The Adventures of Bloggard

Been Around the Block. Got Some Stories. These are Them.

Mister Blue

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Mount Shasta, CA, January 15, 2026: This is my pal. His name is “Mister Blue” or “Blue-Blue.”

Mister Blue has been with me all of my life, and still resides at my bedside, because we’re pals, been together ever since Artelle Loony, Mama’s friend, made Mister Blue for me when I was quite small.

Every morning, when I get up, I spend a moment feeling gratitude and expressing thanks to the Universe, for all the things I’ve been given: Roof, warmth, clothes, food, body, health, love, friends, long life.

And then, every morning, I give Mister Blue a pat and sincerely thank him for sticking with me all this time.

We’re both over 80 years old!

I think of that, and, while I’m thanking him, I remember all the kindness I’ve been given by the humans in my life, and of the life-force and body given me by my ancestors. Thank you Universe. Thank you, Mister Blue.

Gratitude or Grumpy. Whichever you choose, you create more.

I’ve decided gratitude is way better.

And Mister Blue agrees completely.

Can You Have a Completely Original Thought?

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August 11, 2024, Facebook profile of Richard Stillwagon …

Here is a challenging question:
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Can you have a completely original thought or idea?

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Or does your upbringing, culture, education, and world experience shape those thoughts and ideas?
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I have been watching and interacting with conversations about education, politics, religion, indoctrination in general, science, and philosophy.
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All of these conversations are skewed by the bias of each person’s education and life experience. This would seem obvious. But, it is tragically not apparent to those speaking! They believe their opinions to be universal truths. They don’t see that the opinions they have come from the collective consciousness of the environment they keep themselves in, and rarely move from that stance when presented new information.
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It takes an intelligent and critical thinking mind to be self-aware of it’s own biases. To understand that you favor one side or another of a topic and be capable of evaluating that bias and adjusting it based on new information is an incredibly rare ability.
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Humans are creatures of habit.

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That is a cliche because it is true. We resist change even though we know and experience the fact that it is constantly happening.
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Why then do we resist the possibility that new information could alter the conditions of a controversial subject? The answers are: fear, pride, prejudice and ego. We fear change. We take pride in what we think we know. We are prejudiced toward what we prefer and against that which we don’t understand or find distasteful. Finally our ego is so fragile, that we can’t stand to be seen as fallible. I experience these things myself, but I try to be aware of them and try to adjust when when compelling information is presented.
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To know that everything we currently believe has been part of an incomplete education since birth can be a freeing understanding. Knowing that everything we have learned could be outdated,incorrect, incomplete, only a portion of the whole, the beginning of a greater understanding, and a continual education should allow you to open your mind to new information. It should protect your ego and allow for adjustments in opinions on subjects.
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If you can explain why you feel strongly about a subject, then, when presented new information that alters that view, you should be able to explain the change in your opinion without fear or embarrassment. I respect that much more than someone that cannot, or worse, will not learn from new evidence that gives a new and additional insight into an issue. It isn’t waffling on your stance. It is the wisdom to adjust an opinion afforded by the opportunity of seeing a more complete and sometimes very complex picture.and adjusting your position based on that new evidence.
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Original thoughts if not impossible, must be exceedingly rare. But I think evolving thoughts and ideas that improve and become more complete are of tremendous value and should be encouraged

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Rodeo Drive

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Beverly Hills, California, 1969: As the night clerk at the Beverly Rodeo Hyatt House, on fashionable Rodeo Drive, I met interesting people.

I’ve seen Hendrix stumble out of the elevator, on his way out to gig, so stoned that he couldn’t get through the door because he was holding his guitar case sideways.

Chuck Berry signed in one night with a young woman, giving me his American Express. He wasn’t doing his duck walk, so I wasn’t sure it was Chuck Berry, and later I called American Express. As it turns out, they called his home. He wasn’t there, but his wife was.

Ginger Baker (of the rock band Cream) and I broke into the kitchen one night to make sandwiches. Taj Mahal said hello. David Nelson was in and out. Miles stayed there sometimes.

But the most interesting guest was Ralph D.

Plenty of Mooolah!Ralph D. was a well-to-do guy in the real estate business, short and squatty, nicely groomed with nice suits, from La Jolla. Often, he stayed overnight at the Beverly Rodeo Hyatt House. He liked dinner in the Chez Voltaire room, and he liked the bar pretty well, too.

In that bar, a hooker named Gina was often in and out, in a manner of speaking, and she was Ralph D’s favorite. Alas, she appeared to fall in love with him, and this didn’t really work out for her. But that’s another story.

One day I asked Ralph D. how he made so much money. He didn’t exactly answer my question, but what he said was much more valuable. He said, “If you want to make a lot of money, you need to work in a field in which it is possible to make a lot of money.”

That made me stop and think!

I’m embarrassed to say, now, that my paucity of vision, then, only let me see part of this truth. I did see that working as a desk clerk would not be a field in which it would be possible to make a lot of money.

I pondered this idea, and realized that, as long as I worked for someone else, they would be making part of the money from my labor. Therefore, I figured, it would be wiser to work for myself. Then I could collect the payment to the worker (me) and also the payment to the employer (me).

