The Progressive Zone

Train and REO Speedwagon

Summer Road Trip 2024

I’d seen REO Speedwagon in concert a couple of times in the past but they were all in the last century. I had never seen Train in concert but I do like their music and I did see them live on TV once, which convinced me that I needed to see them in concert. When they both made a Summer Road Trip together to the KIA Forum, I decided this is the time to do it, so I got tickets for me and my concert comadre.

We entered the Forum near the end of Yacht Rock Revue’s opening act. They are a cover band that does ‘80s hits. It made a good warm up for the show. More importantly, we got a preview of just how great the sound reinforcement system at the Forum is now. It sounded much better than the sound system at the Honda Center, where we’d seen a show a couple of months prior, and even better than when I was last at the Forum in 2019. This was going to be a good time!

REO Speedwagon took the stage first. Kevin Cronin, who has been the lead singer for over fifty years, still fronts the band at age 72. Although they took a couple of the songs down a step or two so that Kevin could still hit the high notes, he sounded great for the first half of the show. It sounded like his voice began to tire in the second half of the show but still strong enough to deliver a respectable and entertaining show. Besides, he had just performed a full concert the night before in San Francisco, so who am I to fault him while he’s still rocking out at his age.

The rest of the band was solid as a rock. They were well rehearsed and it showed. The instrumentals and the vocals were all very tight. Their set included all the beautiful vocal harmonies you expect to hear from REO Speedwagon. They played all their biggest hits, which are too numerous to list but you know which ones they are, so no longtime fans were left wanting.

Train came down the tracks last. Train is a generation younger than REO Speedwagon but their vocalist Pat Monahan is 55 years old. Regardless, he can still hit all the high notes flawlessly (and there are many in Train’s repertoire). Pat kept the energy high throughout the show and his voice never flagged. In fact, he managed to catch fans’ smartphones, take selfies, and sing “If It’s Love” all at the same time without ever missing a note.

The surprise of the night was when Pat brought his twelve-year-old son Rock out on stage. Rock sang the lead to a cover of Led Zeppelin’s “Over the Hills and Far Away”. There must be a genetic component to vocal talent because Rock hit every one of Robert Plant’s notes perfectly. Kevin Cronin also joined Train on the stage for a mash-up of “Meet Virginia” and “The Joker” (by Steve Miller). And Cheat Codes, a group I was not familiar with, joined Train on stage for one of their songs. Rock and Yacht Rock Revue rejoined the stage with Train to cover “Hotel California” near the end of the concert.

Train opened their set with “Calling All Angels” and closed the show with “Drops of Jupiter”. In between, they performed all of their other hits that I wanted to hear. The entire band was tight instrumentally and well rehearsed. Their vocal harmonies sounded great. All in all, it was a very enjoyable concert experience and a good time was had by all.

Peacock lost the Olympic Games

I subscribed to Peacock just so I could watch the Tour de France (it was no longer available on CBS Sports Network, where I’d watched it in previous years). I was going to cancel my subscription after I watched the tour but Peacock also presented the 2024 Olympic Games right on the heels of the tour. Peacock neatly packaged their on-demand programming by sport so viewers could watch only the competition that interested them.

After the tour ended, I took advantage of the time remaining on the first month of my subscription to Peacock for streaming Olympic competition since they claimed to offer all of their Olympic programming on the app. I’ve also been a YouTube TV subscriber for the past few years. Their basic package includes a number of NBC channels that also broadcasted Olympic competition. YouTube TV allows subscribers to choose content for their “Library,” which works much like a DVR. I was even able to choose to add only the Olympic sports I wanted to watch rather than having to add all of their Olympic content to my Library.

When the Olympic Games began, I still had a couple of weeks left on the first month of my Peacock subscription. To put it to the test, I tried to watch the events that I was most interested in on Peacock rather than YouTube TV. It was pretty easy to find the competition I wanted to watch on Peacock. However, I was unable to fast-forward through the commercials using the Peacock app, which I found frustrating. I guess I’ve become spoiled by YouTube TV’s Library because I have become accustomed to being able to skip watching commercials.

