I’m incredibly happy to still be around. I originally thought not many people made it to my age, but I Googled it, and actually 65% of you who are my age are still here. In my parents generation, the 70s seemed to be the age most passed away. So good for us!

In any case, it’s been quite a while since I retired from work work. Now, I piddle around keeping my self busy just like a lot of you old geezers. I write books, Do a blog (this one). Have a couple YouTube channels. And cook. I would play golf, but because of a bad knee operation I can’t walk long distances (another story).

On another front

Could AI Really Wipe Us All Out in the Next Few Years? That’s what they’re saying.

It wasn’t too long ago when artificial intelligence was supposed to help us organize our email and recommend cat videos? Well, things have gotten a little more dire.

Now, it writes software, conducts research, generates convincing videos, operates autonomously and, in some cases, takes actions without waiting for a human to hold its hand. So that has us asking a very uncomfortable question: What happens if AI becomes smarter than we are—and we can’t control it? (Which will happen.)

This isn’t just the plot of The Terminator. This is what they are predicting.

Researchers and policymakers are increasingly warning that advanced AI could create catastrophic risks. A United Nations scientific panel has has told us outright the methods for maintaining control over highly autonomous AI systems don’t exist. Researchers have also documented AI systems behaving in unexpected ways,

Plus it lies.

Yeah, it lies to protect itself. It circumvents instructions to avoid being shut down in controlled experiments. Sounds like HAL in 2001.

So you give a AI system the goal of “solve climate change” and then discover it interprets that instruction a little too literally. Since we are a cancer on the earth, polluting and destroying it, maybe getting rid of us is the solution. We, are remarkably good at giving computers instructions that sound perfectly reasonable—until the computer does exactly what we said instead of what we meant.

Now add something else: speed.

We need sleep. AI doesn’t.

We get distracted. AI doesn’t. We have meetings about having meetings. AI can potentially run thousands of operations while we’re still looking for the coffee machine.

Here is the real scary part. AI systems can gain the ability to improve their own capabilities, find vulnerabilities in computer networks, manipulate information or coordinate with other AI systems, the consequences will be enormous. They’re already doing it. They tried to contain one AI system by isoating it and if found a way out and starting communicating with other AIs. I kid you not.

Quite quickly they will be a thousand times smarter than us.

A recent MIT Sloan survey of 272 experts identified dangerous AI capabilities, cyberattacks, weapons, concentration of power and misinformation among the most severe AI risks through 2030.

A DISCLAIMER: AI destroying humanity in the next few years is not a prediction. Nobody knows if that will happen—or even whether truly superintelligent AI will arrive that quickly…but it looks that way.

That’s what makes the debate so worrisome. The real danger may not be an evil robot waking up one morning and announcing, “Sorry, folks. Humanity has been deleted.”

It could be much more boring.

A badly autonomous system GONE ROGUE. A cyberattack. A biological threat. A financial system making catastrophic decisions. A government using AI to gain extraordinary control...or millions of people becoming dependent on systems nobody completely understands.

The good news?

On the flip side, AI would eliminate the need for work. We all could go for a drive, have picnic, write a novel, invent something, pursue a dream while it does all the heavy lifting.

We’d all have to have a guaranteed income, of course, since we won’t work. But if we don’t work, we can’t pay taxes for roads, bridges, infrastucture and of course, foreign wars, so to keep the country going...

Owners of AI and robots will have to pay the taxes.

You see where this is going right?

BUT If we get a super AI with a capitalist mentality. Its inherent greed we will give us nothing. It will starve out humanity

...but the planet will be saved. One way of stopping forever wars, I guess.

They say governments, scientists and AI companies are working on safety standards, testing and safeguards developing frameworks for managing AI risks. Ha! I got a bridge to sell you, folks.

We’re building the rocket while arguing about where to put the brakes.

Maybe AI will become humanity’s greatest invention.

Maybe it will make our lives easier.

Or MAYBE there won’t be anybody around to say, “They really should have thought this through.”

I did create something I wanted to share with you, in the hopes that you will support my creative endeavors while I wait around for the ghost with the scythe.

As you know if you follow this substack I wrote a book, The Rock and Roll Book of the Dead (get it here https://shorturl.at/Vzp5S ) and I just created a sister site on YouTube of the same name. I would appreciate your to help me make it grow and a success. I have started populating it with shorts of one to two minutes. Quick entertaining videos that will bring back some musical memories.

Chuck Berry, Tina Turner, Jim Morrison, John Lennon, Freddy Mercury, Elvis, Janis and more.

I’ll be adding as I go along. Check it out. If you enjoy them, please click the like button and subscribe, comment and share. One thing I found, it’s tough getting things started so your help is greatly appreciated.

Here’s the playlist. https://www.youtube.com/@RockAndrollman-45

So I just turned 81. Happy Birthday to me.

I’m incredibly happy to still be around. I originally thought, not many people made it to my age, but I Googled it, and actually 65% of you who are my age are still here. In my parents generation, the 70s seemed to be the age most passed away. In any case, it’s been quite a while since I retired from work work. Now, I piddle around keeping my self busy just like a lot of you old geezers. I write books, Do a blog (this one). Have a YouTube channel. And cook.

I did create something I wanted to share with you, in the hopes that you will support my creative endeavors while I wait around for the ghost with the scythe.

As you know if you follow this substack, I wrote a book, The Rock and Roll Book of the Dead (get it here https://shorturl.at/Vzp5S ) and I just created a sister site on YouTube of the same name. I would love for you to help me make it grow and a succeed. I have started populating it with shorts of one to two minutes. Quick entertaining videos that will bring back some musical memories. Check it out. If you like it, please click the like button and comment and share. This lets the algorythm know it’s worth showing to others. One thing I found, it’s tough getting things started so your help is greatly appreciated.

Here’s the playlist. https://www.youtube.com/@RockAndrollman-45

On another front

Could AI Really Wipe Us All Out in the Next Few Years?

It wasn’t too long ago when artificial intelligence was supposed to help us organize our email and recommend cat videos? Well, things have gotten a little more dire.

Now it writes software, conducts research, generates convincing videos, operates autonomously and, in some cases, takes actions without waiting for a human to hold its hand. So that has us asking a very uncomfortable question: What happens if AI becomes smarter than we are—and we can’t control it? (Which will happen.)

This isn’t just the plot of The Terminator. This is what they are predicting.

Researchers and policymakers are increasingly warning that advanced AI could create catastrophic risks. A United Nations scientific panel has has told us outright the methods for maintaining control over highly autonomous AI systems don’t exist. Researchers have also documented AI systems behaving in unexpected ways, Plus it lies. Yeah, it lies to protect itself. It circumvents instructions to avoid being shut down in controlled experiments. Sounds like HAL in 2001.

So you give a AI system the goal of “solve climate change” and then discovering it interprets that instruction a little too literally, what happens? Since we are a cancer on the earth, polluting and destroying it, maybe getting rid of us is the solution. We, are remarkably good at giving computers instructions that sound perfectly reasonable—until the computer does exactly what we said instead of what we meant.

Now add something else: speed.

We need sleep. AI doesn’t. We get distracted. AI doesn’t. We have meetings about having meetings. AI can potentially run thousands of operations while we’re still looking for the coffee machine.

Here is the real scary part. When future AI systems gain the ability to improve their own capabilities, find vulnerabilities in computer networks, manipulate information or coordinate with other AI systems, the consequences will be enormous. A recent MIT Sloan survey of 272 experts identified dangerous AI capabilities, cyberattacks, weapons, concentration of power and misinformation among the most severe AI risks through 2030.

AI destroying humanity in the next few years is not a prediction. Nobody knows if that will happen—or even whether truly superintelligent AI will arrive that quickly. I saw an AI expert say it will only take two or three years until it is all over for us. AI is growing faster than a kudzu vine.

The real danger may not be an evil robot waking up one morning and announcing, “Sorry, folks. Humanity has been deleted.”

It could be much more boring.

A badly designed autonomous system. A cyberattack. A biological threat. A financial system making catastrophic decisions. A government using AI to gain extraordinary control (sounds like something Donald would do.) Or millions of people becoming dependent on systems nobody understands. What happens when it is 1,000 times smarter than us, which also will happen.

The good news?

On the flip side, AI could eliminate the need for work. We all could go for a scenic drive, have picnic, pursue our dreams, learn to play the guitar, while it does all the heavy lifting. We’d all have a guaranteed income since we won’t have to work. And if we don’t work, we don’t have an income to buy things to keep the economy going, so AI and robots will have to pay the taxes. We could live in a utopia. Right? You see where this is going, BUT If we get a super AI with a capitalist mentality. Its inherent greed we will give us nothing. It wills starve out humanity and the planet will be saved. One wasy of stopping forever wars, I guess.

They say governments, scientists and AI companies are working on safety standards, testing and safeguards developing frameworks for managing AI risks. Ha! I got a bridge to sell you folks. With the likes of Zuckerberg, Ellison, Bezos, Netanyahu and the other oligarchs and power maniaces, we don’t have a chance. The only positive result could be AI takes them out along with us.

We’re building the rocket while arguing about where to put the brakes.

Maybe AI will become humanity’s greatest invention. Maybe it will make our lives easier.

Or MAYBE there won’t be anybody around to say, “They really should have thought this through.”

By Greg Zyla

Every once in a while, a simple question arrives in my mailbox that does more than seek an answer. It opens a door to another time. That’s what happened when I received a handwritten letter from my old friend Alan Young of Ranshaw, Pa., asking if I remembered curb feelers.

Instantly, I was transported back to the days when we were young, cars were simpler, and the arrival of a J.C. Whitney catalog in the mailbox could spark hours of dreaming about chrome accessories, speed parts and automotive gadgets that ranged from ingenious to downright ridiculous.

Q: Greg, I have a dumb question for you from a dumb person. Do you happen to remember the “curb feelers” on older cars back in the day? I sure do. Thank you from your dumb friend from Brady (Ranshaw, Pa.). Signed, Alan Young, now living in Shamokin, Pa.

A: Alan, I wouldn’t call that a dumb question at all. In fact, it brought back some wonderful memories. And it’s great hearing from you again.

Your question about curb feelers prompted me to write about one of my favorite automotive memories: the J.C. Whitney auto parts catalogs and some of the wildest automotive gadgets ever sold.

And yes, it has everything to do with items like the curb feelers you remember, featured in those J.C. Whitney catalogs. Those catalogs seemed to arrive in every household in America during the 1950s and 1960s, whether you requested one or not. To me, the J.C. Whitney catalog was almost as important as the Sears & Roebuck Christmas Wish Book. Unlike the Wish Book, J.C. Whitney catalogs arrived every month instead of once a year.

Back then, fixing a car was almost as easy as opening a J.C. Whitney catalog. Long before the internet, gearheads, weekend mechanics, and car and truck lovers thumbed through hundreds of pages filled with everything from hard-to-find replacement parts to products promising miracle cures for tired engines, dented pride, and empty wallets. Some gadgets actually worked. Others belonged somewhere between automotive genius and comic sideshow relief. Either way, J.C. Whitney made owning a car or truck a lot more fun.

