and 2) "To lose weight". Except for a residential mortgage, that I don't make the monthly payment on, I have zero debt. As far as losing weight, I lost fifty-two pounds since February of 2003. 202 pounds if you consider the loss of my wife, who went in search of the mirage-like greener and happier pastures. Hence, the aforementioned, "home mortgage I don't make the monthly payment on" statement. Notwithstanding, other than those two fairly easy accomplishments, I'm certain that at 11:59:59 on December 31st, 2003, I closed the book on the very worst year of my life. (And the cover was slapped shut in the midst of a NyQuil fueled nightmare that first had me leaning over a dirt ledge, feeling it crumble and your Mr.Wonderful falling into a den of hibernating rattlesnakes. And later, saw me swept 30,000 feet into the blue, blue, wispy white clouded Arizona sky while pedalling my mountain bike . . . without a parachute). Yes, "the worst year", even when compared to the year I lost my gold-mine of a business - I'd be grossing a minimum of $24,000 a month in 2003 if I was still panning its riches. "The worst year" compared to the consecutive years in which I lost my father and then my mother. Of course, being blessed with the depressed Finish genes of my mother and the "You'll never be good enough" memory wrinkles ironed into my gray matter by my desperately-driven-lived-through-the-Depression German father, I'm sentenced to living a lifetime of ceiling-height low black clouds which only occasionally does the sun stab a moment of golden happiness through. Pewter gray darkness which the inverted, multi-colored smile of a rainbow is sometimes glimpsed. But enough of my "rivers of Babylon" story. Thirty-one months ago, in order to continue to fulfill my 1989 idiotic prayer to be made humble, Jehovah-God, not so gently placed me in the midst of some of the most affluent families on the planet. As a lowly servant. A 'gate host'. A,  "cough, cough, mumble, mumble,"  (grimaced through the back of my bitten fist)  "a security guard."  In the meanwhile, I have learned that, with no more doubt than I have that man landed on the moon, that happiness and contentment does not always follow fame, fortune and fat tubs of cash. If I had to intuit (intelligent people, such as your Mr.Wonderful, don't guess, they 'intuit'). As I was saying, if I had to intuit about the Beau Monde I serve, who are happy inhabiting their $2,000,000 Mark Sever designed mansions, engineered to melt into the contours of the Arizona desert that lays next to the carpet plush green of a Par 5 fairway. And they are, this morning, smiling as they drive their Escalade ESV, E430, 745il or Lincoln Towncar past my gates, were, much earlier in their lives, just as happy in their $599 a month apartment hoping their thrashed Escort, Sentra or Cavalier would merely start. I believe Abe Lincoln said that  "A man is just about as happy as he's made his mind up to be."  As far as generating wealth, I've discovered a common tool among these affluent individuals whose use will allow you to forgo purchasing dozens of self-help books (I've read seventy-five myself) and squads of "how-to" seminars and also save you scads of money. And that tool is, the pedestrian "Daily To Do List." Of course, for 2004, you will first decide on your goals (and please don't consult with those sad pie-holes who sermonize to you that  ". . . Why that . . . it, can't be done! Certainly not by you."  ) and after writing them down and attaching dates to them, then work backward to what you must do each Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, Friday and Saturday to move you one more day closer to achieving your goals. (Along the way, your goals may change and that is very, very okay too. It is YOUR life.) Imagine, in year 2004, if you merely put in fifteen minutes per attempt, knowing there are very few obstacles between you and your wants and dreams that cannot be overcome by this scheduled six-day-a-week, week after week trampling; of what multi-millionaire businessman, Leif Johnson told me  ". . . small steps. I knew I wasn't doing much, but I knew I was out there every day just making small steps."   A dream. A dream, my friends. A Dream and God's undeserved grace, that's what keeps your Mr. Wonderful alive, kicking and typing.
Mr.Wonderful Talks Current Events @ www.mrwonderful.org

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