As the games continued for a few days, I discovered that I could find the Olympic events I wanted to watch just about as easily in my YouTube TV Library. I could also use YouTube TV to watch events live and NBC’s nightly prime time coverage. But the best thing about watching Olympic events on YouTube TV is that I could fast-forward through the commercials.

By the end of the first week of the Olympic Games, I had gravitated to YouTube TV for watching all of the Olympic competition. For me, it was simply a better experience than using the Peacock app. So I decided that I didn’t need the Peacock app after that first month and canceled my subscription. In the competition between Peacock and the NBC network channels, the gold medal goes to YouTube TV.

An edible marijuana cautionary tale

Yesterday I learned that I can’t overdose on marijuana when I ate ten doses of marijuana in one bite. No, I did not do it intentionally but the story of how it happened is amusing. As it turned out, no harm came from the adventure but it still makes a good cautionary tale about edible marijuana.

When I visited my dispensary last week, they were offering a big sales promotion. I bought an eighth of an ounce of marijuana flowers, which is my preferred form of cannabis consumption. The budtender offered me a marijuana jelly candy for less than a dollar more. Although I enjoy edible marijuana, I rarely buy it because it’s more expensive than in flower form. But at the promotion price, I had her add the jelly candy to my order.

Opened package of a mango & guava flavored Mellow Vibes Jelly with 100 mg of THC — Mellow Vibes Jelly

Bear in mind that the writing seems much smaller and more difficult to read on the package than it does in these photographs to me. Even with my reading glasses on, I had a hard time reading the fine print. Since jellies (or gummies) are usually packaged with ten candies, each candy having ten milligrams of THC, I was surprised to find just one jelly inside this package ─ albeit more than double the size of the gummies I’ve had in the past. So I tried to read the package to find out what I was getting into but the back of the package was even harder for me to read.

Photo of the back of the package of Mellow Vibes Jelly with detailed product info

From what little I was able to read on the front of the package, it looked like it said that it was a “Jelly Single” with ten milligrams of THC. On the back of the package, I was able to make out the word “SAMPLE”. Inside the package, there was only one jelly and it didn’t look like the producer intended it to be broken apart into ten separate doses. So putting all that information together with the under one dollar price, I assumed it was a single dose jelly packaged as a promotional sample.

Since it’s a lazy, rainy weekend, I figured what better way to kick it off than to wake & bake with a mild edible marijuana buzz. I usually eat two or three ten-milligram gummies (an average of 25 mg THC) on the occasions that I eat cannabis rather than vaporizing it. Therefore, I expected to barely feel the jelly I ate yesterday morning since I thought it only had ten milligrams of THC.

Almost an hour later, I was giving up on the idea of feeling the jelly I ate at all. But then I started getting very lightheaded about twenty minutes after that. Since I don’t normally get very lightheaded when I vaporize or eat marijuana, it didn’t occur to me that the jelly could be causing it. Half an hour after that, I started getting very sleepy. Subsequently, I spent the entire day either napping or watching TV and in a complete lethargy until after sunset.

Late in the afternoon, I remembered the jelly I had eaten and put two & two together. I realized that it was probably a much higher dosage of THC than I initially thought it was and was probably also the cause of the unusual feelings I was experiencing. When I finally summoned the energy, I got photographs of my jelly’s package and zoomed in tight enough to clearly read the fine print. That’s when I discovered that the one jelly I had eaten actually had 100 milligrams of THC in it ─ ten times the amount I thought that I had consumed.

The moral of this story is to be cautious when consuming edible marijuana because it’s easy to unknowingly overdose. Overdosing on marijuana will not cause any long-term damage but it will make you useless for the day. And it could freak you out if you didn’t realize that you had consumed a large amount of THC or if you have very little experience with marijuana.