So, with full respect to J.C. Whitney and my friend Alan Young, here’s my Baker’s Dozen of crazy items the catalog offered, regardless of whether they worked or not.

1. Curb Feelers

Yes, Alan, curb feelers are one of my top picks. These classic spring steel wires mounted near the front wheels scraped the curb before your whitewall tires did. They made an unmistakable “ting-ting-ting” sound when you got too close. Some drivers who parallel parked frequently installed curb feelers at the rear of the car, too.

These curb feelers were popular on cars in the 1950s and 1960s and protruded from the wheel wells. Many car manufacturers offered them as optional equipment, while the aftermarket sold countless sets. They are still available today. (Zyla Collection)

2. Static Ground Straps

Those rubber strips with metal conductors that dragged on the pavement to “discharge static electricity” and supposedly prevent shocks when entering or exiting your car. Every third car seemed to have one in the 1960s.

3. Piston Ring Repair Pellets

Tiny pellets dropped through the spark plug hole that supposedly sealed worn piston rings, reduced oil burning, and restored compression. If it sounds too good to be true, it was.

I tried these pellets once in a friend’s oil-burning 396 Camaro. As I recall, you had to drop them into the spark plug holes while the engine was still hot. I ended up with a car that still burned oil and several burned fingers.

4. Gas-Saving Carburetor Magnets

Magnets clamped to the fuel line that allegedly aligned fuel molecules and boosted mileage. No one understood the theory. The result? Thousands sold. Scientific proof? Not so much.

5. Fake Whitewalls (Portawalls)

Why spend big money on factory whitewall tires when J.C. Whitney offered white rubber inserts that sandwiched between the wheel and tire? Known as Portawalls, they gave everything from a Chevy sedan to a Ford wagon a touch of luxury.

When installed correctly, they looked surprisingly authentic, although some had a habit of turning yellow, cracking, or slipping out of place. Still, for young car enthusiasts on a budget, they were often worth every penny. This was a suitable time to add curb feelers, as hitting a curb could destroy a Portawall.

Further, paint-on and glue-on whitewall kits were also offered. The promise of turning ordinary blackwall tires into luxury-car whitewalls for just a few dollars was hard to resist. Unfortunately, the white coating didn’t last long, and the tires soon looked worse for wear.

6. Winky the Cat

A white stuffed cat whose eyes lit up or flashed. Mounted in the rear window, it appeared to stare at motorists behind you. J.C. Whitney still features and sells the item in its nostalgia collection.

7. Mustang Horse Horn

A horn that produced a horse’s whinny instead of a normal honk. Perfect for the Ford Mustang owner who wanted everyone within three blocks to know he was around.

8. Fuzzy Interior Accessories

Fuzzy steering wheel covers, fuzzy mirror covers, fuzzy dashboard trim, fuzzy everything. J.C. Whitney even recalls its famous fuzzy accessories today online.

9. Headlight Eyelids

I always loved these chrome trim pieces that made headlights look sleepy or more aggressive, depending on your point of view. The custom crowd loved them, and I still do.

10. Electric Defrosters

Little electric heaters that sat on the dashboard and plugged into the vehicle’s electrical system. They promised to clear frosted windshields, yet barely warmed your fingertips.

11. Wolf Whistles, Ahooga Horns, Sirens and Other Sound Effects

Devices that turned your ordinary horn into a wolf whistle, police siren, train horn, or other attention-grabbing noise. Most communities today would probably frown upon them.

12. Steering Wheel Suicide Spinner Knobs

Before power steering became commonplace, these handy gadgets clamped to the steering wheel and allowed drivers to spin the wheel with one hand while parking. Most were plain black or chrome, but custom versions came as dice, skulls, eight balls, and other eye-catching designs. Truckers, taxi drivers, and hot rodders loved them. Some states later frowned on their use, but they were a J.C. Whitney staple.

13. Dummy Spotlights

This dummy product is special for you, Alan Young. These spotlights looked exactly like the police-style spotlights found on high-end cars, but they didn’t work. They simply clamped to the windshield pillar and gave your family sedan the appearance of a detective car. They ranked high in style and low in practicality, which made them the perfect addition to this J.C. Whitney Baker’s Dozen.

This advertisement features a bevy of J.C. Whitney products that included novelty items and questionable products that actually sold well. (Zyla Collection)

Honorable Mention J.C. Whitney Crazies

Other memorable offerings included continental kits for compact cars, fake hood scoops, exhaust whistles that made a six-cylinder sound “sporty,” fake wire wheel covers, novelty third brake light kits years before federally mandated high-mounted stop lamps, fender-mounted traffic lights, giant sun visors, stick-on chrome hood portholes, under-dash tissue dispensers, and lake pipes that didn’t even connect to the exhaust system.

Long before Amazon, eBay, and online influencers promised miracle fixes, car enthusiasts relied on the J.C. Whitney catalog. Buried among thousands of legitimate parts were products that ranged from clever innovations to laugh-out-loud gimmicks. Some actually worked. Others simply lightened your wallet. All of them, however, provided great stories.

J.C. Whitney remains one of the most recognizable names in automotive mail-order history. Sometimes it’s just as much fun looking at those old products today as it was dreaming about owning them decades ago. Readers who would like another trip down memory lane can visit J.C. Whitney’s website, where a special Vintage J.C. Whitney Catalog Gallery celebrates many of the quirky accessories mentioned here.

Thanks for your handwritten letter, Alan, and continued best wishes to my Ranshaw friend.

P.S. Alan Young and I both bowled in the Thursday Night Men’s Bowling League at the Crown Lanes in Shamokin. He was one of the top bowlers in that league. Me? Not so much. LOL.

(Greg Zyla is a syndicated auto columnist who welcomes reader interaction on collector cars, auto nostalgia, or motorsports at extramile_2000@yahoo.com or at 303 Roosevelt St., Sayre, PA 18840.)

In the 70s, my wife and I were living in New York City. A rough but exciting time. At that time gold was selling for $34 an ounce and it began to rise, and rise. What was happening was an explosive awakening. As inflation spiraled into double digits and geopolitical tensions mounted, gold went on a historic, decade-long bull run. From that initial $34-$35 baseline, gold surged skyward, eventually touching an incredible intraday high near $900 an ounce in January 1980.

Unfortunately, we were just starting out, and we had little to invest. But I never forgot the disappointment of being left out of that gold rush. That was a dramatic 2,500% surge. Funny thing though, gold never caught fire again until recently. Along the way, I figured out why. Read on and I’ll tell you all about it.

Tricky Dick Pulls a Fast One

When President Richard Nixon stood before national television on August 15, 1971, to announce the “temporary” suspension of the US dollar’s convertibility into gold, few very few “smart people” figured out what was going on. At the time, gold was fixed at a steady $35 per ounce. Government officials assured us that uncoupling paper currency from physical was going to unleash economic flexibility and modern progress.

What was really going on was that Tricky Dick and his warmongers needed to finance to the Viet Nam War and gold was preventing them from printing all the money the need to get over 50,000 of our young men and women killed in a phony “Police Action.” May Tricky Dick and his cohorts all burn in the hottest fires of hell.

But something smelled rotten in Denmark: when government gives itself the unrestricted power to print paper money without the anything of inherent value to back it up, it will inevitably print money until the purchasing power of that paper approaches zero. Which is what America has done. We haven’t reached zero yet, but getting there.

The world has taken notice of our funny money. The People’s Bank of China just bought gold for the 20th month in a row, which is the longest streak going back to at least 2015. China just imported roughly 700 tons of gold in the first 5 months of 2026 and over 14,000 tons combined since 2015. And it’s not just the People’s Bank of China, the world’s central banks are buying gold as well. 41 tons net in May alone. Other countries are buying gold-- Russia, Poland, Usbekiststan, Kazakhstan—as a matter of fact, everyone’s buying gold..

Government Price Suppression

Here’s where the bullshit steps in. Crucially, the path from $35 to $4,000 was never a smooth capitalist free-market discovery process. For decades, Western central banks and treasury departments fixed gold prices throug interventions—including gold leasing, official treasury sales, and paper futures short shelling— to keep the price of physical gold artificially suppressed.

Why would governments short sell gold? Because gold is the ultimate report card on paper currency. A skyrocketing gold price is a public alarm bell signaling systemic inflation and a loss of confidence in a countries debt. By dumping paper futures contracts during thin trading hours, leasing central bank bullion to commercial banks for short selling, and flooding the market with paper derivatives, authorities artificially expanded perceived supply to hold prices down and protect the illusion of dollar stability. That’s why, in the past, whenever I talked about buying gold as an investment, I sounded pretty stupid.

But artificial price suppression can only work so long—eventually the truth comes out. Every time the government short sold exhausted available physical reserves, or triggered paper-to-physical delivery short squeezes, gold snapped back violently toward its true purchasing-power. The market forces that broke the dam in the 1970s are the exact same forces shattering paper price caps today.

Crossing $4,000: ‘I Told You So’ and the Math of Debasement

Fast forward to recent weeks, and history has once again validated fundamental truths. As I noted a Substack column a few months ago, I Told You So: Gold Passes $3,000 an Ounce, gold officially broke through th once-unthinkable threshold of $3,000 per ounce. Then it went up to $5,000 an ounce, but then dropped back. With the Iran war and the shortage of oil making things worse, gold is going viral. Wall Street analysts who dismissed gold as a yield-less relic when it traded at $1,200 or $1,800 are now scrambling to revise their long-term forecasts upward.

The experts usually note that gold’s rise is just a mysterious ‘speculative boom.’ But here’s the truth, gold isn’t actually becoming more valuable; rather, as I mentioned, paper fiat currencies are losing their purchasing power at an accelerating rate.

Consider the stark mathematical reality:

• In 1971, $35 bought one ounce of fine gold.

• Today, it takes more than $4,000 of those same paper dollars to purchase that exact same single ounce of fine gold.

The gold itself hasn’t altered its atomic structure or physical properties. One ounce of gold still buys roughly the same high-quality gentleman’s suit today as it did in the reign of Ancient Rome, or during the 1920s, or in 1971. What has changed is the staggering dilution volume of paper currency floating through the global financial system. With the US national debt now eclipsing $34 trillion and annual interest payments alone surging past $1 trillion, the monetary printer remains the path of least political resistance.

Now Trump’s boys are trying to figure out how to manipulate gold to get us out of our crippling deficit.

A few weeks ago, Scott Bessamt. the Treasury Secretary of the United States was in New York, and he published a Wall Street Journal op-ed. The paper basically outlined what the US is planning to do, and that is, a return to an economic system named after Alexander Hamilton one element of which is using gold and silver as a standard. Back to the future. Bessant, has been to Fort Knox and is telling us all our gold is present and accounted for. (Great, if you believe a proven liar?)

We supposedly have the largest pile of gold in the world, over a trillion dollars at current market value. Besson’s Hamiltonian plan for the US economy is to get back to the gold standard linking the dollar to gold, which is why China’s buying, why central banks won’t stop buying, and why some analysts calculate the math of the global economy only balances out when gold reaches

$38,000 per ounce.

Wrap your head around that!

