Me: You know what I realized recently? Her: No, what? Me: I never really thought of it but, I’m 52, which means that I’m over half-a-century old. Her: That is how math works, Logan. Me: (laughing) I’m aware. It’s just one of those elusive obvious things that are obvious once you think about it but completely invisible to you when you don’t.
Years ago, I once told you this apocryphal story about Columbus and how he was able to stand an egg up on one side by itself.
In the end, someone said that it was easy, to which Columbus was said to have replied, “Everything is easy once someone shows you how.”
A more succinct way of putting that it was simply something that was the elusive obvious:
Those things that are stupidly and patently obvious, if you just sat down and thought about it for little bit.
In many ways, this entire blog is fulla the elusive obvious.
Was talking with a buddy of mine the other day – we met in our 20s and he’s a couple of years older than me so he’s now in his mid-50s and I’m catching up.
With my birthday coming up, I’ve been finding myself looking back on my life and realizing a lot of things that shoulda been obvious to me but simply…weren’t.
Me: I’ve reached an age where…you know what I’ve realized? Him: What? Me: Looking back, in so many interactions, I was the villain in the story. Him: I have that – mine were mostly with women. Me: Some of mine as well. I mentioned that to someone once and she asked if I’d consider calling them to apologize. But what would that do? It’s really just to make me feel better, they probably just are happy that I’ve never reached out to them. Better to just let sleeping dogs lie.
It really is such a wild thing to look back with older, and calmer, eyes and realize that you were the villain in someone’s story.
The thing that’s been bothering me the most, lately, though was that I’d never really realized just how often it was me until only recently.
Yet again, the elusive obvious.
And with most elusive obvious things, once I’ve noticed it, I can’t un-notice it.
Recently got into a pretty bad argument with a business partner. It was bad.
He called me a few choice invectives, and I invited him to say them to my face when next met.
Went downhill from there.
He later apologized but I refused to take his apology, which was my shortcoming.
I lost the high ground when I refused to listen to him, and I realized that I was being a hypocrite because I’d been upset – for years – with a former friend for not even hearing my apology when I tried to give it once.
We managed to sort it all out, but I thought about it again recently when I heard about Trump’s attack on Iran.
One thing that I messed up with in my situation was that I cornered my business partner.
See, I was physically, legally, and ethically in a stronger position and he was not, at all.
But I overplayed my hand.
I left him no room to save face so all he could do would be to either dig in his heels or completely capitulate and acquiesce, which he wouldn’t be doing.
So, in the end, I had to reach out to him, which is what I did.
In Sun Tzu’s The Art of War, Chapter 7, Maneuvering, the general wrote:
When you surround an army, leave an outlet free… The object… is to make him believe that there is a road to safety and thus prevent his fighting with the courage of despair.
It makes sense, yeah?
Because every trapped animal instinctively knows, “Well, I’m trapped, I’m dead anyway, I might as well fight with everything I’ve got because…what have I got to lose?”
And so, any victory becomes a Pyrrhic victory.
That’s precisely where we are right now.
We have almost completely decimated Iran and have shown zero mercy – attacking without any notice or real provocation.
But the key word is almost.
They have enough left to drag this one for years and, even when things may seem quiet, continue the attack in ways we may not expect for years and decades to come.
We’ve boxed the Iranians in – and ourselves.
It’s the stupid, yet wholly obvious, result of an ill-conceived idea by stupid and wholly incompetent people.
All this to distract from the fact that my most gullible of fellow Americans voted for a pedophile.
Him: Are you ok, papa? Me: What? Oh, I’m just reading. Him: About what. Me: (shaking head) Nuthin good. But also nuthin for you to worry about.
Location: the UPS store, being told that they can’t ship something – “Isn’t this what you guys do?”
Mood: exasperated
Music: Captain America’s been torn apart now (Spotify) Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
Him: Is it gonna hurt? Me: I’m not gonna lie to you, it might. Depends on how much candy you’ve been sneaking.
