Just Say No Way

Just Say No Way is going BELLY UP

Jonathan Lowe — Sun, 10 Apr 2011 19:54:52 +0000

Okay, you win. I quit. Just Say No Way (which I gave up as a .com, only to have it taken over by aliens) is now going belly up as a blogsite too. Why? you ask. Because you don’t ask. Or comment. Or care. A monumental failure on par with The Federal Reserve or the Bush Administration, this blog is read by exactly no one. (Well, not no one. I’m reading it now, and asking “Why???” As in “why bother.”) In short, (which is the way everyone reads or watches anything these days) everyone LOVES television. (Well, again, not everyone… me and God, for instance.) Truth is, people watch more TV in American than anyone on Earth. Millions of fat latch key kids addicted to soda are watching it right now. Millions of bored viewers get their entire philosophy of life, values, and perverse purchasing habits by watching porky televangelists with Frankenstein hair, (or the author of The Secret on Oprah, who advises that if only you visualize being as wealthy as a gangster rapper, you too can don gold chains heavy enough to anchor a battleship). Meanwhile, people who might actually follow this blog can’t afford a computer (or a house), including former Enron employees now collecting beer cans thrown out the window by passing Jerry Springer fans. Incidentally, my mother is probably watching from heaven too, but she’s also probably shaking her head. If only I’d gone to work for Best Buy, selling HDTVs, I could have worked my way up to store manager by now. Or I could have been a cable guy, with a zillion buddies and a beautiful wife, having met them all while installing premium packages of 24/7 wall-to-wall sports. Each of those friends could have been mined for $100 in cash by getting them to sign up with Direct TV, too. (When you see your friends’ faces, don’t you immediately think of Benjamin Franklin?) As it is, mom died without grandkids. No one wanted to marry a struggling writer riding a bicycle to his pseudo-wage job. (Now that I have a new car, and am not struggling anymore–after 20 years of writing–I’m “too old.”) Sorry, mom.

To make a painful story ecstatically shorter, let me say that should you ever be approached by a drunken, down-and-out former Lehman employee (who got sideswiped by a dump truck, like everyone else), drop some pre-2000 pennies into his tin cup, will you? Because that is the only American currency which will be worth anything in a few years…something those newscasters on TV are secretly hoarding right now, even as they tell you to tune into American Idol and Dancing With the Stars. (Oh, and if you have any comments, please leave them here.)

Filed under: Adios Tagged: american idol, best buy, blogs, bush, cable tv, dancing with the stars, direct tv, enron, federal reserve, just say no way, Oprah, television, the secret, tv, wordpress

PROOF of Aliens & Demons

Jonathan Lowe — Fri, 08 Apr 2011 18:42:53 +0000

Okay, you asked for IT. Warning: nightmares will ensue by clicking that link. (Everyone has nightmares, right?) This is really all we care about, after watching the boob tube too much. Pop culture is not just rock and rap, but bigfoot, aliens, demons. Things that really matter don’t generate much interest. Take, for instance, my new novel. The majors didn’t want to read it. No vampires or serial killers involved. “Sounds like meaningless new age bunk,” one editor said. None of them bothered to request the manuscript for a read. So it’s small press, for now. I can live with that. I understand the pop culture mindset, with its low attention span and insistence on special effects (+ sex and violence.) It’s the way we’ve been conditioned, after all, by television’s rapid fire images and relentless race for “what’s next.” The thing is, “what’s next” is right in front of you, completely ignored. It’s called the present moment. It’s real. The future and the past are not real. They are only mind projections in your head. They never were, in one sense, because when those moments existed (or when they will exist), they will still be the present. So what’s the rush? Why the hurry? What are you looking for? The insanity of our culture requires that to get noticed, you have to scream or be different. Well, I’m not screaming here, but I am being different (ie. original). And I also realize that people have to be entertained. If there’s a message, it doesn’t come as a bludgeon or hammer, (as is required in blogs which must make provocative statements as modus operandi, adding lists like “the 10 Greatest” or “the Five Best…” fill in the blank. Most of the people making these lists, though, haven’t seen or read enough of what they’re talking about for their lists to be meaningful.) Bottom line: if you don’t try something new, you’ll never know whether you like it or not. Which is why I steer clear of most pop culture, when possible…to see what else is out there, beyond the boob tube. Things that actually have meaning, and which television dismisses (as do most editors, whose paychecks come indirectly from Coca Cola or McDonalds.) McNovel, with its serial killers and vampires, (along with Bigfoot videos, and 50 Cent’s latest ads for Coke), well, they just don’t interest me. I don’t drink Coke or go to McDonalds (or own a TV, for that matter…and no, I don’t play with crystals, either). I even eat meat (just not grain fed.) But enough confessions regarding that massive (and alien) abduction known as your wide screen HDTV. What about you?