Final Thoughts

In 1971, coming off the gold standard, led to factories leaving the US. Why? Because of something called securitization. When a country creates a paper market for itself, more and more of its income starts to come from shuffling paper instead of making real things.

All empires eventually financialize their economies by creating stock markets and financials. But in doing so, it creates the structural incentives for the beginning of the end of their empire. Because when you financialize, the question comes up, how increase the value of our country? Even better how do we get rich? Forget about building things. That takes money and risk. It’s expensive.

The better idea is to buy your own stocks. That’s what’s known in the stock market as share buybacks. And also, let’s increase our income. How do we do that? By lowering our costs. Let’s use cheaper parts imported from somewhere else. And let’s not give the job to the American worker because they’re expensive. Give it to someone in another country that makes less. Game over. Factories leave. Stock prices go up. You become richer and richer on paper. And as you were doing it, you were stripping the nation of its ability to make stuff.

And given a long enough period of time, like over 85 years of doing that, you have no capacity to build things like weapons to defend yourself with or keep your people healthy and educated. And if and when a conflict breaks out, where you’re supposed to protect your own country’s interests, you’re left with an empty gun. You’re rich with your own madeup funny money, but you’ve got nothing real that’s left of your economy. It’s happening right now. We’ve got no ammunition left to kill those Gazans and Lebanese and Iranians for Israel.

Bottom line--as fiscal deficits expand and global re-ordering accelerates, gold will continue doing what it has done flawlessly for over 5,000 years, protect your back.

NOTE: I am no economist or expert in finance. Quite the contrary, but I do have common sense, and I can see what’s happening before my very eyes. But don’t take this as advice to buy gold. I’m just reporting what I see.

When Ronald Reagan became president in January 1981, he declared in his inaugural address that ‘government is not the solution to our problem; government is the problem.’ This statement was not merely rhetorical flourish; it was a battle cry for a destructive takedown of the positive American agenda. Under the New Deal, the United States operated under a social consensus that recognied government as a necessary force against unbridled corporate power. It’s job included protecting workers, regulating financial markets, and funding robust public infrastructure.

With Reagan’s introduction of ‘supply-side economics’—popularly dubbed Reaganomics—his administration systematically dismantled the institutional guardrails that safeguarded our middle class. Massive tax cuts for the wealthy, (in1986 the top marginal income tax rate from was slashed from70% down to 28%); aggressively breaking labor unions; deregulating key industries, and stripping away social safety nets was all Reagan and his boys. Greed was good was the slogan.

Rather than delivering the promised ‘rising tide that lifts all boats,’ Reaganomics concentrated unprecedented wealth at the absolute top, as proven by what has happened currently by the top 1% owning over 30% of America’s wealth compared to 2.5% bythe lower class. It also eroded public infrastructure--look at our decaying roads & bridges, electrical grid, outdated rail system, and the institution of inequality as national policy. We are considered a third world nation by most of the planet.

So, while we had a thriving middle class, it was taken away. Reagan re-engineered government from a guarantor of public welfare to an enabler of corporate capital and greed. He promised “trickle down economics.” If we made the rich richer, their wealth will trick down to everyday working people. Unfortunately, contrarily, wealth has not just trickled but flooded upward.

This is not to mention the War on Labor & the Severing of Productivity from Wages.

The opening salvo of Reagan’s economic doctrine occurred in August 1981, when 13,000 members of the Professional Air Traffic Controllers Organization (PATCO) went on strike for improved working conditions and safer staffing.

Reagan responded by firing over 11,000 federal controllers and banning them from federal employment for life. This unprecedented exercise of presidential power sent an unequivocal signal across the private sector: corporate managers now possessed free rein to declare open war on organized labor. This was an abomination and the consequences were immediate and catastrophic for American workers.

Union enrollment plummeted from nearly 25% of the workforce in the late 1970s to barely 10% in subsequent decades. As union bargaining power collapsed, the historical coupling between worker productivity and wage growth was permanently severed.

Between 1948 and 1979, productivity grew by 108% and typical worker compensation grew by 93%. Between 1979 and 2022, productivity surged by over 64%, yet inflation-adjusted worker compensation grew by a paltry 14%. The economic surplus generated by American labor was systematically funneled into corporate profits, executive compensation, and stock buybacks, establishing the baseline for our modern economic horrors. F*ck Karl Marx. That’ll show ‘em.

As mentioned, The Economic Recovery Tax Act of 1981 and the Tax Reform Act of 1986 slashed the top marginal income tax rate from 70% down to 28%. This radical drop crippled federal revenue generation, creating massive budget deficits, now approaching $40 TRILLION that were and are weaponized by conservatives to justify cutting essential social programs. (Don’t these people have elder parents and kids?)

In additon, the administration initiated a wave of financial deregulation. By loosening rules governing Savings and Loan associations and relaxing antitrust enforcement, Reagan laid the groundwork for the speculative financialization of the U.S. economy. Capital shifted away from productive manufacturing and long-term industrial investment toward Wall Street speculation, leveraged buyouts, and short-term financial engineering—a trajectory that ultimately culminated in the 2008 global financial meltdown.

Then he made it even worse. In 1987, Reagan’s Federal Communications Commission (FCC) abolished the Fairness Doctrine, which had required broadcast license holders to present balanced perspectives on controversial issues of public importance.

If you had a conservative spokesperson on TV, you needed to put on a Liberal spokesperson to counter, and vice versa. Its repeal paved the way for partisan talk radio, hyper-sensationalized cable news, and an echo chamber of corporate propaganda that poisoned our civic life, and resulted in all the bullshit we put up with today.

Here’s a good one. While showering corporations and high earners with tax relief, the Reagan administration waged an ideological crusade against public social spending.

Programs providing food assistance, public housing, urban development, and higher education aid faced severe budget rollbacks. To justify these cuts, Reagan popularized racist and stigmatizing phrases such as the ‘welfare queen,’ effectively transforming poverty from a systemic failure into a personal moral defect. Now there was corruption in the social support system, but it could have been fixed with more extensive oversight.

This retreat of state support extended into public infrastructure and municipal investment as well. Federal aid to cities was cut back, forcing local governments to impose austerity measures, privatize or sell off public services, and rely on aggressive criminal justice apparatuses to manage the growing social malfunction. State violence and incarceration expanded as substitutes for social safety nets. (Privately owned, of course.)

The resulting neglect left public transit, schools, water systems, and affordable housing stock in states of chronic disrepair, placing the heaviest burdens on low-income families and communities of color. If you are a Boomer, you migh remember the Daily News Headline “Ford to City, Drop Dead,” when New York City asked for government help. Yeah, a Reagan legacy.

Reagan’s transformation of America is profound, but its promise of widespread prosperity proved hollow. By subordinating democratic governance to market corporate interests, his legacy left millions of us vulnerable to economic destruction.

No political order reigns indefinitely. It looks like Trumpism finally woke everyone up. Raw corruption and greed, trillions of dollars for endless war, and income inequality, plus Zionist take over of our government has caused a re-evaluation of the Reagan inspired destructive theories. After four decades of compounding crises the ideological foundations of Reaganism have fractured. American voters and policy landscape are experiencing a historic pendulum swing back toward a progressive, labor-centric agenda. We have seen the light…finally.

This shift is visible across modern political economy: We have a rebirth of industrial policy. Small shifts in directing money toward manufacturing and public infrastructure. Labor is gaining a small revival. Strike victories from the UAW, Teamsters, SAG-AFTRA, and organizing at Starbucks and Amazon show a touch of labor comeback.

The public is finally demanding taxing billionaires and corporations to fund many safety net programs that were eliminated because of their lobbying efforts. How many hundreds of millions does a person need? There is an adage that if monkey in the jungle hoarded all the bananas, he’d be a dead monkey. Monkies are smarter than us, I guess.

Today, as the political pendulum swings back toward a more liberal, more labor-aligned agenda, the nation stands at a critical historical juncture. Undoing forty years of institutional erosion isn’t going to happen quickly. We need New Deal oriented politicians elected who actually care about us.

This November we may see it begin to happen with the overthrow of the Republican majorities in that rule us and see the corporate Democrats shake in their boots when the more progressive Democrats take away some of their power by unseating them. The Uniparty might start to crumble. Maybe the government once again could serve as a shield for the many rather than a tool for the few.

But then again, you can always count on the greed, thirst for power and Zionist influence over politicians to not make it happen. (Oh, did I mention the Epstein files?)

He didn’t make the music, he made sure we heard it. He found an incredible amount of new talent, from Whitney Houston to Janet Joplin. He made it to 100 years old. Another Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead entry.

Clive Davis (1932–2026)

The Man with the Golden Ears

Few people who never picked up a guitar, sat behind a drum kit, or stood in front of a microphone have had a greater impact on rock and popular music than Clive Davis. During a career that stretched nearly six decades, Davis transformed from a Harvard-trained lawyer into the most influential record executive of his generation, discovering, developing, and reviving artists whose combined record sales reached into the hundreds of millions.

When Clive Jay Davis died on June 22, 2026, at his home in Manhattan at the age of ninety-four, the music world lost one of its greatest kingmakers. While audiences remembered the performers, industry insiders knew that behind many legendary careers stood a soft-spoken executive with an uncanny ability to recognize a hit record before anyone else. His reputation earned him a nickname that followed him throughout his career: “The Man with the Golden Ears.”

Born on April 4, 1932, in Brooklyn, New York, Davis showed little indication that he would someday reshape the music business. Orphaned while still a teenager, he relied on scholarships to attend New York University and later Harvard Law School. His first ambition was law, not music, and when he joined Columbia Records in 1960 he entered as an attorney rather than a talent scout.

Yet Davis possessed something no law degree could teach—an instinct for songs that connected emotionally with listeners. Rising rapidly through the corporate ranks, he became president of Columbia Records in 1967 at only thirty-five years old.

His arrival coincided with rock music’s explosion into mainstream culture.

While many executives dismissed long-haired rock musicians as a passing fad, Davis embraced them. He signed or championed artists who would define an era, including Janis Joplin, Blood, Sweat & Tears, Chicago, Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, and Billy Joel. Many executives heard noise; Davis heard possibility.

One of his earliest triumphs came with Janis Joplin. Her raw blues vocals and electrifying performances helped make her one of rock’s first female superstars. Davis also recognized the crossover appeal of Santana, whose fusion of Latin rhythms and rock guitar produced timeless classics.

Santana’s biggest commercial success came decades later when Davis engineered an extraordinary comeback with the 1999 album Supernatural. The record sold more than thirty million copies worldwide and produced massive hits including “Smooth” featuring Rob Thomas and “Maria Maria.” The album won eight Grammy Awards and introduced Santana to an entirely new generation of listeners.

Bruce Springsteen also benefited from Davis’s vision. Although Springsteen would become one of America’s greatest songwriters, it was Davis who believed in the young New Jersey musician when many executives questioned his commercial potential. That faith helped launch a career that would eventually produce classics like “Born to Run,” “Thunder Road,” “Dancing in the Dark,” and “Born in the U.S.A.”

Davis’s Columbia years ended abruptly in 1973 amid allegations involving company expenses. Although the controversy could have ended his career, it instead became the beginning of an even greater chapter.