For those who are not familiar with their tolerance of edible marijuana, start with only a ten milligram dose. Regular marijuana users can start with twenty milligrams. But remember that it takes your body far longer to absorb THC you’ve eaten than it does THC that you’ve smoked or vaporized. Allow yourself at least an hour after you eat the first ten-milligram jelly (or two) before considering whether or not you want to eat another. And if you do, allow at least another hour after that before you eat yet another. If you ever do eat thirty milligrams, expect to have a solid buzz for a few hours during which you will not likely get much accomplished.

The lesson I learned yesterday is to also be certain that you know how much THC is in the marijuana you eat. Make sure that you can and do read the entire label clearly. Do not do like I did yesterday and make assumptions about how much THC you’re eating based on a few scattered clues. Lastly, do not drive while you’re intoxicated from marijuana. If you follow these simple rules, enjoying a moderate buzz from edible marijuana can be a pleasant experience.

The Supreme Court isn’t fooling me

The Supreme Court of the United States has ruled that states cannot remove Donald Trump from a ballot, “Because the Constitution makes Congress, rather than the States, responsible for enforcing Section 3 against federal officeholders and candidates”.

But the SCOTUS makes a major logic flaw in that statement. The 14th Amendment of the United States Constitution says in Section 3 that, “Congress may by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability”. The “disability” to which the amendment is referring is disqualification from holding the office of the President of the United States (or any other federal office, for that matter).

That is to say that Congress is only responsible for removing a disqualification from holding office, not for “enforcing” one, as the SCOTUS claims. If only Congress enforced a disqualification, the clause regarding a vote of two-thirds of Congress to remove the “disability” would be moot. Congress could only remove a disqualification from the ballot put in place by some other agent.

So you don’t fool me, SCOTUS. I see what you’re doing there.

The sacrifice of a virgin

I wrote a book report on a story about when a businessman bangs his daughter-in-law. Then I read another short story from the same collection that might be even crazier, so I decided to report on it too. Let’s see if you can recognize what book it’s from:

There once was a great warrior named Jephthah. His mother was a hooker, so his half-brothers didn’t want him to inherit any of their father’s wealth. They sent him into exile from Gilead so that he wouldn’t be able to make a claim on their father’s estate. While in exile, he built a gang and became their leader.

In the meantime, Jephthah’s father died. A rival gang called the Ammonites smelled weakness, so they attacked his father’s turf. Hearing of the might of Jephthah, the local elders begged him to return to Gilead and act as a commander in their fight against the Ammonites. Being understandably skeptical, Jephthah asked what would be in it for him. The elders swore to make him the chief over everybody in their turf if he returned to defend Gilead.

Jephthah returned to Gilead and parleyed with the Ammonite leader. The leader laid out his grievance with Gilead and told Jephthah that he would end his hostilities if they returned his turf to them. Jephthah claimed that Gilead was blameless and said the Ammonites had actually been in the wrong. So the turf war was on.

It turns out that there was a godfather character who was more powerful than both of the gangs. Jephthah went to the godfather and made a treaty with him. The terms were that, if the godfather backed him such that Jephthah could defeat the Ammonites, Jephthah would give the godfather a prize. He would kill and cook whatever came out first to greet Jephthah when he returned in victory.

With the godfather’s backing, Jephthah was able to soundly trounce the Ammonites. When he returned from battle in glory, the first to come out of Jephthah’s crib was his own daughter, dancing to music that was played in celebration. Because she was his only child, Jephthah was distraught considering the deal he had struck with the godfather.

Jephthah’s daughter was surprisingly understanding. She figured that a deal is a deal, so she gave Jephthah permission to do to her what he promised the godfather. She asked for just one accommodation since she would be dying a virgin. She wanted two months to wander through the hills visiting her friends and weep with them.