Filed under: Alien Abduction Tagged: 50 cent, advertising, alien abductions, bigfoot, buddhism, Coke, demons, dubai, ebooks, Eckhart Tolle, exorcism, ipad 2, kindle 3, McDonalds, new age, pop culture, publishing, suspense novels, television, Tucson, tv guide, vampires

The Future…Laugh So You Won’t Cry

Jonathan Lowe — Thu, 07 Apr 2011 04:29:56 +0000

It’s hard to say what will happen, but certainly it won’t be what we think it will. They are already curtailing Medicare (although not doing much about fraud), and raising Social Security age again is probably next (but where’s means testing?) Massive cutbacks in military spending are needed, too, and they’ll probably cut more school programs, raise taxes, freeze pay raises (except for the top officials who vote on these things). They’ve already reduced any interest old people get on their retirement savings to near zero. But of course that won’t be enough, either. Inflation will continue to inch upward, and more people will be out of work as a result (because employers can’t compete without cutting somewhere.) And in the end, the Fed will start printing money in earnest in order to pay its debts and interest on that debt (even as foreign investors buy our industries and national landmarks), which means hyperinflation will then kick in. Which, in turn, will put more people out of work. Kinda like we’re all circling the drain. The black hole. And why? Why will all this happen, if it does as just described (and which many economists predict)? Because a bunch of greedy bankers bought our politicians, and got them to back the TRILLIONS they gambled and lost. (Actually, the politicians didn’t gamble anything, not even their careers….they got YOU to pick up the tab, and to continue to vote for them as they protect themselves from all risk via pensions and kickbacks.) Okay. So, you ready to laugh? Beats crying about it. Since we won’t turn off the boob tube and actually do anything about it. Like vote for term limits, and demand the change that Obama never brought (only promised).

Click on link below:

14980.mp3

Filed under: Time for a Laugh Tagged: debt ceiling, future, inflation, jobs, medicare, national debt, obama, recession, scandals, social security, term limits, unemployment

Most Important Movie of the Century (so far)

Jonathan Lowe — Wed, 06 Apr 2011 01:18:48 +0000

Most important movie, so far, in this Century. Any guess? Follow the money. I don’t mean box office receipts, either. I mean the REAL money. Not millions, or even billions, but TRILLIONS. Thousands of American lives were lost in dead end wars because these guys played their games, too. While we watched American Idol and Dancing With the Stars, they were behind the scenes, striking deals. Laughing at you and me. Getting filthy rich at your expense. You don’t really know it, yet, either. The really bad times haven’t yet arrived. But you will, and soon. Just this week the Chinese bought American mining interests. The Japanese purchased other American assets. Gold is at an all time high. Why? Watch INSIDE JOB and you’ll see why this movie is called “a masterpiece…scarier than anything Wes Craven or John Carpenter have ever made.”

Filed under: Inside Job Tagged: american idol, banking scandals, bear stearns, dancing with the stars, documentaries, gold, goldman sachs, house of cards, inflation, inside job, jim marrs, john carpenter, joseph stiglitz, lehman, movie trailers, movies, recession, tower review, wall street greed, yen, yuan

Brad Pitt at age 21

Jonathan Lowe — Mon, 04 Apr 2011 16:40:44 +0000

The video above is from the horror series Tales from the Crypt. Brad ends up dead at the end of the episode, crashed into a bulldozer the cop placed in his lane of the road where they drag race. (He has blackmailed the cop to race him, knowing something about the cop he wants to keep secret.) Of course the real horror, as you’ll see from the rest of this admittedly very strange video, is TV itself…watch too much of it and your life is a wreck. I wish I could have all those endless hours back that I wasted watching junk food ads and sitcoms and game shows…to say nothing of televangelists asking you to “sow a seed” (so they can buy a multi-million dollar home like Ken Copeland or Joel Osteen). Too bad we can’t go back and live those years over!

The video below is book trailer for my new novel, set in Tucson and also featuring the architecture of Dubai. It expresses the rather “novel” concept that one shouldn’t live in the past, or exclusively for the future. A lesson I’ve learned the hard way. Oh, and you can rest assured that there’s a greedy televangelist and bailed out banking CEO in the plot!

Filed under: Tales from the Crypt Tagged: architecture, arizona daily star, Brad Pitt, dead zone, ebooks, joel osteen, just say no way, Kenneth Copeland, kindle 3, kindle books, lingerie league, prosperity gospel, samuel l. jackson, tales from the crypt, television, viral video, wall street, youtube