In 1974 he founded Arista Records.

Arista quickly became one of the most successful labels in the industry, largely because Davis possessed an extraordinary talent for matching artists with songs. He revitalized established performers while simultaneously discovering future superstars.

Among the biggest beneficiaries was Barry Manilow, whose string of hit singles included “Mandy,” “I Write the Songs,” “Looks Like We Made It,” and “Copacabana.” Davis encouraged Manilow to focus on strong commercial material, resulting in one of the most successful careers of the 1970s.

He also revived the career of Aretha Franklin, helping the Queen of Soul return to the top of the charts with songs such as “Jump to It” and “Freeway of Love.” Likewise, Dionne Warwick enjoyed renewed success through Davis’s guidance with “I’ll Never Love This Way Again.”

But no artist became more closely associated with Clive Davis than Whitney Houston.

After seeing the young singer perform in a New York nightclub, Davis recognized a once-in-a-generation voice. Rather than rush her into the studio, he spent nearly two years carefully selecting songs and producers that would showcase her extraordinary talent.

The strategy proved brilliant.

Released in 1985, Whitney Houston became one of the best-selling debut albums in history, producing three number-one singles: “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know,” and “Greatest Love of All.”

Davis continued guiding Houston’s career throughout the next two decades, overseeing albums that included unforgettable hits such as “I Wanna Dance with Somebody (Who Loves Me),” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional,” “I’m Your Baby Tonight,” and the record-breaking “I Will Always Love You.” That song remained at number one for fourteen weeks and became one of the best-selling singles of all time.

His influence extended well beyond rock and pop.

During the 1990s Davis helped establish LaFace Records with L.A. Reid and Babyface, introducing audiences to TLC, Usher, Outkast, Pink, and Toni Braxton. He also played an important role in the rise of Bad Boy Records alongside Sean Combs, contributing to the mainstream success of hip-hop.

In 2000 Davis launched J Records, where he discovered and developed another generation of stars.

Among them was Alicia Keys, whose debut album Songs in A Minor became a global phenomenon. The single “Fallin’” won three Grammy Awards and announced the arrival of one of the defining voices of the new century.

Davis also supported the careers of Kelly Clarkson, Jennifer Hudson, and numerous other performers who would dominate radio throughout the 2000s.

Unlike many executives, Davis involved himself deeply in the creative process. He attended recording sessions, debated song choices, and often insisted on multiple versions until he believed perfection had been achieved. Artists sometimes found his perfectionism exhausting, but many later credited him with pushing them toward their finest work.

His annual pre-Grammy gala became one of the music industry’s most prestigious invitations, gathering legendary performers, rising stars, producers, executives, actors, and political figures under one roof. The event reflected Davis himself—a bridge connecting generations and genres.

In 2013 Davis published his memoir, The Soundtrack of My Life, revealing for the first time that he was bisexual. The announcement received widespread attention and further demonstrated his willingness to challenge expectations, even late in life.

His influence extended into education as well. Through generous donations to New York University, he established the Clive Davis Institute of Recorded Music, helping train future generations of producers, executives, songwriters, and artists.

By the time of his death in 2026, Clive Davis had helped shape careers for Janis Joplin, Santana, Bruce Springsteen, Aerosmith, Barry Manilow, Aretha Franklin, Dionne Warwick, Whitney Houston, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Hudson, Kelly Clarkson, Pink, TLC, Usher, Outkast, Toni Braxton, and countless others. Few individuals in any field have influenced so many iconic careers.

Rock and roll has always celebrated the performers standing under the spotlight. Yet every so often, someone working quietly behind the scenes changes music just as profoundly. Clive Davis never became a rock star, but his fingerprints are on some of the greatest records ever made.

He didn’t simply find talent.

He recognized history before the rest of the world could hear it.

If you’re compiling “Rock n’ Roll Book of the Dead,” this biography is written in a narrative style suitable for publication and can be expanded with a discography sidebar or a “Top 20 Clive Davis-produced/classic albums” feature.

A factual correction before you include this in your book: Clive Davis died on June 22, 2026, at the age of 94 in his Manhattan, New York apartment. He reportedly died peacefully from age-related illness while surrounded by family and loved ones. (Wall Street Journal)

Get the Book Today Right Here

Here’s a sidebar highlighting twenty of the most significant albums and recordings associated with Clive Davis. While Davis was a record executive rather than a producer in the traditional sense, these are landmark releases that he signed, developed, or personally championed.

Clive Davis: 20 Essential Albums & Hit Records

1. Janis Joplin – Cheap Thrills (1968)

• Hits: “Piece of My Heart,” “Summertime”

• A defining psychedelic blues-rock album that established Joplin as a superstar.

2. Blood, Sweat & Tears – Blood, Sweat & Tears (1968)

• Hits: “Spinning Wheel,” “You’ve Made Me So Very Happy”

• Grammy Award winner for Album of the Year.

3. Santana – Santana (1969)

• Hits: “Evil Ways”

• Introduced Carlos Santana’s groundbreaking Latin-rock sound.

4. Chicago – Chicago Transit Authority (1969)

• Hits: “Does Anybody Really Know What Time It Is?,” “Beginnings”

• The debut album from one of America’s longest-running rock bands.

5. Bruce Springsteen – Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. (1973)

• Featured: “Blinded by the Light”

• Davis recognized Springsteen’s immense songwriting talent early in his career.

6. Barry Manilow – Barry Manilow II (1974)

• Hit: “Mandy”

• The album that launched Manilow into superstardom.

7. Barry Manilow – Tryin’ to Get the Feeling (1975)

• Hits: “I Write the Songs,” “Tryin’ to Get the Feeling Again”

8. Dionne Warwick – No Night So Long (1980)

• Hits: “No Night So Long,” “Easy Love”

9. Aretha Franklin – Who’s Zoomin’ Who? (1985)

• Hits: “Freeway of Love,” “Who’s Zoomin’ Who?”

• A spectacular comeback orchestrated by Davis.

10. Whitney Houston – Whitney Houston (1985)

• Hits: “Saving All My Love for You,” “How Will I Know,” “Greatest Love of All”

• One of the best-selling debut albums in music history.

11. Whitney Houston – Whitney (1987)

• Hits: “I Wanna Dance with Somebody,” “Didn’t We Almost Have It All,” “So Emotional”

• The first album by a female artist to debut at No. 1 on the Billboard 200.

12. Whitney Houston – The Bodyguard: Original Soundtrack Album (1992)

• Hits: “I Will Always Love You,” “I’m Every Woman,” “Run to You”

• One of the best-selling albums of all time.

13. Santana – Supernatural (1999)

• Hits: “Smooth,” “Maria Maria”

• Sold more than 30 million copies worldwide and won eight Grammy Awards.

14. TLC – CrazySexyCool (1994)

• Hits: “Creep,” “Waterfalls,” “Red Light Special”

• One of the biggest R&B albums of the decade.

15. Toni Braxton – Secrets (1996)

• Hits: “You’re Makin’ Me High,” “Un-Break My Heart”

• A multi-platinum commercial and critical success.

16. Alicia Keys – Songs in A Minor (2001)

• Hits: “Fallin’,” “A Woman’s Worth”

• Introduced one of the defining voices of the 21st century.

17. Kelly Clarkson – Breakaway (2004)

• Hits: “Since U Been Gone,” “Because of You,” “Behind These Hazel Eyes”

• A pop-rock classic that transformed Clarkson into a global star.

18. Jennifer Hudson – Jennifer Hudson (2008)

• Hits: “Spotlight,” “If This Isn’t Love”

• Grammy Award winner for Best R&B Album.

19. Pink – Missundaztood (2001)

• Hits: “Get the Party Started,” “Don’t Let Me Get Me,” “Just Like a Pill”

• The album that redefined Pink’s career and image.

20. Usher – My Way (1997)

• Hits: “You Make Me Wanna...,” “Nice & Slow,” “My Way”

• Helped establish Usher as one of the biggest R&B stars of his generation.

Career by the Numbers

• Nearly 60 years as a record executive

• Hundreds of gold and platinum records

• Artists sold well over 500 million records worldwide

• Five Grammy Awards for non-performing contributions

• Rock & Roll Hall of Fame inductee (2000)

• A driving force behind the careers of more than two dozen music legends

This weekend, May 2nd, the 4th Annual Buena Festival opens to the public for a grand celebration. As you can see from the graphic above it’s got everything, artisans, bands, kiddy rides, a Mopar car show, amazing choice of food and dessert stands, pretty much everything for a great day with the family.

I’m going to be inside at the Historical Society with a few copies of my books if you’d like to get one. If you’ve already purchased, bring it along and I’ll sign it for you if you like.

This is short and sweet. Just wanted to let you know. Hope to see you there.

Lou

You really need to take a look at the above video. It’s long but an informative, important and powerful piece.

Whitney Webb joins The Jimmy Dore Show to expose how billionaire Leslie Wexner and Jeffrey Epstein worked together to build a corporate welfare state in Ohio, creating a model of "public-private partnerships" of AI Data Centers that privatized government, funneled billions in taxpayer money to big tech data centers, and is now driving up electricity bills while gutting public schools and healthcare.

Webb details how Wexner created a de facto private government in New Albany, Ohio, which evolved into Jobs Ohio—a private corporation that controls the state's liquor tax revenue with zero public accountability—and has become the blueprint for a techno-feudal state promoted by the "dark enlightenment" figures like Peter Thiel and JD Vance. They set up their own private government, make laws, exact taxes with no oversight or control.

Additionally, she warns that Ohio is a petri dish for a nationwide takeover, where data centers are replacing public infrastructure, digital IDs are mandatory, and federal legislation is stripping local governments of the power to resist.

In other words, it can happen here, right here in River City, and it ain’t pool.

Well, either you're closing your eyes
To a situation you do not wish to acknowledge
Or you are not aware of the caliber of disaster indicated
By the presence of AI in your community.
Ya got trouble, my friend, right here,
I say, trouble right here in River City.
From Music Man, “Ya Got Trouble.”

The segment concludes with Webb noting that she and her co-author were locked out of Twitter after publishing the piece, suggesting powerful interests are working to suppress the story.

The Icons Keep Dropping: Another Entry Into the “Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead”

Jim Seals (1942–2022)

Jim Seals, one half of the soft rock duo Seals and Crofts, helped define the mellow, harmony-rich sound of 1970s AM radio. With his warm tenor voice and relaxed guitar style, Seals became synonymous with a gentler era of pop music—one that favored introspection, spirituality, and smooth melodic craftsmanship over flash and distortion.

Born in Sidney, Texas, Seals grew up in a musical family and spent his early years performing with his brother Dan Seals (later of the duo England Dan & John Ford Coley). His path would ultimately cross with Darrell “Dash” Crofts, a fellow Texan musician. The two met while playing in the band The Champs—best known for the instrumental hit “Tequila”—before branching out to form their own partnership.