Sara used to work in a dentist’s office, so she’s been on me to bring the kid – and myself – to the dentist more regularly.
It’s funny, I’m pretty good about always going to the doctor for my annual physical but I’m a little laxer with the dentist.
I suppose it’s because I’m pretty fanatical with brushing and flossing so I figure I can get away with it.
But she’s right – the kid for sure needs to go more regularly and I like how my teeth feel after a cleaning.
Actually, the reason I’m fanatical is because I – like most kids – always hated going to the dentist as a kid.
But, at some point in my 20s, I realized why my experience was so much different than everyone else’s when I saw Little Shop of Horrors.
It was during that film when I learned about laughing gas and painkillers in general.
See, we were so poor that (a) we didn’t have insurance growing up and (b) my very first experience with general anesthesia painkillers vis-a-vis the dentist was when I had my wisdom teeth pulled out – and I didn’t even get it!
This is me at 18 with my grandfather. I’ve not heard his voice in years.
Below is how I, roughly, remember the conversation going between my mom and the dentist.
Mom: How much? Dentist: $500. Her: My son is tough… Me: (through cotton balls) I’m really not… Her: …he doesn’t need pain killers. Me: (muffled) I do, I do! Dentist: I can’t do it without painkillers! At least let me give him Novocain. Her: How much is that? Dentist: $200. Her: Fine, then do that. But take all his wisdom teeth out if we’re doing that. Dentist: The most I can do is two and even then… Her: Fine, take two out. Me: I’m going to die…
I should mention two things: (a) he did take two out, (b) one side of my face swelled up like a chipmunk and remained like that for at least two weeks, and (c) I went on my very first date ever later that week.
Never got a second date.
I’m sure I’ll tell you all about it one of these days.
In any case, this kid has no idea how good he has it.
Him: Finally! Me: Yup, we don’t need to come back for six months. Him: Six months!? Aww…
Sara experiences the world a little differently than I do.
Her: Do you want an almond cookie? Me: Sure. Where’d you get it from? Her: I was downtown and I got lunch and the cashier pulled them out of the case and handed them to me. I got one for each of the boys too. Me: (laughing) It pays to be a hot blonde.
Then literally the next day.
Her: Hey, I got you a Boston Cream donut. Me: Sweet, thanks! How come? Her: (shrugging) I dunno. I got a Dunkin and the guy at the counter just handed it to me. Me: What is happening here?! Her: Oh, they’re just being nice. Me: That is so whack. Her: (rolling eyes) Whack? The 80s called, Logan. They want their word back Me: OK, that’s just rude. Her: Do you want the donut or not? Me:…yes. Lemme get some peanut butter.
This happens to her all the time.
Speaking of the 80s, it reminds me a little of this old sketch – that I saw LIVE with my brother when we were little kids – on Saturday Night Live in 1984 with Eddie Murphy where he’s in whiteface and experiences the world as a white guy and is shocked at how the other half lives.
Kinda feel that I’d experience life really differently as well if I were in her shoes.
Think of all the free carbs…!
In other news, I had to pick up some milk for the kid after the gym tonight, so I went to the supermarket that’s open late just south of my pad and, when I exited the subway, I was greeted with the aftermath of an accident.
Someone was not having a good night.
Her: Whacha gonna write about tonight? Me: I dunno. I think it’s gonna be about you. Her: Me? What about me? Me: How you always get free crap while the rest of us losers don’t. Her: Oh, stop. That’s a rarity. Me: It happened two days in a row! And it happens all the time. Her: (waves hand dismissively then brightens) I know! You can write how much you love me, how you can’t stand to be apart from me, and how your life is just loads – LOADS – better now that we’re married and I’m in it. Me: I’ll get right on it. Her: You do that, Logan Lo.