Jephthah agreed, so his daughter spent a couple of months visiting them, saying her goodbyes and having a good cry with all her friends. Then she returned to Jephthah, still a virgin. Upon her return, Jephthah proceeded to kill his daughter and cook her up, offering her to the godfather as promised.
Samuel. Judges 11. Holy Bible. 700 BCE

I promised you crazy—I think I delivered. Do you know what short story this is? It’s called Judges 11.

Alphabet soup

I was recently watching a host interview a drag performer when I heard him mention “LGBTQIA+” people. I was so struck by the absurdity of the initialism that I lost track of his point. This particular initialism seems to be cohort-making to the point of becoming alphabet soup.

Before I say why, I acknowledge that I’m ignorant about many of the cohort’s issues. I welcome your constructive feedback if you can help educate me on the issues. I’ve already admitted to being slept, so it won’t hurt my feelings. But it seems to me that the initialism has watered the cohort down so much that it’s almost meaningless.

I’m old enough to remember when people simply referred to the cohort as “LGB”. This made sense to me because the words the initials refer to have a commonality. They refer to what gender a lesbian, gay, or bisexual person desires having erotic sexual activity with. It’s this second-person perspective that differentiates the cohort from heterosexual people and a person cannot be defined as lesbian, gay, or bisexual without considering the second-person perspective.

But when they appended T onto the original initialism, it seemed to me that they were trying to shoehorn transgender people into a cohort that didn’t fit them. Transgenderism has to do with what gender a person identifies themself as being. The gender with which they desire having erotic sexual activity is irrelevant to the gender the trans person identifies as. This first-person perspective differentiates transgender people from the LGB cohort.

It wasn’t long before the cohort tagged Q at the end of the initialism. Granted, I’m not completely clear on what queer means but at least it returns to the second-person perspective, so it is a better fit with the LGB cohort. But what I am ignorant about is what makes a person queer that cannot be characterized as lesbian, gay, or bisexual, so it seems to be an unnecessary initial to add to the initialism.

Then the initials IA were added. It was so obtuse that I had to look up what they stood for. It makes sense to group intersex people with transgender people because it has the same first-person perspective on gender identity. As with transgender people, the second-person perspective defining lesbian, gay, bisexual (and queer) people is irrelevant to a person being intersex. And being asexual has to do with neither the gender the person identifies as nor with the gender they desire having erotic sexual activity with because they do not desire having sex with anyone.

Finally, the cohort appended a + to the initialism. The + suggests that the cohort is concerned they’re running out of letters. My suggestion is to just stop shoehorning people who don’t really fit into this alphabet soup.

Evidence of a god

Today is Atheist Day. To observe it, I am answering a question I hear all the time:

What evidence would you need to believe a god exists?

I’ve given it some thought and my answer is what you would expect. All I would need is empirical evidence of the god that is not based on a logical fallacy. Ironically, most people would give the same answer if you simply changed the word “god” in the question to almost any other noun.

Before I could answer more explicitly, I would need you to describe the characteristics of the god about which you are asking. And please don’t tell me what the god is not. Tell me what its characteristics are. What is it composed of? Where can it be found? How does it affect its environment (or vice versa)? The answers to these questions inform my decision as to specifically what evidence I would look for.

However, for that evidence to be empirical, it must verifiable by observation or experience. So once I know how the god can be observed, measured, or otherwise detected objectively, I would know what kind of testing I could perform to demonstrate that the god exists. The key is that, whatever type of testing is done, any person conducting the test would get the same result.

For example, any person who weighs a liter of water will find that it weighs the same amount that it does for any other person who weighs any other liter of water—one kilogram. Or any person who checks the temperature of water when it begins to boil will find that it is 100 Celsius. Or anyone who observes a snowflake will say that it is six-sided. These are all objective measurements or observations.

On the other hand, some people would say that their evidence of a god is the personal relationship they have with their god. But this is a subjective observation. There is no way for any other person to experience that relationship. And any evidence that any person has ever given me for the existence of a god has been subjective. It is impossible for me to experience their evidence myself.