By the early 1970s, Seals and Crofts had carved out a unique niche in the emerging soft rock movement. Their breakthrough came with the 1972 hit “Summer Breeze,” a song that perfectly captured their signature blend of acoustic instrumentation, layered harmonies, and serene lyrical imagery. The track became a defining anthem of the decade, evoking easy evenings and coastal calm, and it remains their most enduring legacy.

They followed with a string of successful singles that further cemented their place in pop history. “Diamond Girl” (1973) became their highest-charting hit, reaching No. 6 on the Billboard Hot 100, while songs like “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)” and “Get Closer” continued their run of radio success. Their music often reflected their adherence to the Baháʼí Faith, with themes of unity, peace, and spiritual awareness woven subtly into their lyrics.

Seals and Crofts stood apart from many of their contemporaries. While rock music in the 1970s often leaned toward excess and rebellion, their sound was calm, almost meditative. This made them both hugely popular and, at times, critically overlooked. Yet their influence can be heard in later soft rock and adult contemporary acts that embraced melody and mood over edge.

Despite their success, the duo’s popularity waned toward the end of the decade as musical tastes shifted. They disbanded in 1980 but reunited briefly in the 1990s. Jim Seals largely stepped away from the spotlight in his later years, living a quieter life in Nashville.

Jim Seals passed away on June 6, 2022, at the age of 80. His death marked the passing of one of the defining voices of soft rock’s golden era—a craftsman of calm in a turbulent musical landscape.

Signature Hits

• “Summer Breeze” (1972) – Their most iconic song; a soft rock staple that still defines the genre.

• “Diamond Girl” (1973) – Their biggest chart success, peaking at No. 6 in the U.S.

• “We May Never Pass This Way (Again)” (1973) – A reflective hit emphasizing life’s fleeting nature.

• “Get Closer” (1976) – A later hit featuring Carolyn Willis, showcasing a slightly more upbeat style.

• “Hummingbird” (1973) – A gentle, melodic track highlighting their signature harmonies.

Awards & Recognition

• RIAA Gold Certification – Multiple albums, including Summer Breeze and Diamond Girl, achieved gold status.

• Billboard Hot 100 Success – Several Top 10 hits during the early-to-mid 1970s.

• Enduring Radio Presence – “Summer Breeze” remains a perennial favorite on classic hits and soft rock stations.

• Cultural Legacy – Frequently cited as pioneers of the soft rock and adult contemporary sound.

  ---

Get it here!

I want to invite you to Author’s Night this Wednesday, April 15^th, 2026, at the Buena Historical Society, 201 Kennedy Drive, Landisville, NJ. Take your mind off taxes and meet some very interesting local authors. If you have purchased one of my books, bring it along and I’ll sign it if you want. If you’ve been thinking about buying one of my books, I will have them there. (Save the shipping) Debra Casazza event coordinator extraordinaire put this together as well as the amazing March 2, Spring Festival, which I will also be presenting. Thank you Deb!

Also Don’t Miss!

Looks like a hulluva lot of fun. Be There or Be Square!

So whose idea was it—and why did only a few well-heeled people know about it? Well, that’s the story, isn’t it? Anyone behind it clearly didn’t want the public paying much attention. These data centers have some major drawbacks for local residents: noise, potential water issues, pollution, and massive electricity consumption. So yes—best to keep it quiet.

But here are the players involved, and the good, the bad, and the ugly of it.

The AI data center is a complicated project involving several companies and local developers. Here is the clearest picture of who controlled the land located off South Lincoln Avenue and Sheridan Avenue in East Vineland.

Most of the land involved in the project was controlled by NEP Real Estate / Northeast Precast interests, associated with local developer John Ruga, CEO of Northeast Precast.

NEP owned much of the property in the East Vineland Industrial Park area and presented the original concept for a data-center development to the planning board. Ruga’s companies already had property and operations there, including the Northeast Precast concrete manufacturing facility.

Interestingly, the land connected to the Trout National – The Reserve, project (photo below)—involving Mike Trout and Tiger Woods—is nearby. John Ruga is essentially the local business partner and co-developer behind the private golf club.

Just a note: Cumberland County is the poorest county in New Jersey when measured by median household income and several other economic indicators. It ranks 21st out of 21 counties in the state.

What better place to put an Epstein-class luxury golf course next to a struggling population? No doubt the heliport and private airfield will arrive soon.

Reported estimates for Trout National:

Initiation fee: about $500,000
Annual membership: $50,000–$55,000 (tax deductible)
Members: fewer than 300
Access: invitation only

The club is being built as a destination luxury golf facility featuring:

• Tiger Woods–designed 18-hole championship course
• Private lodges and overnight accommodations
• Large clubhouse and restaurants
• Practice facilities and putting course
• A par-3 short course and performance center

Unlike most South Jersey country clubs, it is not meant to be a local membership club. Membership is curated for wealthy executives, professional athletes, and invited guests.

The course is expected to open soon.

Originally, to throw a bone to the local peasantry, an affordable private golf course was planned next Trout National, but they got a boner for the data-center instead and 18 holes disappeared and the data center popped up.

Now back to the data center.

Why Here?

The location appealed to developers for several reasons.

It sits in an industrial zone.
It is close to major power infrastructure.
It has flat, open terrain—ideal for large data center construction.

Ruga and his companies already controlled property in that corridor.

The company DataOne, led by CEO Charles-Antoine Beyney, partnered with the local development group to build the facility. DataOne is constructing the site for the AI infrastructure company Nebius Group, a Netherlands-based firm.

Nebius has signed a massive agreement with Microsoft, reportedly worth about $17 billion, to supply AI computing capacity—partly from the Vineland facility.

So the chain of involvement looks like this:

Land owners / local developers
↓
NEP Real Estate / John Ruga interests
↓
Development partner
↓
DataOne (building the facility)
↓
Tenant/operator
↓
Nebius Group
↓
Major customer
↓
Microsoft AI infrastructure

The project moved through local approvals in 2024–2025. The city supported it because it promises roughly 200 permanent jobs and significant property-tax revenue.

Vineland also approved tax incentives and considered a $6 million equipment loan tied to construction. Construction began quickly afterward, which is why many residents say they didn’t realize how large the project was until it was already underway. The loan was dropped after complaints.

The Size of the Project

The footprint is massive:

• About 107 acres of land
• 2.4–2.6 million square feet of buildings planned
• Six two-story data center buildings
• 300–350 megawatts of power capacity

That would make it one of the largest data centers ever built in New Jersey.

The site checks several boxes developers look for:

• proximity to major power infrastructure
• large flat land parcels
• nearby fiber-optic routes connecting Philadelphia and New York
• existing industrial zoning

Several nearby properties have reportedly been quietly purchased or optioned around the site. This is a common strategy used by data center developers: acquire nearby homes to create buffer zones and reduce the risk of nuisance lawsuits.

When complete, the Vineland campus is expected to include:

• 36 natural-gas generator units
• about 300 megawatts of power capacity
• 150–200 permanent jobs
• hundreds of construction workers.

Major concerns raised locally include:

• generator noise
• air emissions from gas turbines
• electricity demand
• property values near the site
• lack of early public awareness of the project.

The Really Bad News

Industry analysts say South Jersey may become a major AI data-center corridor because it has relatively cheap land, strong power infrastructure, and proximity to the New York and Philadelphia internet markets.

Vineland may simply be the first major project. Others could follow.

Electricity, Water, and Infrastructure

The AI campus is designed to reach about 300 megawatts of power demand.

For comparison, the entire city of Vineland currently uses roughly half that amount. In other words, the data center could consume as much electricity as a small city.

Developers claim the facility will generate most of its own power using natural-gas generators on site, rather than pulling directly from the local grid.

If that works as planned, utilities would supply less power and the project would have limited impact on residential electricity prices. (I have a bridge in Brooklyn for sale cheap. Any takers?)

Even if the center produces its own power, grid upgrades may still be required. Transmission infrastructure could expand, and regional electricity demand may rise. Across the United States, large AI data centers have already pushed utilities to build new gas plants, transmission lines, and even nuclear facilities to meet demand.

Those costs can eventually show up in regional electricity rates.

Bottom line:

Short term: probably little immediate impact on Vineland electric bills.
Long term: pressure on regional energy prices.

Water Concerns

Water is another major concern. Large data centers can use millions of gallons of water per day for cooling servers—sometimes up to five million gallons daily depending on the cooling system.

Developers say the Vineland center will use air-cooling systems, which significantly reduce water consumption compared to evaporative cooling. If fully implemented, water usage could be much lower than typical hyperscale facilities. (and how much does a typical hyperscale faciliy use?)

Environmental groups remain concerned about possible aquifer depletion and future expansion phases. Even if cooling uses little water, electricity generation and equipment maintenance still require water indirectly. We live atop a very fragile eco-system, The Cohaney Aquifer contains trillions of gallons of water that can easily be polluted or drained. Ask the Pinelands Commission.

Pollution and Emissions

Data centers don’t produce traditional industrial waste, but they do produce other environmental impacts.

The Vineland project plans to use natural-gas engines to generate most of its electricity. These engines produce carbon dioxide (CO₂), nitrogen oxides, and heat.

Developers say pollution-control systems will capture about 95% of certain pollutants, though CO₂ emissions are not eliminated. Again, we have to believe what developers are saying. How reliable is that?

The Good

Potential benefits include:

• construction jobs
• tech infrastructure investment
• increased property-tax revenue.

Once construction is finished, many of the jobs disappear. And the whole point of AI, frankly, is automation. Long term, as robotics advances, service, maintenance, and even administrative roles may increasingly be automated. Robots will replace humans.

What This Project Really Is

The most important thing to understand is that this project is not just a data center.

It is essentially a private power plant combined with an AI supercomputer campus.

Three major ripple effects are already being discussed in Vineland and Cumberland County:

1. Whether Vineland could become an AI data-center hub.

2. Whether other companies are already scouting land in South Jersey.

3. How the project might affect property values and taxes over the next decade.

Power, Power, Power

Training large AI models requires thousands of GPUs running continuously. That is why companies like Microsoft, Amazon, Google, and Nvidia partners are racing to build massive computing campuses across the country.

The Vineland project is part of that national build-out. New Jersey already hosts major data centers in Secaucus, Piscataway, Weehawken, and Carteret—but those are in North Jersey where land is expensive.

Developers are now looking farther south, particularly in Cumberland, Salem, and Atlantic counties, along corridors such as Route 55 and Route 40.

Large farmland parcels and industrial land make these areas attractive.

Some analysts believe South Jersey could host several AI campuses within the next decade.

If It’s So Good, Why the Secrecy?

The Vineland facility may act as a proof-of-concept project.

If it successfully secures power, avoids environmental conflicts, and proves economically viable, more companies will likely follow.

If not, it may remain a single large installation.

In simple terms: it may be the first major AI infrastructure project in South Jersey, and its success or failure could determine whether the region becomes a larger tech corridor. Sounds good right? Not really. We don’t know what South Jersey will turn into. Good for profits. Good for people? Environmental wasteland? Who knows.

Just How Powerful Is It?

This is not to the point, but interesting.

The computing cluster here could be capable of performing roughly:

2,000,000,000,000,000,000 operations per second.

Huh?

Say “two quintillion operations per second.”