Location: the supermarket, looking for the last half-gallon of whole milk in the joint
Mood: exhausted
Music: Then be with me all the way (Spotify) Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
He arrived at Valley Forge on February 23, 1778, and reported for duty as a volunteer. One soldier’s first impression of the Baron was “of the ancient fabled God of War … he seemed to me a perfect personification of Mars. The trappings of his horse, the enormous holsters of his pistols, his large size, and his strikingly martial aspect, all seemed to favor the idea. He turned the volunteers into a great army.”
How?
Basic stuff.
From establishing “standards of sanitation and camp layouts that would still be standard a century and a half later” to enforcing “the keeping of exact records and strict inspections,” to prevent graft and profiteering.
He also set up a training program to train soldiers on HOW to be soldiers.
To be clear: The historical bad-assery of the US Army would not have existed but for Baron Von Steuben.
Note that it was a pretty open secret that he was as gay as a unicorn in a glitter factory during Pride Week.
That’s probably why he was slumming it with the colonists instead of fighting battles and having afternoon tea back in Prussia.
Plus, he never married but had several young male “friends,” that kept him company throughout the years; in fact he settled in Manhattan with a fella named William North for a while.
So, yeah, as gay as a rainbow wearing another rainbow.
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
In any case, wonder if Freddie would be proud or ashamed of what he’s wrought.
What’s the point of this entry?
It seems to me that it’s always the people draft-dodging, fat fucks with bone spurs that have only ever experienced violence from the safety of a movie seat or a living room couch that have strong preconceived notions as to what constitutes actual strength or violence capacity.
In fact, violence and the ability to inflict violence really only comes down to two things: How good are you at violence and the ability to inflict violence.
Everything else – if someone is gay or straight, likes to wear slacks or a dress, is black or white, is male or female – is really just mental masturbation.
Those things are really only important to someone that cares about something besides violence itself.
Speaking of violence itself, anyone that’s experienced either the giving or receiving of it, it’s not something you take lightly or without a clear plan for finishing.
In Scenic Fights, we’re always talking about finishing the fight.
Because, in the end, that’s really the main thing, isn’t it?
Good thing no one is quite so stupid as to embark on something so dangerous on a global scale without these things clearly at the forefront.
Friend: Honestly, music stopped being good after 2010. Me: I dunno about that. Her: There’s literally nothing I can stand on the radio anymore.
In 2015, Spotify looked at its user data and found that people stop listening to new music after the age of 33.
At least in the US.
See, in the UK, where they use something called Deezer, that company discovered that Britons stop listening to new music at 30…and a half.
What adult uses “and a half?”
In any case, my point being that, in nature, there are only three states: Growth, stasis, and decline.
Me?
I keep wanting to put as much (natural) space between me and decline as possible and that means avoiding stasis wherever and whenever possible.
That doesn’t just mean seeing old friends, working out, eating well, and doing some deep thinking.
It also means listening to new music, because, if I don’t, I’m at least in stasis, if not decline.
And I can’t have that.
Not when the kid’s this young.
Music is a unique art form because, unlike, say, a sculpture, which is carved, and then just exists, music is created and has to be played or performed.
But, as you hear it, it can be remembered, heard, and anticipated – you can guess a lyric or beat because music requires a rhythm of some sort – so that it exists in the entirety of time itself, past, present, and future all at once.
Music is profoundly human is because it’s the only artform that only exists entirely in time and disappears once it’s done as if it never existed at all.
Kinda like us.
So, with all due respect to my friend, listen to new music, and fight the stasis.
Him: You’ll come to my talent show? I’m playing XXXX. Me: I love that song! And of course – have I missed one yet? Him: No… Me: Then I wouldn’t worry too much, kiddo.
For the past few years, I’ve put all the music from this blog into this Spotify playlist here, if you want some new tracks on the regular.
Or just keep reading and click on the music links below (I get a few cents if you end up buying the song on Amazon, just fyi).
Location: the bathroom, installing a bidet
Mood: bidet-ed
Music: they say you know when you know (Spotify) Like this post? Tell someone about it by clicking a button below.
