Month: December 2025

ShatnerKhan X

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Today I spoke to my fellow initiates in Advanced Shatneriana and it was decided that ShatnerKhan X will take place on January 17th at the Compound in the heart of Dunwich.  Now you may ask is this really the tenth ShatnerKhan.  Well, I tried to look back at the records and discovered that in November of 2024 I mentioned ShatnerKhan VIII.  But before that the highest number I could find was III.  So, something seems wrong.  I went farther back and found that ShatnerKhan I occurred on November 1st 2019.

That was over a year after my initial decision to celebrate all things Shatner in my groundbreaking post. “William Shatner a Demigod of Bad Acting.”  It’s required reading at Starfleet Academy.

The actual agenda is not as structured as in ShatnerKhans past.  Will we watch the two Twilight Zone episodes?  Will we review the various Star Trek episodes where Kirk performs his signature shoulder roll?  Will we rate the various alien women he groped?  Will we analyze his interactions with Lieutenant Sulu for any telltale animosity?  Will we do a survey to decide in which episode Kirk looks fattest?  The only thing I’m certain is we will play “Rocket Man.”  After all it’s a short performance and it combines all of Shatner’s signature tics in one package.  It has the weird pauses, the meaningless syllable stress changes in dialog and his truly embarrassing facial expressions trying to convey inappropriate emotions.  It is a masterclass in bad acting with bad singing thrown into the bargain for free.

And it is important to have a ShatnerKhan.  As we all know Bill Shatner was born in 1931.  He will be ninety-five in 2026 if he makes it to March 22nd.  And honestly, he’s starting to look a little raggedy.  So now is definitely a good time to review his many achievements and mock him relentlessly.

In addition, it’s also an excuse to eat extremely fattening foods and sit around and shoot the breeze with my old friends.  We’re not getting any younger either and it’s time to catch up on what’s gone on over the last year or two.  There are milestones and family stuff and plans to make for the upcoming year and now is the best time before we all get swamped with work and other commitments.

So it is with a light heart that I announce this incredible event.  Will we wear the Shatner masks from the “Halloween” movies (probably not, they’re really uncomfortable and would stop us from continuously eating)?  Will we watch any of the Star Trek movies like parts of the Wrath of Khan with the famous “Khaaaaaaaaaaaaan!!!!!! Moment (probably not, too much work to tee up)?  Will we eat and drink way too much food and dessert?  There I can answer categorically and emphatically Yes!!!  Of course, there is the danger of bad weather upending our plans and causing a cancellation.  This is after all Dunwich, a cursed land with endless evil bleeding into everything including the weather.  But we are intrepid individuals and fear no evil.  So SHATNERKHAN X !!!!!!!

Now You See it, Now You Don’t

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After any significant snowfall we now experience an obligatory freezing rain follow-up.  So, I wake up this morning to both driveways essentially skating rinks.  For fun I took a shovel as a rudder to keep my balance and stepped onto the steep top of the lower driveway and allowed gravity to propel me forward.  It was smooth as glass and by the time I got to the bottom, I was moving pretty fast.  So, I leaned over and headed for a snow bank.

I spent about two hours sanding the top driveway (the bottom one was hopeless) and then went out to buy another 360 pounds of sand for the future.  Of course, after lunch it started raining hard and the 45–50-degree temperature melted most of the ice on both driveways.  Well, what can you do?  Basically, I’m damned if I do and damned if I don’t so, “Yay New England!”

So that put the kibosh on my plan to get finished with the marketing chores I need to perform for the book launch.  But I’ll get going soon.

I read some more news items on-line.  This is a seriously mixed-up world both domestically and internationally.  But I remain optimistic that the Trump administration can make a substantial difference in the lives of Americans if he keeps his eyes on the factors that are limiting the ability of young people to marry and have children.  If he finds ways to address this; some kind of Marshall Plan for this country I think he can get the Zoomers solidly in his camp.

And I’m not saying that will be easy.  Our economy is seriously distorted by the off-shoring of manufacturing.  But Trump has a lot of levers he can push to force business to do his bidding.  And I think he should use every last one of them to restore the middle-class.  Everyone since Aristotle has known that only countries with a large thriving middle-class are worth living in.  I think he should build houses and pay women to stay home and have kids.  If enough incentives are offered, I think it would change the direction of our demographic collapse and at the same time make this a much more human and interesting place.

Well, we’ll have to see if Donald is up to the challenge of “making America great again.”  And without a doubt I’m rooting for him.  I hope he doesn’t get too wrapped up with his Venezuela project or spend too much time refereeing the Ukrainians and Russians.  I’m satisfied with leaving the Europeans to muddle through that disaster on their own.  There’s nothing but death and misery happening there.

So, as we approach the New Year, I’m still mostly optimistic about 2026.  I think the economy is starting to show signs of life and that could make a big difference for the mid-year elections.  If by some stroke of luck, we hold onto the House and Senate it’s possible Trump will talk the Senate into abolishing the filibuster and just pass a bunch of laws that will make this country normal again (like having a balanced budget!).

Well, that’s enough for now.

Why Can’t We All Just Get Along?

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The week between Christmas and New Years is a sort of no-man’s land.  Everyone is recovering from the holiday and using it as a chance to catch their breath and look ahead to the next year.  And that goes for me too.  January is the launch of my book and I will be very busy trying to perform the marketing functions that I’ve been told are important for the success of the book launch.  So, on Monday I’ll be reading all of the information I’ve been sent and trying to fulfill all of these tasks correctly.

Now honestly, I don’t know how much relevance they’ll have for the success of the book but I’m giving it a shot so off I go.  I’m both excited and skeptical about the prospects of this launch being successful.  I don’t have a large digital footprint and I don’t see how enough people will hear about this book to make it a big splash.  And so, if it is a dud and only sells a few copies, I’ll chalk it up to experience and move on to other ways to amuse myself.  But if it’s a huge success I’ll claim that I knew from the beginning that I was a literary giant just waiting for the world to beat a path to my door and that from now on I’ll wear designer clothes and expensive sunglasses wherever I go.  Hmmm.

I’ve been paying some attention to what the pundits are saying about how the political situation will play out in 2026.  The Left is talking trash about anything and everything they can.  A friend asked me about the brouhaha that went on at the Turning Point USA (TPUSA) gathering recently where Ben Shapiro and Mark Levin demanded that Tucker Carlson and some other pundits apologize for talking to Nick Fuentes.  For those who don’t know him, Nick Fuentes is a young dissident who is decidedly anti-Semitic and anti-Israel.  Carlson interviewed him much as he interviews many controversial figures.

My take on all this is I don’t think we need any more gatekeepers demanding people get cancelled because they have unpopular opinions.  Nick Fuentes and Ben Shapiro will never be able to sit down and discuss their differences.  So what?  Even if Fuentes is the devil himself, Tucker Carlson should be able to interview him without having to apologize and take some kind of loyalty pledge.  And I think Shapiro and his colleagues at the Daily Wire provide lots of insightful and entertaining content that I consume.  But acting as censors for other people on the Right is not one of their appointed offices.  After all, watching the Left act as woke judges and juries over everyone’s behavior and cancelling those they didn’t “approve of” was one of the things that got Donald Trump re-elected.  Freedom of speech is only important when it’s speech that someone else is trying to censor.  So regardless of whatever stupid things Nick Fuentes believes or even says, I’m not demanding anyone be cast out of the vast right-wing conspiracy just for interviewing him.