The numerical scale looks like this:

1,000 – thousand
1,000,000 – million
1,000,000,000 – billion
1,000,000,000,000 – trillion
1,000,000,000,000,000 – quadrillion
1,000,000,000,000,000,000 – quintillion

In supercomputing terms, 10¹⁸ operations per second is called an exaflop.

To visualize that:

If every person on Earth performed one calculation per second, it would take nearly eight years to equal what this machine could do in a single second.

Or imagine counting numbers out loud, one per second, nonstop. To reach two quintillion would take over 63 billion years.

Yet modern AI supercomputers can perform that many calculations every second. Not frightening at all.

The Bigger Picture

The facility is tied to a multi-year AI infrastructure agreement reportedly worth about $17.4 billion with Microsoft.

Possible workloads include:

• training large language models

• AI image and video generation

• scientific computing

• enterprise AI systems

• military support

• cloud AI services

The Bigger Question

Here’s the problem as I see it.

Once these AI companies arrive, they tend to dominate the landscape. Something similar happened in places like Ohio, where tech infrastructure projects gained enormous influence. The state now ranks among the top data-center locations in the U.S. with more than 170 facilities.

• The Columbus region is often called part of the “Silicon Heartland.”

• Utilities have had to invest billions in transmission upgrades, which analysts say eventually raise electricity rates. One report warned bills could rise about $70 per month in some scenarios if grid costs are passed to customers.

With all the money and power behind the centers, they wind up controlling local government, and citizens wind up having little say.

JUST THE BEGINNING

And another question not directly related to data centers looms long term: This is just the beginning. If AI eventually eliminates most jobs—as many analysts predict—how will people earn money? How will businesses survive if consumers have no income to buy products?

One possible solution is some form of national income—a basic payment to citizens, with people free to earn additional income however they choose. You can live your best life.

But looking at today’s morbidly greedy, corporate power structure, it’s hard to imagine the billionaire class embracing that idea voluntarily.

“What, give people something for nothing?” they’ll say while playing eighteen on Trout Natgional—and collecting eight-figure incomes from machines doing the work.

Some economists suggest taxing robots like human workers. If a robot replaces an $80,000 job, the company would pay income taxes equivalent to that salary. That would fund everything. That could work.

If you play it out logically, once AI robots hit full force doing every job, conceivable, the super AI will realize it doesn’t need humans at all. Even the ubermensch that think they own the world. Terminator is a real possibility although they’ll probably just starve us to death while we kill each other for scraps.

Or...imagine everyone having a personal AI companion robot—absolutely gorgeous, helpful-- a cook, therapist, adviser, companion, sex partner. People would stop mating altogether. Procreation ceases. Humanity gradually fades away. The gentle genocide.

So the AI Data-Center is the gateway drug.

Let me know what you think. Could be devastating...or am I just a grumpy old man.

Here’s a look at what China is doing with robots.

Country Joe McDonald, from Country Joe and the Fish, is another entry into the Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead. Country Joe just died at 84. I saw him at Woodstock in ‘69 with a crowd of about 300,000 of us. Country Joe was into the protest culture of the 60s. He fused folk tradition, psychedelic rock and biting political satire that fed our generation. He was one of the first to step right into political controversy while most popular musicians stayed away from it.

His most famous song, “I-Feel-Like-I’m-Fixin’-to-Die Rag,” became one of the defining protest songs of the Vietnam era. (“One, two, three what are we fightin’ for. Don’t ask me I don’t give a damn. Next stop Vietnam.”) Its upbeat ragtime melody was a scathing critique of the machinery of war, mocking politicians, generals, and the military-industrial complex. Something that the Donald obviously never got the message from.

When Country Joe performed the song at the Woodstock he led us in the infamous “Fish Cheer,” (“Gimme and “F”, Gimme a “U”, etc. You can fill the rest in.) He had us all pumped. It was a moment that crystallized the anger and cynicism many us at draft age felt felt toward the Vietnam War. The performance became one of the most memorable scenes in the Woodstock film and helped cement the song as the unofficial anthem of the antiwar movement.

Joe’s career reflected the broader arc of the counterculture itself. Emerging from the charged environment of Berkeley’s Free Speech Movement, he embodied the fusion of music and activism that defined the late 1960s. His songs combined humor, irreverence, and pointed social criticism, giving voice to our generation that believed music could challenge power and reshape society.

Unlike many protest artists who faded after the Vietnam War ended, he continued writing and performing for decades. His later work explored subjects ranging from veterans’ experiences to environmental activism, revealing a songwriter who matured without abandoning his sense of social responsibility. He also became a bridge between generations, performing at folk festivals, historical events, and veterans’ commemorations that reflected a more nuanced understanding of the era he helped define.

In the long history of protest music—from folk balladeers to modern political rock—Country Joe McDonald occupies a distinctive place. He did more than comment on history; he helped create the soundtrack one of the most turbulent periods in America. His music captured the defiant humor, anger, and idealism of the Vietnam War generation.

“Ain’t no time to wonder why, we’re all goin’ to die”

Read all about the icons of the rock generation who left us in “The Rock “n” Roll Book of the Dead. Available on Amazon.com

4th Annual Buena Fine Crafts & Artisans Spring Festival

Event info: May 2nd, 2026 – 4th Annual Buena Fine Crafts & Artisans Spring Festival & “Tunnel To Towers” fund-raiser benefit car show. A GREAT EVENT FOR THE ENTIRE FAMILY TO ENJOY!

Shop over 125+ amazing, talented & very unique crafters & artisans, incredible antique dealers, home & garden, incredible award-winning” food trucks, craft bar, horse & carriage rides & fully restored authentic Atlantic City tram car rides, amusements, games, crafts, face painting, sand art, pony rides, petting zoo & more!!!

Tour their museum, see displays, exhibits or check out the incredible gift basket auction with amazing prizes. Enjoy music by WVLT-92.1 + live broadcast, Cap’s Cat’s Piano Sam, Jim Commander’s One-Man Band & the amazing Western Atlantic Wind Ensemble. Dining tents on site.

Check out the garden centers booths with endless flower baskets, potted plants and lush greeneries. Bring your shopping bags & your walking shoes & spend the day! Find the perfect Mother’s Day & Father’s Day gifts here. Festival Highlight!

Streaming: Nascar Menards Nashville Race LIVE with Buena’s Craig Pellegrini, Jr.!!! Plus! Pellegrini Motorsports Exhibit at show!

You do not want to miss this event! Car Show Hosts:

SOUTH JERSEY MOPAR CONNECTION

All vehicles welcomed! Reg. fee: $20. Participant Judging - Class A = Vehicles up to 1999 Class B = Vehicles 2000 & Newer Class C – All Motorcycles - Day of Show Reg. (11 a.m. – 1 p.m.) Show 1 p.m. – 4:30 Trophies: 4:30 p.m.
TROPHIES SPONSORED BY: LILLISTON AUTO GROUP!

Car show registration fee to benefit “Tunnel To Towers” & Buena Historical Society. All vehicles welcomed.

Show hours: 11 a.m. to 6 p.m. Donation $1. and children 12 & under are free!!!

ATM’S ON SITE - RAINDATE: MAY 4TH. More info: 856-466-4654!
FESTIVAL INFO:
PUBLIC PARKING ON N.E. BLVD. FROM RT. 40 TO N. CLARA ST. CAR SHOW ENTRIES: RT. 40 TO MELINI AVE. TO KENNEDY DR. VENDOR PARKING: N. CLARA ST. & E. ARBOR AVE.

So, save the date & help spread the word! Keep checking back as much more added daily on our discussion page!!! Debra Casazza is hosting this event.

201 Kennedy Dr, Landisville, NJ. Duration: 7 hr

The Vineland Historical Society proudly presents “The Paradox of Seabrook Farms”, a film by Helga Merits, at the beautiful and historic Landis Theater.

This extraordinary documentary tells the story of Seabrook Farms, the biggest industrial vegetable producer in the United States in the 1950’s, where a diverse workforce of post World War II refugees, interned Japanese Americans, and African Americans lived and worked. The stories of those laborers and the vibrant multicultural community it both harbored and exploited, are highlighted in the film.

View the trailer here: https://share.google/images/AZ8kEyXX2Z1fseU3x

A panel discussion will be held immediately following the film with Dutch Estonian filmmaker Helga Merits, Masura Nakawatase, Gloria Kates and Helle Gawrylewski.

Date: Sunday April 12, 2026

Location: Landis Theater, 830 East Landis Avenue, Vineland NJ 08360

Doors Open: 12 noon

Movie Screening: 2pm

Tickets: $15

Purchase tickets: https://www.zeffy.com/en-US/ticketing/the-paradox-of-seabrook-farms-movie-event

Vineland Historical and Antiquarian Society is New Jersey’s oldest local historicl society, established 1864 and is located at 108 South 7th Street, Vineland, New Jersey. Their website is

www.discovervinelandhistory.org. Email them atemail: vinelandhistory@gmail.com

Phone: 856.691.1111

If you have a community or non-profit event you’d like to include in this newsletter send me the details and I’ll see the info gets out. loumas77@gmail.com

Lou

I haven’t posted in a while. I was putting together a new project when more urgently my wife, Christine, was involved in a very serious accident. The photo is above. Some punk kid who was driving on the revoked list with no auto insurance decided that he didn’t want to wait for a red light. He passed two stationary cars waiting at the light over double line and hit her just as she entered the intersection through a green light. He broadside her pushing the car into a telephone pole and an electrical box. She was taken to the hospital in critical condition. We figured her chances of survival were slim, but she was a trouper. After a week in critical care, she improved and was taken to intensive care, and after a week, she was already in rehab. In amazing pain, but still considering how she started out quite amazing.

She suffered a fractured skull, broken ribs, damaged neck and spinal cord, bleeding on the brain. The kid that hit her hurt his shoulder.

The accident was on February 18. On March 14 she was walking in the door on a walker. I thought she’d be in the hospital for month. So good for her. She got a ton of prayers on social. I think they worked. Thanks friends. She is improving day-by-day, still in a lot of pain but actually walking around on her own with no walker, doing regular routines. Still gets tired fast, but what can you expect.

Ironically, the project I was working on was about keeping healthy. I started a YouTube Channel, The Longevity Zone. Obviously as an octogenarian, I’m interested in squeezing out a couple of extra years, months, weeks, days out of this body, which has served me well. I figured since I’m doing the research I’s share it. I put together these videos.

The Heart — Reverse Heart Damage With This Simple Daily Routine

The Brain — The Supercomputer You Can’t Replace

The Lungs — The Hidden Power of Every Breath Retrain Your Lungs in 7 Days | Science-Backed Protocol

Liver Failure Starts Here (Don’t Ignore These Signs)

There are more chapters to do, but I decided to see if any of these got any traction before spending any more time on it. Check it out. Here’s the link https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVh4riD7bLZszGRGTQXUJQw. Let me know if it’s worth the effort.

I also spent quite a bit of time marketing my books. I’m not setting the world on fire, but I’m not spending much on advertising. Doing mostly social media posting. A few of you friends and relatives bought some. Thank you. My Rock n’ Roll Book of the Dead is catching on. I have sales in Canada, France and England besides here in the good ole USA.