I was looking at that picture of me back in my early 30s in the last post.
While it’s clear that I’ve aged between then and now, I don’t think that I look like I’ve aged 20 years.
Still, while my face looks older, my body looks…pretty identical.
If anything, I look better now than I did at 25 just because I’ve been so regular with my physical therapy these days.
But exercise is just one of the three sides of the triangle – the other two are genetics and diet.
On genetics, there’s not much you can do there, but I’ve been thinking about diet more than usual lately because of the death of actor James Van Der Beek, who recently passed from stage 3 colorectal cancer.
If you’ve never seen it, it might be worth a watch.
In any case, on the topic of diet, I’m definitely eating well over a pound of peanut butter a week now.
I know this because I started doing Amazon’s Subscribe and Save with two two-pound jars delivered to me every month, about a year ago, but the kid and I kill them in the first three weeks.
Sara and her son don’t touch the stuff, despite my best efforts, which is terribly disappointing as you’ll read below.
In any case, I regularly have to go to the store to buy two more regular jars to last us the month – check out the size difference below.
Now, that means that I’m eating about 2,650 calories, 225 grams of fat, and 28 grams of fiber a week in peanut butter alone every week
BUT that’s in addition to the regular brekkie, lunch, and dinner that I eat.
And yet, I am slimmer than almost all of my peers, which is precisely what I expected when I first started doing this about 20 years ago.
In fact, I remember distinctly a conversation with someone that rang me outta the blue one day that went something like this:
Her: There is no way you can eat that much peanut butter and not become super fat. Me: I dunno. I don’t think that the body processes protein, fat, and fiber the same way it does just fat and carbs. Her: What will you do if you’re wrong?! Me: (laughing) I dunno…stop?
But I never did.
Because it turned out exactly as I expected it to – I ended up losing weight, increasing lean body mass, and reducing my cholesterol.
Since 2006, I’ve been telling everyone that would listen that nut butters are secret to being slim and in excellent health and I used myself as a test subject for 20 years.
I eat peanut butter because it’s just a lot cheaper than nut butters (yes, I realize it’s a legume).
But, if I was wealthy, I’d be eating walnut butter, probably the best thing on the planet to eat after tinned fish, which I also try to eat regularly.
If anyone wants to gift me an annual stipend of walnut butter, I’m not gonna stop you.
In any case, I bring this up because I came across this guy below recently, and he backs up the mountain of research that peanuts are a health bomb.
Now, while he talks mainly about whole raw peanuts, I believe – and I’ve got 20 years of real-world practice that supports this – that natural peanut butter essentially provides very similar/identical results.
If you look up pretty much anything to do with colorectal cancer, you’ll see two things show up in every mention: (a) the lack of fiber in modern diets and (b) the ultra-processed nature of the modern American diet.
The regular consumption of nut/peanut butter helps address both those issues; the former directly by injecting fiber into your diet, the latter by simply making you too full to eat much else.
Anywho, just another of my rando thoughts for a rando day.
Him: Whatcha making, papa? Me: A brown-butter fried peanut butter and banana sandwich. Him: Is that any good? Me: Is it any good!?!?! Dude…prepare to have your mind blown…
Met up with the pastor early this past week for some coffee and…
Me: Wait, they have a $5 burger here! Him: Yeah, it’s pretty good. Do you want to get one? Me: Do I want a $5 burger?! Heck yeah! (afterwards) Are you thinking of getting another one? Him: I will if you will. Me: Looks like we’re having more burgers for brekkie!
Have you ever heard of Meghan Reinertsen?
She’s a nanny and an influencer but what really made her famous is the fact that she personally cancelled a United Airlines flight by having…explosive diarrhea.
And, to be clear, I’m not mocking her – at all – here.
After all, I know exactly how embarrassing and uncomfortable it is to have your body involuntarily leave your DNA everywhere and anywhere, through no real fault of your own.
