Saturday
Oooh. This is exciting. Last night I was out at our home in Malibu, the working man’s part of Malibu, not the billionaires’ part of Malibu. My only companion was my lover dog, Julie. I was enjoying the day immensely. The sky was cloudless. There was on onshore breeze blowing, carrying slightly moist, clean air. The air in my part of Malibu is literally cleaner than the air in Sandpoint. It is pristine air.

A gardener came to visit to be shown what needed to be done for ‘brush clearance” to conform to fire department regulations. It is a lot of work since I have a home that is basically in the midst of a forest. Then a handyman came to be told about repairing some cracks in the driveway. He was a smart fellow who used to work at the Shoreham Towers and now partly works for my wife and me.

He was wildly impressed with our home, or so he said. I suspect it was politics because our home, while pleasant, is a shack by Malibu standards.

But how amazingly smart of him to be so complimentary. He made me like him and want him to do more work on our home. He even noticed and praised our antique claw bathtub. That’s a smart handyman.

Anyway, I gardened a bit, and then our messengerette, H., came out to bring me something. I offered to make her a hamburger for dinner. She told me she would never eat a hamburger and seemed upset that I had suggested it. I offered to make her a steak. She accepted, provided that it must be well done. “I can’t see any blood on the plate,” she said.

OK.

 I am endlessly reminded of all kinds of other food pretensions. I can always spot a dope when he or she makes a big deal out of “organics” or “locally sourced” or “sustainably farmed” foods . Look, the food at the Safeway is plenty good enough. The whole organics and locally sourced garbage is a fraud made up to allow people to feel special and superior. Likewise ‘no blood on the plate…” Phariseeism.

Maybe I’m wrong about that part. Some smart people have told me they don’t like blood on the plate.… But they were all big babies. Again, maybe I am wrong about that blood on the plate thing. I am often wrong.

H. left. Julie and I watched TV. I checked my e-mails. Suddenly, at about 2 AM, the lights went out. No power. All over my workingman’s neighborhood. That actually happens a lot in The Workingman’s ’Bu so I was prepared with many flashlights and candles and batteries and a transistor radio playing rock and roll from San Diego. Interestingly enough, 105.1 KGB FM!

At about three AM the power came back on. But Julie was deeply spooked by the outage and shook for a long time as if she were afraid of the dark. Maybe she is. She is very sensitive. Her dog food has to be locally sourced.

Just before I turned off the light, I got a text from a woman I know in Sandpoint asking my advice about a giant spider in her bedroom. “Do you have any Raid?” I asked her.

But she never answered so I assume the spider disappeared into its spider hole. Or else ate her.

This morning was perfect except for some fool neighbor hammering at about 8 AM. Why? Why? Why? I recalled that was a constant problem in workingman’s Malibu. Do It Yourselfers, A curse to their neighbors. Why so early in the morning? Thank you, Dr. Bose. Thank you, Herr Mozart.

I made my immense breakfast, paid many bills — my Sisyphean task — and slept more. Then I looked at the ocean, my dog, my house, sat on the deck and felt the sun and the breeze and was extremely happy to be alive in Malibu. For an urban area, there is nothing like Malibu. An hour from Beverly Hills and a glorious beach resort.

Thanks to all the people who made it possible. God bless them, every one of them. Especially Mom and Pop and Wifey. Monday I will probably have an immense problem of some kind, but for today, all is well.

On my way home, I heard all about Megyn Kelly and Donald Trump and blood and insanity. Just remember, I told you he was a bad guy. I have been saying this since 1989. He is programmed to be a fool, and a fool he is. He reminds me of V.I. Lenin, sent to St. Petersburg via neutral Sweden by Imperial Germany to destroy the Kerensky democratic government, get Russia out of the first World War, and incidentally, found Soviet Communism… one of the worst events in human history. Maybe the worst. (All in the name of equality, 40 million were murdered.)

Was Trump sent in to the GOP by the Clintons? I don’t think so. He is easily stupid and destructive enough to have done what he’s done on his own. This is all just my opinion, but he is a sick man. He will kill the GOP if he can just to get on TV. Insanity is largely about two things — obscene self-obsession and stupidity. Need I say more? I suspect he has already elected either Biden or Clinton. Donald Duck Trump. A bad, bad man. The absolutely last thing the party or the nation needed.

My wife was at home in Beverly Hills but she craved, wanted, needed, diet Cokes and strawberry milkshakes, so I stopped at a Del Taco to get her some. I was waited on by a black woman with gang tattoos and prison tattoos. She did her job perfectly. She told me she had worked until 8 AM this morning and then had to report for work at 3 PM today. I was impressed. I am always impressed by hard work. I was damned impressed. I have never had to work anywhere near that hard. I thought of her at work and me in Malibu. We love capitalism. We would like for more black people to get in on it.

As I drove up Beverly Drive into the shopping part of Beverly Hills north of Wilshire, I was staggered. A large majority of the women on the street were in Moslem headgear, some covered head to foot. Most of the men were Arabs. Just overnight, Beverly Hills is a part of Saudi Arabia. It scares me. I guess it’s a good thing because they’re spending money we sent them for oil for gasoline. But what happens when there is a mosque here and factional fighting between Shiites and Sunnis? I guess I’ll be in Idaho.

Oh, one other thing. I read the obits for Professor Robert Conquest, poet, heir, and scholar of the murderous nature of Stalinism. One super-smart, brave guy. But something struck me. Supposedly he “discovered” in the mid- and late sixties the extent of Stalin’s murders. But I can recall very well knowing that Stalin had killed thirty million of his own people when I was at Parkside Elementary School, from which I “graduated” in 1956. Where did I learn it? It seems to me that it was common knowledge by the late 1940s, if not sooner. Can someone tell Wlady and then, Wlady, please tell me when this hideous knowledge came out? It was way before Conquest’s major works. Or maybe it was early minor works by Conquest. Does any one know the answer here? Anyone? Anyone? And can some psychiatrist tell me why the left is inclined to forgive the most murderous system in human history, Bolshevik Russian Communism, and hate the free market system that lets them have swimming pools and kids who drive Porsches at 16? Anyone?