I also stated that the evidence must not be based on a logical fallacy. The fallacy I hear most commonly is something to the effect that humans (or other life form) are so incredibly complex that it’s impossible for them to exist as a result of natural processes. But this is the fallacy of personal incredulity (also known as an argument from ignorance). Just because you don’t understand how something occurred does not mean that a god doing it is the only explanation.

Another common fallacy concerns the question of why the universe exists. Believers will say that “something cannot come from nothing,” therefore, a god must have created it. But this is a black-or-white fallacy. Maybe something simply always existed or maybe something other than a god started the universe. But nobody really knows how the universe came into existence.

I’m sure most people would consider the standard of evidence I seek for the existence of a god a completely reasonable standard for them to use to evidence most other things in life. I simply expect the same standard to be used for a god. When someone brings me empirical evidence of a god that is not fallacious, I will believe that it exists.

A businessman bangs his daughter-in-law

I was reading some short story literature when I came upon this wack story. Tell me if you can guess from which collection of short stories it is. It goes like this:

Once upon a time, there was a married guy named Jude. He named his firstborn son (perhaps prophetically) Er, his second Onan (not a barbarian), and his last son—with his wife, at least—Shelah (which is what Australians call a girl).

When Er became a man, Jude got a girl named Tamar. He gave her as a wife to Er. There was a godfather character who thought Er was a gangsta, so the godfather capped his ass.

Then Jude told Onan to bang Tamar and fulfill his duty to her as a brother-in-law to “raise up offspring for your brother.” Onan thought that was a weird ask, so he pulled out every time he banged Tamar. But the godfather was pissed that Onan pulled out, so he capped his ass too.

By now, Jude is getting wise to the godfather putting out a contract on his sons. Not wanting his last surviving son to get capped, Jude invited Tamar to shack up with him “until my son Shelah grows up.” So she did.

A long time later, Jude’s wife died. After Jude finished grieving, he planned a business trip to Timnah. Tamar, who had moved to Timnah by that time, heard that her father-in-law would be in town. Being pissed off that Jude never gave her to Shelah, Tamar dressed up like a whore and went plying her trade on the main strip into town.

Sure enough, Jude spotted her when he came to town and liked what he saw. Not recognizing her as his daughter-in-law, he pulled over and asked her to come now and bang him. Tamar replied, “And what will you give me?”

Jude wasn’t ballin, so he offered to send her a goat if she banged him. Not impressed, Tamar asked for his bling and the staff in his hand for collateral until Jude sent the goat. Jude was horny, so he gave them to her so he could get laid. It turned out that he knocked her up.

Jude realized that he would be a laughingstock if people recognized his personal bling, so Jude had a friend bring to who he thought was just a common whore the goat he had offered her. His friend asked around Tinmah where he could find the “shrine prostitute.” When he got back, he reported to Jude that, “I didn’t find her. Besides, the men who lived there said, ‘There hasn’t been any shrine prostitute here.’”

By the time Tamar was in the second trimester of her pregnancy, Jude heard that his daughter-in-law was pregnant and guilty of prostitution. Jude said, “Bring her out and have her burned to death!” When she was brought out, Tamar flashed Jude’s bling and said, “I am pregnant by the man who owns these.” Recognizing the bling, Jude proclaimed that Tamar was innocent because he didn’t give her to Shelah. Then he decided not to bang Tamar again.
Moses. Genesis 38. Holy Bible. 1950 BCE

I know it’s an awkward ending but I didn’t write it. I’m just relaying it. Have you figured out what it’s from? I’ll give you a clue: the story is called Genesis 38. Meanwhile, at Sunday School…

Sabroso!