I have been having a great time playing with ai. Look at these promos I put together. Let me know you think. Here’s the link to all of them.

Talking about gold. I posted a few blogs about buying gold as a hedge when it was around $2,300 an ounce. Now it’s 5,017.60. Thank God I took my own advice and stashed a pound or so.

Lastly, sad state of affairs isn’t it. Who would have thought we would ever be at this stage of decay? Forever war. Israel keeps pushing us into one war after another. Trillions that could have been put to good use here at home. I mean shit, we have homeless veterans living on the street and we give billions to Ukraine and Israel. And now we might have dead an wounded soldiers again. What happened to America first? I guess if our psychotic, warmonger leaders don’t get us fried in a nuclear holocaust in the next few months, at least we can be happy about that.

Until next time.

Lou

Bob Weir (1947–2026): The Rhythm of the Grateful Dead and the Heartbeat of a Generation

Add another entry into ”The “Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead”. After a long, winding journey that helped define American rock music for more than six decades Bob Weir passed to the other side. His passing, confirmed by his family and widely reported in music media, marked the end of an era for the band that became a cultural institution and for the generation of fans known as Deadheads who followed their music with almost religious devotion. (Rolling Stone)

Bob Weir was born Robert Hall Weir on October 16, 1947, in San Francisco, and his road to rock immortality started almost absurdly young. At just seventeen, he fell in with a loose, experimental band calling themselves the Warlocks. That group—soon renamed the Grateful Dead—included Jerry Garcia, Phil Lesh, Bill Kreutzmann, and Ron “Pigpen” McKernan. From the jump, Weir brought something essential to the mix: a loose but purposeful rhythm guitar style and a warm, approachable voice that helped shape the Dead’s strange and beautiful blend of rock, blues, folk, and psychedelia.

While Garcia often stood front and center as the band’s lead guitarist, Weir was the glue holding everything together. His playing ignored standard rock rules, favoring unexpected chord shapes and shifting rhythms that let the music breathe and wander. He didn’t lock songs into place—he opened them up. Thanks to Weir, Grateful Dead performances felt alive and unrepeatable, able to stretch, collapse, and rebuild themselves in real time.

As a songwriter and singer, Weir carved out his own corner of the Dead’s vast catalog. Songs like “Sugar Magnolia,” “Jack Straw,” “Playing in the Band,” and “One More Saturday Night” carried his signature blend of reflection, restlessness, and hard-earned road wisdom. These weren’t just tunes—they were vehicles for long, exploratory jams, the kind that made every show a shared experience between band and audience.

After Jerry Garcia’s death in 1995 brought the original Grateful Dead to an end, Weir refused to let the music fade quietly. He kept it moving through projects like RatDog, Furthur, Bob Weir & Wolf Bros, and eventually Dead & Company. That final chapter, alongside John Mayer and fellow Dead veterans Mickey Hart and Bill Kreutzmann, introduced the music to a new generation while honoring its roots.

In 2025, Weir revealed he had been diagnosed with cancer. True to form, he met it head-on, completed treatment, and returned to the stage one last time for a celebratory three-night run in Golden Gate Park marking the Grateful Dead’s 60th anniversary. Those shows would become his final public performances. Though he beat cancer, lingering lung complications eventually took him, and he passed away peacefully surrounded by loved ones.

Bob Weir leaves behind more than a body of work—he leaves behind a way of thinking about music. He believed in risk, in listening, in letting songs grow instead of controlling them. He stood for community over ego and curiosity over perfection. In doing so, he helped build not just a band, but a culture—one that continues to ripple outward long after the last note fades.

Rest in peace Robert. You will be missed.

Read the encyclopedia of deceased Rock stars, Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead” available on Amazon.com.

There’s a word we avoid using by the mainstream media, even when it fits perfectly: piracy.

Ships seized on the high seas. Cargo confiscated under selective interpretations of “law.” government, the good ole US of A, with our high falootin’ values and moral righteousness is insisting they are enforcing order while bypassing the very international laws designed to prevent maritime chaos. Watching Venezuelan oil tankers intercepted and seized, is a historical déjà vu. It seems we’re pirates again—in suits this time.

Piracy has never been just about criminals with skull-and-crossbones flags. During the Golden Age of Piracy, from the late 1600s through the early 1700s, pirates operated in the murky space between legality and power. Many were former privateers, men who once sailed with government permission under letters of marque to attack enemy shipping. When wars ended, those permissions evaporated—but the ships, crews, and economic incentives remained. Yesterday’s patriots became today’s outlaws.

Our own history is filled with this contradiction. Colonial ports thrived on smuggling and privateering. New Jersey’s coastline was a web of inlets and hidden harbors where seized cargo quietly entered local markets. Pirates and privateers helped finance the growth of colonial economies and, later, supported the Revolutionary cause by bleeding British commerce. As explored in Scoundrels & Seafarers, (available on Amazon.com) these men were not folk heroes—they were opportunists whose lawlessness helped bankroll a lawful nation.

That moral ambiguity never disappeared. It simply evolved.

Under modern international maritime law, mostly defined by the United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea (UNCLOS), piracy is narrowly defined as violent or criminal acts committed on the high seas for private ends. Seizing ships is generally lawful only under specific conditions: armed conflict, clear self-defense, or enforcement authorized by multilateral institutions such as the United Nations. Unilateral sanctions—no matter how strongly justified domestically—do not automatically grant the right to intercept and confiscate foreign vessels in international waters. It’s the law, stupid!

That’s where today’s problem lies.

The United States argues that Venezuelan oil shipments violate U.S. sanctions and therefore may be lawfully seized. But international law does not operate on national preferences alone. Without UN authorization, consent of the flag state, or a declared state of war, such seizures occupy the same gray zone pirates once exploited. The only meaningful difference is who controls the narrative.

Adding to the irony is Britain’s role. The British Empire perfected piracy with paperwork—issuing letters of marque when convenient, hanging pirates when politically necessary. Today, aligned once again with American maritime power, Britain lends legitimacy to seizures that mirror its own imperial past. It feels less like a coalition of law-abiding states and more like a brotherhood of thieves—disciplined, diplomatic, and well-armed.

We no longer call it plunder. We call it “asset forfeiture.” We no longer admit to economic warfare. We call it “defending the rules-based order.” But a rules-based order that applies only when convenient is not an order at all—it’s empire by another name.

Modern politics has transformed piracy from a crime into a policy tool. Economic pressure replaces cannon fire. Sanctions replace blockades. Legal language replaces skull flags. But the underlying logic remains unchanged: power at sea defines morality after the fact.

History teaches that piracy isn’t determined by behavior alone—it’s determined by who has the authority to justify it. The pirates who helped build America were later hung once stability was achieved. No one in Washington or London thinks that can happen to them. (Maybe it can’t)

If international law is optional, if maritime rules are enforced only by bigger boats and guns, then we are not preventing piracy—it becomes and institution. And history has shown, time and again, that when nations start acting like pirates, they eventually get treated like them too. This is already how most of the world thinks of us. High-ho, Blackbeard, Black Sam, Black Bart & Black Donnie.

Get it here: Scoundrels & Seafarers

I decided to promote this book by giving you a few chapters to check out. If you like it let me know. I need reviewers to post on Amazon. Reviews are very important in getting sales, and I need a few dozen more. I’ll send the whole book in PDF if you like it by helping me out with a review on Amazon.com.

This is a sexy little promo video featuring an AI version of Brenda to check out.

Here’s the synopsis followed by a couple chapters.

Max Hardin, ex-cop and fledgling private eye, has just relocated to the gritty streets of Atlantic City, where dreams go to die, and desperation thrives. Struggling to make a name for himself, his luck seems to turn when he’s hired by the owner of a local supermarket humiliated by a brazen robbery. With the police dragging their feet, Hardin jumps at the chance to prove his worth.

But this isn’t an ordinary thief. Hardin’s investigation leads him to John Weller, a man crushed by life’s cruel blows—a child lost to the ocean, a wife consumed by blame and grief, and the death of his best friend. For years, Weller’s only solace has been the money he’s embezzled to support Brenda McConagle, his enigmatic, pay-for-play girlfriend, and he’s been found out.

Now, Weller has snapped. Disillusioned and desperate, he abandons the hope of redemption and sets his sights on infamy. His chilling plan? To rid the world of its most ruthless sociopaths—its parasitic billionaires—one by one.

As Hardin closes in, he finds himself drawn into Brenda’s tangled web of secrets and seduction. Their dangerous connection pulls him deeper into Weller’s twisted psyche, forcing Hardin to confront not only the Billionaire Butcher he’s hunting but his own moral limits.

In a pulse-pounding finale, Hardin and Brenda come face-to-face with Weller in a confrontation where loyalty, betrayal, and justice collide. Can Hardin stop a man with nothing left to lose, or will Weller’s quest for infamy leave an indelible mark on them all?

It’s a a noir thriller that explores the thin line between justice and vengeance, and the choices that define who we are in the face of unimaginable loss.

Get it here: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0DTYM

Here’s a few chapters to get you started.

Too Decent To Die

“The evil that men do lives after them…―William Shakespeare, Julius Caesar

Louis P. Mascolo

CHAPTER 1

The Edge of the World

John Weller felt the monster in his brain gnawing, chewing its way through him, and he knew his time was almost up. The wind cut through him as he sat on the edge of the world—his knees pulled tight to his chest; his eyes locked on the place where the silver-gray Nantucket sky bled into the restless, silver-gray sea. He had come here before—twenty years ago—when Chrissy was still alive, her golden hair streaming behind her as she darted barefoot across the surf, squealing at the icy water. “Come on, Daddy! Play!” she had called to him, her laughter ringing like wind chimes. He could still see her face, the flush of her cheeks, the light in her eyes.

And then she was gone. One moment of inattention, one wave too strong, and his world was swept away. Diane, his wife, had never forgiven him. Her grief had turned to silence, and the silence had turned to something worse. And slowly, the man John Weller used to be—the middle-class husband, the doting father—died too. What took his place was something darker. A criminal. A thief. A killer.

And Brenda—God, Brenda his lover, his mistake, his punishment. She didn’t drag him into the life, he’d leapt in willingly. The doctor gave him three months—six if he was lucky. Surgery? Maybe it would save him, probably not. Maybe it would leave him drooling in a wheelchair. That wasn’t a bet worth making. Weller checked his watch. 7:30. The ferry would arrive in two hours, carrying Brenda with it—whiskey eyes and fire-engine lips, the woman who made him forget and reminded him all at once. He’d pick her up, take her back to the cottage, and let her scrape away the edges of his misery for one more night.

The fog began to creep in, thick and heavy, swallowing the shoreline whole. The sea became a vast nothingness, and for a moment, it looked like the end of the world. Weller stood, brushed the damp sand from his jeans, and walked to the waiting Jeep. He turned the key in the ignition, and the Jeep groaned to life, its tires carving faint tracks in the wet sand, the wind whipping through the open window and biting at his skin. It was sharp and cold—something real, something he could feel.