Meghan’s story is that she, evidently, ate this undercooked cheeseburger and then had to lock herself into the airplane bathroom for 90 humiliating minutes where her DNA came out of both ends.
This was not the burger that she had but it was the burger that I had with the pastor. Now I want another one…
But now, everyone has a camera and recording device on their person at all times.
And I can’t help but think of all the incredibly stupid, stupid, and cruel things I’ve done and said throughout my life – to say nuthin of all my embarrassing moments.
Dude, you may not believe it, but the version of me you met in 2006 was the matureversion of me.
Logan Lo circa 2026?
I’m a goddamn piece of fine art by now.
Ok, maybe not fine, but just go with it for now…
Me in Berlin in 2006. I was 32.
My only saving grace is that no one had video phones/cameras on their person in the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s.
You absolutely would not be reading me. You’d be saying things like:
Logan? You mean the guy that wore rollerblades and fell down the entire staircase leading to Bethesda Fountain?
Logan? You mean the guy that wore parachute pants with the flock of seagulls haircut?
Logan? To mean the guy that practiced taiji for a decade and tried to fight with it?
My point being that, but for my telling you any of this, none of this would exist except in my own head.
But for the kid and his friends everything has the potentially to be recorded and preserved forever.
Everything has the potential to be just devastating – emotionally and socially.
I can laugh about alla that now because I’m 52 and honestly don’t care about much these days but, man, did I care when I was a kid.
And I hope that the kid realizes that nothing embarrassing is anything but a story to be told years from now.
So, here’s to the Meghans of the world that just say, Fuck it, and own their most embarrassing moments.
Because, today, there’s not much else you can do.
Him: Papa, why don’t you ever show my face? Me: Oh no, kid. I’m so proud of you. It’s not that, it’s the opposite. You’re my treasure. And you don’t go showing off your treasure. You keep your most valuable things private. Him: I’m your valuable thing? Me: No, kid, you’re my most valuable thing. I got nuthin close to you. Him: Yay!
In season seven of the Game of Thrones, John Snow begs all the sides of the Seven Kingdoms to put away their differences to prepare for the coming war with the White Walkers.
He knows that humanity is doomed if they don’t unite because they’re unprepared for the war about to happen.
Hold that thought.
Many historians don’t consider World War I and World War II as two separate things – at least not in Europe.
For them, it was one long war of modernization and ethno-racial underpinnings, with Germany at the center:
In WW1, because the Second Reich of Germany came about as the result of the breakdown of the old-world order of empires (German, Austro‑Hungarian, Ottoman, Russian), while…
In WW2, just 21 years later, Germany was still smarting over its defeat in WW1 and the subsequent humiliation of The Treaty of Versailles, and it was a chance to show the world that WW1 was just fluke – that didn’t work out.
It’s only by seeing the big picture that you realize what is really happening.
Me at the Jannowitzbrücke station in Berlin 21 years ago.
While most of sane people in the world, and here in the US, see the downfall of the American Empire under Trump, which is accurate, I see that but it’s more than that.
A lot more.
If the US and the EU/NATO do become adversaries, then China – and, to a lesser extent, Russia – wins.
It might not happen tomorrow, but it’s definitely gonna happen.
And a war is coming, in one form or another, hot or cold. But it’s coming if it’s not here already.
Yes, Russia is evil and dangerous but it’s not the danger that China is.
You have no idea how dangerous China is.
Because China is dangerous in ways you couldn’t imagine.
100 years ago, in 1926, China was…nuthin.
It was in the middle of (multiple) civil wars, called the Warlord Era (1916–1928). This was after the Opium War and the downfall of the Qing dynasty.
There was no unified national army, no cohesive economic strategy, no real industry of any sort, outside of large agrarian areas predominantly used to feed their own people.
It was a whole lotta, well, like I said, nuthin.
The Western powers – plus fucking Japan – controlled all the ports, legal, banking, customs, and tariffs – everything was in the hands of someone else.