I was bingeing on Diners, Drive-Ins & Dives one day when I saw Guy visit a Mexican joint in my neighborhood. Mexican food is my favorite cuisine, so I decided to visit the place myself. On Día de los Muertes, a Mexican friend and I headed to Sabroso! Mexican Grill for dinner. “Sabroso” is the Spanish word for “tasty” and this restaurant is aptly named! Their food was so delicious that we’ve been back a couple more times and I’ll tell you why.

Everything on the menu is made completely from scratch right down to the tortillas and you can really taste that it is. The chef is a maestro of Mexican salsas (i.e. sauces) and caldos (i.e. broths). His use of chiles has a harmonious balance of spiciness and flavor that perfectly complements the protein in whichever dish he’s preparing. The menu has a wide variety of traditional Mexican dishes—even menudo on the weekend.

I love a good chile verde and it’s one of the most commended dish in Sabroso!’s Yelp reviews, so I ordered it on my first visit. I was not disappointed. It had plenty of pork and the green sauce was the best I’ve had (don’t tell my mami). It’s made with green tomatillos and enough chiles to be spicy but not so much as to overpower the other flavors.

Chile verde dish and the house margarita — Chile verde and the house margarita

My Mexican friend ordered the chamorro and gave it her stamp of approval for authenticity. It’s a slow-cooked, fall-off-the-bone beef chuck in a mild, smoky guajillo sauce. She shared a piece with me and I too thought it was delicious. She also ordered a mango margarita rimmed with spicy salt and she said it was very good.

Chamorro dish and a mango margarita — Chamorro and a mango margarita

Perhaps my favorite Mexican dish is pollo en mole but it’s absent from many Mexican restaurants’ menu. Since it’s one of Sabroso!’s house specialties, I ordered the red chicken mole on my next visit. It’s spicy and has all the complex flavors you would expect from mole poblano. The generous portion of chicken was enough for me to take some home and get a second meal out of the dish.

Red chicken mole dish with Peruvian beans — Red chicken mole with Peruvian beans

On another occasion, I was passing by Sabroso! on my way home. So I stopped in and ordered a bowl of pozole to go. They offer it with pork or chicken and I tried the pork. It had a wonderfully flavorful broth. On the side, it had all the traditional fresh toppings, including shredded cabbage, onions, and lime. It reminded me that I would have to try their menudo the next time I’m there on a weekend.

Most of Sabroso!’s plates come with Mexican rice and beans. Rather than the more common pintos, they offer a choice of black beans or refried frijoles peruanos, which I had never eaten before but enjoyed thoroughly. They offer a choice of flour or corn tortillas made fresh to order and I found the corn tortillas to be excellent. Of course they include the obligatory chips (made from their corn tortillas) and salsa.

I discovered Sabroso! during the pandemic, so I dined under the outdoor pavilion they erected for safety but the state now allows them to serve their guests indoors at limited capacity. The waitresses are friendly and hospitable. If you’re a fan of Mexican food and you’re anywhere in the area of Garden Grove, California, pay Sabroso! a visit. You will not be disappointed.

Trust the science

Here’s what a year of novel coronavirus pandemia looks like in America measured by new confirmed COVID-19 cases and deaths per day. In retrospect, the impact of the pandemic looks eerily like what the epidemiology experts warned us in advance that it would look like.

COVID-19 cases confirmed in the United States per day

Deaths caused by COVID-19 per day in the United States

Epidemiologists said that cases would be a leading indicator, followed by hospitalizations about a week later, and the trailing indicator, deaths, about a week after that. These graphs show the peaks in deaths following a couple of weeks or so behind those in cases.

They also said that COVID-19 cases would start climbing after people began congregating on Memorial Day, which they did. Then they said cases would spike after Thanksgiving and Christmas gatherings, which they didーas high as 300,000 on one day!

So let’s let the science guide us to put an end to this pandemic as quickly as possible now that Americans are getting vaccinated against COVID-19. Until we reach herd immunity in the United States, continue to wear a mask and maintain social distance while out in public and avoid congregating in large groups for extended periods of time.