​Happy Black Friday!  Or as we call it here in the Linde household, Shelter in Place.
 
Honestly, it has been at least five years since I have gotten up at the crack of dawn to visit a Best Buy. The last store I visited on a Black Friday was Circuit City. And you know what happened to them. Some people suspect I may have had a hand in the closings of Frys Electronics, Comp USA, and the recently deceased Bed, Bath, and Beyond.  
 
If you are out and about, try not to be stampeded underfoot. I understand that can be especially painful after overeating Thanksgiving dinner. 
 
Question of the day: How can the running time of Wicked be at least two hours longer than the stage play on which it is based. The running time of the play is two hours and forty-five minutes. The running time of Part One is ten minutes longer. This sounds like a story problem for 5th-grade math. “If the curtain of Wicked” the Broadway Musical, opened at 8pm, while on the West Coast, the motion picture adaptation opened at 5pm, how much longer would the movie be?”  At any rate, I wish them both well. I have seen the play and loved it. I risk long-term COVID-19 and will see the movie version later this week. 
 
Writers, beware of Bots. They are everywhere. I was recently contacted by an award-winning writer recently written up in the New York Times, who praised me and then criticized my latest book’s lack of reviews and sales. I engaged for a moment before her syntax literally crumbled before me.
 
“I don’t charge for it my promotor handle it.”  And that is a direct quote. I guess it’s’ true that anyone can be a successful writer.  Well, at least they are not sending me revealing photos and telling me, “handsome how am I.”

​After the officially setting the record for most views of The Wiz commercial, I am pleased to announce to that we have officially entered the holiday season. Now, I am not alone in setting this Guinness record. Comcast Universal and NBC contributed to this victory by airing an ad every six minutes whether Law and Order needed them or not. 
 
But with the season comes some undeniable truths. The movie business, such as it is, is slowing down. A time when producers call out a time out from Thanksgiving until New Years. Not that Hollywood hasn’t been in a bit of a slow patch for a quite a while now. But forget that. They sure want you to. 
 
Anyway, be of good cheer, because at the holidays, I drag out the old Linde Christmas Tree along with some familiar gifts that you may or may not have heard of.  This year we’re offering some exciting specials. Go get clicking and finally get your J.P. Linde collection in tip-top shape.

Okay, well that's all I have to say. Happy Thanksgiving, Happy Black Friday and try to get stampeled at Walmart or Best Buy!

'I wish it need not have happened in my time,' said Frodo.
'So do I,' said Gandalf, 'and so do all who live to see such times. But that is not for them to decide. All we have to decide is what to do with the time that is given us.'
 
             J.R.R. Tolkien       Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring

Hmm…  Which is not to be confused with Hims. I would hate for you all to think that this week’s blog is about erectile disfunction. Well, in a way, I guess it is. Special thanks to all the “bros” out there. Especially the one that declared on camera that he was voting for Trump because he Kamala didn’t show up on Joe Rogan. Wow. As stated, maybe this blog is about erectile disfunction.
 
For the record: Are you better off then you were four years ago? Hmm, not Hims, let me think. Geez, I can’t remember what happened four years ago. Oh, now I remember, some ass-wipe was telling me to ingest bleach. In New York City, trucks were stacking up bodies in the backs of trucks to take to the morgue.  Some of us were working at home, because it was too dangerous to be around OTHER PEOPLE. The economy had tanked, along with the respect around the world. Okay, maybe some of that may be older than four years ago. Some of it maybe five or six years. But, yeah, those bros were much better off four years ago because they were still living at home and watching reruns of WWF the smartphones their parents had purchased for them.
 
Did you know most of this country reads at a 5th grade level? That’s a fact. Coincidentally, that is the same age when little “bros” are easily distracted by bright and shiny objects. I wonder if golden toilets,  orange skin, yellow hair, and raging against others  with a different, religion, skin color, or who have less than you qualify?
 
Okay, I need to go now. It's lunchtime in the Detention Camp

I don’t know about you, but I am so exhausted.  With the advent of the election being just days away, maybe the several hundred texts a day I get asking for money will finally stop. I hope so. 
 
Well, here we are. Like it or not, we are at D-Day. It will be either dancing in the streets over a Democracy saved, or calling distant cousins in Canada to ask if they are up for an unexpected visit.  I cannot help but think of both the book and the HBO adaptation of Philip Roth’s The Plot Against America. If you haven’t read it, it’s probably too late to read it this election. But if things go bad, I urge you to pick up a copy before it is banned.
 
My father was a proud Republican, voting for Eisenhower, Nixon, Ford, and eventually Regan. Sometime in the nineties he switched and voted for Clinton. It was most likely America’s thirst for oil during the first Bush that changed him. Whatever his reasons, he switched. I think a part of him would have still longed for the days of old school Republicans, their straw hats, Orange County tans, and their quiet stoic wives (my mother was many things, but she was never quiet). He suffered silently from PTSD that he suffered from serving in Europe from WW 2. He never really talked about it, but we would hear him wake up in the night screaming and knew of the cause. Overall, he was a good man. Not perfect, still learning but, in his own way, loved his family as best he could. But, there is one thing I know with the utmost certainty: He would have recognized Donald Trump for the con man that he was and would have never voted for him. Not the first time, nor any time. He recognized a danger when he saw one and reminded me often, “watch out for that one, he’s got nothing to lose.”
 
Donald J. Trump has nothing. He has got nothing to lose. That is why I am voting for Kamala Harris. That is why I am doing what my dad would have done.

Miss you, Dad.