100 years later, in 2026, China has the largest trade surplus in the world, reaching roughly $1.2 trillion in 2025 — the largest number EVER in human history, recorded by any country.
Think about that.
To go from a backward nuthin nation of warlords under the thumbs of everyone to athe nuclear-powered creditor nation in four generations.
That’s mindboggling.
In fact, just 24 years after the warlord period of China, China was already showing the world how quickly it learned how to use soft power in Korea – essentially handing the US the first of many defeats in Asia.
China did it again, just four years later with the Vietnam War.
Then the USSR/Russia attacked a weakened China in 1969 and should have destroyed them, but it didn’t, even with superior firepower and tech.
Culturally, the Chinese are quiet – we watch and learn. And we think.
If it wasn’t for the fact that the Chinese government is absolutely brutal against its own people and regularly threaten Taiwan, a country I love deeply, I’d admire and be proud of these facts.
But, just like here, the country is in the hands of the selfishly evil and the populous is too brainwashed or too fettered to do anything about it.
That’s what the West is up against.
But with Trump pissing off all its allies to line his own pockets so, because half of my countrymen are imbeciles, there is no unified front against China.
The united west lost the first two rounds when it was fighting China by proxy.
Fractured? The West is screwed.
If there’s a true cold war against China – and really, that’s the only war that’s possible between two nuclear empires – Donny’s barely able to play checkers against some chess grandmasters and we’ve got zero friends to help us.
That’s not good. None of this is good.
Now, I hate China because of how it treats its people. Which is to say, I hate China because of how it treats the Chinese.
Then again, the US isn’t treating its people all that well either, lately, now that I think about it.
Me: Congrats on becoming a parent! It’s tough but awesome. Him: Any advice? Me: Yeah, have her learn how to fight, learn how to manage her money, and learn how to speak Mandarin. Him: (laughing) Why Mandarin? Me: OK, so in 1926…
On the flip side of kindness, Sara and I were out at the Surgeon’s house the other day and I told them that Johnny and I stopped speaking.
When we were much younger, there were times I woulda called Johnny my best friend.
But, in the end, he chose money over decades of friendship.
Him: That was it? You never spoke to him again? Me: He called me once, drunk. Didn’t pick up. There was nothing to say. I didn’t want someone like him in my life. Around me. Around my kid.
Which brings me to the Devil, whom I’ve not seen in ages.
Not since before COVID.
Throughout the years, I’ve ping-ponged between enemies, frenemies, and friends with him. We’ve had so many differences, arguments, times when I legitimately feared for my safety.
Yet, he was oddly never treacherous. Dangerous and heartless, yes. Treacherous, no.
Me: It doesn’t bother you? Hurting people? He: Not particularly. Me: Why not? Him: Maybe they deserve it.
And now I’m left wondering whatever happened to him.
I suppose that, if he’s still out there, I wanted to say, thanks.
This was 20 years ago. That may or may not have been him.
After all these years, now that I’m older, I finally understand some of the things he was trying to tell me when I was a young and hot-headed man, and he was the older, wiser fella trying to teach me something.
I think I’ve finally experienced enough of the world to understand what he was trying to tell me all this time: That the world was alwayssoupy grey and only children see things in black and white.
For better or worse, what I thought was cruelty this whole time was – in fact – a form of kindness, in some perverse way.
I was just too naïve to see it.
On that note, I thought about one of our very last face-to-face conversations.
Me: (later) Why do even care? Him: (laughing) You’re the last reliable guy in New York. In 20 years, you’ve never said you were going to do something and not do it. Out of all of them, you’re the only one that’s never let me down. Me: That’s it? Him: (shrugging) That’s a lot. Finding someone whose word isn’t just bullshit is a lot, Logan.
Well then, I suppose, for alla my faults, I’ve done something right.
Johnny, someone I once considered one of my best friends betrayed me, while the Devil, whom I called that in my head and hated at times, ended up making me so much of who I am today – in a good sense.
Even this late in the game, I’m still learning stuff.