Now, looky back, it’s clear that he really meant: you can make more in some fields, like Real Estate, than in other occupations, but I didn’t really grasp that key point then.

But years later …

Years later, in San Francisco, I made my first attempt to use the valuable information he had given me. I decided to become a freelance bookkeeper. I would work for myself! I’d make the money of the employee (me) but also the money of the employer (also me), since I was working for myself. What a great idea!

Yes, bookkeeping would be the field in which I would make a lot of money.

Haw, haw, haw, haw, haw!

Yep. Live and learn, bucky, live and learn. Some of us slower than others. Yep.

 

The Root of All Magic and Freedom

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[reprinted from my former site How to Tune a Human, March 7, 2010]

For thousands of years,  systems have existed which we might call magic, or manifestation, or self-help. The common denominator of many of these systems is that they depend upon visualization.

Some folks do well with this; other people never seem to succeed.

What do you want from such a system?

You want (a) success; (b) rapid success; (c) reliable success. Just like your Ford automobile, you want it to always start and carry you down the chosen road, to start quickly, and to operate reliably as expected.

In these various systems, different factors are touted as helping to attain success, rapidity, and reliability. These include —

On the Road to Santa Cruz

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August 18, 2011, on the road to Santa Cruz:  Duffel bag and picnic basket packed, I’m driving, on the road to Santa Cruz, where a class of Tantra Yoga teachers eagerly awaits my vast wisdom about what works best when marketing services and products via cyberspace.

For road trips, I always put myself in a light trance, programming my subconscious mind that the journey will be safe and relaxed, and quick, and that the time will be productive. And the journey is always productive. I get some brand new idea, or a realization about how to do some, or how to do something better. Works every time.

And while we’re on the subject, I’d like to share my favorite thought about traveling …

“A journey of a thousand miles begins with a single step. Of course, it will take more than that to get there.” — Anonymous

Writing and Marketing

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Medford Oregon, January 23, 2016:  Two writer friends and I had coffee yesterday, because they wanted to talk about marketing their books. One of them has published a couple of books but his last one has not sold much yet. The other fellow is still working on his book. Both books are novels.

I confessed that although I’ve written several books and have published them in one way or another, I’m no big expert on this subject.

However, as the get-together unfolded, between my marketing experiences and their ideas we actually did put together a couple of plans that seem very likely to be effective.

I Read the News Today, Oh Boy

Today, I got an email from one of them, and in his email he said:

“All very interesting, and I want to know more, but my purist streak pulls me back to the Dark Side, to wit: Why don’t I just learn how to write a Story that makes a reader want to burn through it before lunch because I have made this huge promise and they are hungry for their payoff?”

As I began to respond to his question, it reawakened something I learned many years ago from my client Jerry Richardson, the author of “Powers of Persuasion,” which became a national best-seller, about how we humans leave out parts of sentences. I have found it very useful over the years. Perhaps you will find interesting this response to my writer friend —

Hi,

To answer your question —

You asked: “Why don’t I just learn how to write a Story that makes a reader want to burn through it before lunch because I have made this huge promise and they are hungry for their payoff?”

Errors of Omission

Your answer is inside your question. All English-speakers engage in a practice that linguists would call “omission” or “deletion.” We delete parts of the sentence because they are “understood.” An example: [Read more…]

Another Lucid Dream – The Amazing Flexible Pants

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Medford, Oregon, November 15, 2015 — A week ago, I had a lucid dream that went on for hours. I wondered if I could do it again. And the answer is yes and no.

No, I was not able to recreate the state — being conscious in the middle of a dream, knowing that I was dreaming, able to do whatever I wanted as the dream unfurled — at least, not the next night, nor the next.

And then last night, again I awoke around 3:30 and went to sit in the front room and there my meditation activities calmed the body and lower me down toward sleep, and soon enough I grew sleepy and trundled back to get comfy in my bed, and then …

… as I drifted down, down, down I felt a very-specific shift as I had felt a week ago. It’s hard to explain. The closest I can come is that it felt like a window was in front of me, and then the window opening moved toward me and went around me, and as the window opening enclosed my body, there was a warm feeling-shift of relaxation. As quick as the click of a lock, I’d changed from one being-state into another, as immediate as walking through a door. A door of wonder. And there I was, inside the dream, and knew it.

It Was Fun!

It mutated around like dreams do, with irrational changes of scene, and things mutating as you look away and look back. But it’s so much more fun when you KNOW it’s a dream! OK, so here’s what happened — [Read more…]

Twenty Second Tune-Up Makes You Feel Good

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Weed, California, Easter Sunday 2009: Here is an Easter gift for you … a super-quick little thing you can do in about twenty seconds, and it makes you feel really good. Most likely this is very good for your body and mind as well, though I can’t prove it!

I call it ‘Arthur’s Twenty Second Tune-Up,’ and it’s both startlingly effective and super-easy.

How to Feel Good in 20 Seconds

First, get an index card, or something similar, about 3″ x 5″. And then … [Read more…]

 
 

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