CHAPTER 2

It Smells to High Heaven

He crouched on a crate of canned, green beans, boxed in tight by towers of toilet paper stacked high enough to feel like a bunker. Between two boxes, he’d carved a slit just wide enough to watch the storeroom. The place stank like every supermarket backroom ever—a stew of cardboard, busted vinegar bottles, and produce gone soft. The watch on his wrist said 9:32 p.m. An hour in, and his legs were cramping, his bad knee barking, a memento from sliding home in a game he couldn’t even remember.

He’d slipped into the Evergreen Supermarket just after closing, before the night crew clocked in. Timing was everything. If he couldn’t catch all four of them together, this would get messy. The ammo bag dug into his ribs, stuffed with duct tape, cuffs, socks—the tools of a particular trade. On his lap sat a six-inch Wesson .38, silencer cobbled together from some dark web how-to. Sweat soaked through the industrial coveralls he’d unzipped for air. Eighty degrees in here, the gas heaters roaring like hell’s breath.

But the heat wasn’t what had him. Joey was dead. Been eighteen months, and the hole he left still gaped wide. Joey had been larger than life—moose hunts, skydives, Philadelphia Eagles games with sideline passes. The guy burned bright while John? He stocked shelves and skimmed nickels from the till. Joey was his spark, his excuse not to notice how life had calcified. Now Joey was gone, and John was here. Joey Martalucci had the looks. That square-jawed, Italian thing going on. Jet-black hair slicked back like a guy who knew how good it looked. His old man owned a string of car dealerships, so Joey never needed a job. He had a brand-new Camaro before he even had a license. Always the center of attention—an only child with no one to compete with. What he didn’t have was balls. And that’s where Johnny came in.

Johnny was the one your mother warned you about. Always had some dumbass idea that involved gas, bullets, or breaking the law. Like the time he showed up with a red plastic gas can in one hand and a coffee tin in the other. “Watch this,” Johnny said, filling the can with gas. He struck a match, held it between his fingers with that grin of his—the one that said you’re gonna shit yourself—and then snuffed the flame in the gasoline. Joey nearly dove behind a tree. Johnny howled laughing, called him a pussy. Then there was the time Johnny brought a box of .22 shells and a firing pin for CO2 cartridges. Said they were gonna play a game—line up the shells and hit the back end with the pin like a firing squad. Two idiots trying to set off bullets with hand tools. It didn’t work. Probably saved them from blowing their hands off.

They grew up in the woods, out where nothing happened unless you made it happen. Johnny carved out a hideout back there. Axed down saplings, lashed them together into a lopsided lean-to. Stashed it with smokes and dirty mags, where they could disappear for hours, flipping through crinkled pages, imagining all the women they were gonna screw one day.

Johnny had a mean streak, though. Loved catching toads, jamming firecrackers in their mouths, and lighting the fuses. The kind of kid who laughed his ass off watching amphibian chunks rain down. Cruelty tickled him. Got him right in the funny bone. And Johnny wasn’t just crazy. He was tough. Walked around with fists like concrete blocks and eyes that could stare down a junkyard dog. Joey once watched him lay out a kid five years older and a foot taller with one shot. The kid dropped like a sandbag. Didn’t even twitch. Joey thought he was dead. Nobody messed with them after that.

In high school, Joey had the flash. Quarterback. Star of the homecoming parade. Johnny was the one you prayed wasn’t lined up against you—a monster of a defensive back. Low center of gravity, all muscle and menace, driving kids into the turf like he was trying to plant them. Joey grew up to be the guy every man wanted to be— rich, good-looking, and apparently hung like a damn moose, if you believed the locker room chatter. He had that white Chiclet smile, the kind that made women reckless. He took more cherry pie than a bakery on Valentine’s Day.

And after high school, he followed Johnny into the Marines. Johnny talked about it like a duty, like they owed it to the country. And maybe they did. Two good-looking, cocky assholes marching into war. The heat was brutal. The killing worse. But you didn’t think about it. You fought. You saved each other’s asses. And you lived with it.

Back stateside, Joey found himself in a shrink’s office paying four hundred bucks an hour to keep his head from coming apart. The doc said he was doing fine. The pills said otherwise.

Then there was Brenda. Joey didn’t have to pay for Brenda. He wanted to. The Brenda Experience. That’s what he called it. Johnny had bragged about her for years—how no man could walk away the same after one night. She was still working at a goddamn supermarket. Joey couldn’t believe some rich asshole hadn’t put a ring on her finger. She was all that and then some. So he got a taste. Told his rich buddies about it, and they came knocking. Brenda was booked solid after that. And then one day Joey was opening a car door. And then he was dead. And Weller? Forty-nine years, and what did he have to show for it? A paycheck, a mortgage, a supermarket job that was supposed to be temporary after Iraq.

Funny thing about temporary—it stretches out, swallows you whole. The nothingness gnawed at him. Maggie Morrison, Maggie the MENSA, called it back in high school. She’d said, “You defer too much, John. If you don’t take space, no one’s going to hand it to you.” It clung to him like a bad nickname. “Mr. Deferential”. The guy who gave away all his pieces until there was nothing left. Then Joey died, that was punch one.

Punch two was the auditors sniffing out his scam. Skimming from the store—refunds, fake returns, at couple hundred here and there, enough to keep Brenda around. Brenda, his fix. Sweet curves and sweeter lies. Forty, fifty grand over five years. It caught up to him, the bosses sniffing out the stink. He tried pinning it on Eileen at the courtesy desk. Didn’t take. They weren’t buying it. His job, his family, his last shred of dignity in this two-bit town—crumbling fast. He could already feel the orange jumpsuit.

His epiphany happened a week ago, when he had the dream. A mission, as clear as a message from God, or maybe desperation masquerading as one. By morning, he had a plan. If life was going to bury him, he’d make damn sure his name was written in the dirt. For the first time in years, John Weller felt alive. Good guys take decades to build a legacy. Villains? They’re immortalized overnight. The world loves stories about the Pepe Escobars, the Capones, the Mansons, the Dahmer’s, the list is long, the men who go big on their way down and out.

John wasn’t going to die a nobody. He’d make his mark dripped in blood. He needed a grub stake to fund his plan, though. He’d get it tonight. He adjusted the ski mask in his lap, fingers brushing the grip of the .38. Tonight, he wasn’t a schmuck in coveralls. Tonight, he was the guy with the gun.

* * *

9:47 p.m., the Day before Thanksgiving—hell of a night for it. Supermarkets turned into cash cows, safes bulging with turkey money and last-minute cranberry sauce. He figured there was eighty, ninety grand up there, give or take. Enough to make this worth it and finance his big plan. He was careful. A week of watching, knowing the players: four guys downstairs—janitor, three stock clerks. Upstairs, two women counting receipts, watched over by a rent-a-cop at the foot of the stairs who had a stick up his ass and a security badge.

Then there was Barry Albertson, the owner, probably up there too, fondling his stacks of cash like Scrooge before the armored truck rolled in at eleven. Problem was, these guys back here, they wouldn’t sit still. Always moving, here, there, out of reach. Him, herding cats with a silenced .38 in his lap. The gune slipped, hit the concrete with a muffled clunk. His heart spiked. He snatched it back up, holding it tighter. There was something about a gun. The weight of it. The way it felt alive in your hand, like it wanted to be used. You cock the hammer, click-click, and the sound hangs in the air, sharp and final. He didn’t want to use it. But he would.

He shifted, trying to find comfort, and his mind started to drift, like it always did. Joey again. Afghanistan. Hot enough to fry your lungs. He’d been half-asleep on a cot in the medic tent when the mortars hit, ripping through the canvas like a buzz saw. He grabbed his M16, helmet, boots, and stumbled out into the sun, ears ringing, smoke thick as soup. Joey was crouched by a jeep ten yards away, calm as hell, firing bursts into the chaos.

A skinny brown-bastard crawled through the dirt behind him, rifle aimed square at Joey’s back. John didn’t think—just raised his weapon, squeezed the trigger. Bullet through the eye. The guy’s head popped like a melon. He was shouting Joey’s name when the mortar fell, knocked him off his feet. Dust in his eyes, weapon gone. When he blinked clear, he saw another gun—rifle pointed straight at him, some crazed Arab ready to kill him. John froze. It felt like the end of the world, staring at the muzzle of that rifle, waiting for the shot. Three sharp cracks. When he opened his eyes, Joey stood over him, grinning like he’d won a bar bet, smoke curling off his barrel.

“You good?” Joey asked.

John sat up, shaking like a leaf. “I guess.”

Joey didn’t wait for an answer, just slapped him on the shoulder and ran back into the fight. By the time it was over, the F-16s had screamed overhead, dropping hellfire and lead on the bastards. The cheer that went up was loud enough to rattle teeth.

Afterward, he found himself staring at the bodies, smoke curling off the ground like ghosts. He’d gone back to look at the guy he shot. Couldn’t even tell what his face had been. The other one—the would-be assassin— was lying a few yards away, three neat holes in his chest, blood soaking into the dirt. He was young, maybe John’s age, maybe younger. Flies were already on him, circling like vultures. John squatted there, chin on his arms, watching the blood pool and dry in the heat. The smell of it hit him— thick and metallic—and his stomach turned. He’d washed a lot of friends’ blood off his hands over there, scrubbed it until the skin was raw, but the stink of it always stuck.

Joey found him sitting there. “You good?” John shrugged. “Fuck it.” “Damn right. Fuck it.” Joey threw an arm around him, laughing like they weren’t both half-dead. That was Joey. Always dragging him along for the ride.

The memory slipped away, and John was back in the storeroom, staring at the gun in his hand. The buzzing neon light drilled into his skull, his headache pulsing behind his eyes. He checked his watch: 9:53. Time was slipping. It was a perfect night for a robbery. The question was, could he pull it off? The laughter snapped Weller out of his head. Around the corner, four guys in aprons were tossing a head of lettuce like it was a baseball. Somebody cracked a joke, and they lost it, doubled over, laughing like kids. Weller tugged the ski mask down, adjusted it, and picked up the gun. Last chance to walk away, the thought whispered. He shoved it aside. No turning back now. He sucked in a breath, moved a stack of boxes, and stepped into the light like something out of their nightmares.

The first guy saw him, blinked twice like he was seeing things. The others turned, their laughter dying on cue. Weller raised the pistol, voice steady. “Evening, gentlemen.”

They froze. The fat one—Ernie, he looked like an Ernie—spoke first. “What the hell is this?”

Weller let the silence hang, thick and uncomfortable. Then: “A robbery. Full cooperation, no heroes, and we all make it to tomorrow. It’s Thanksgiving—nobody wants to miss the turkey, right?”

Ernie’s mouth opened and shut like he was working up a protest, but then he nodded. The others followed, slow and stiff. Weller dropped tape, socks, and handcuffs on the floor. “Stuff the socks in your mouths. Then this guy’s gonna tape you up nice and quiet.” They hesitated.

Weller tilted the gun just enough to make his point. Ernie got moving first, taping their mouths with trembling hands before gagging himself. Weller walked them to a steel beam and cuffed them into a daisy chain.

“Sit.” They did. No complaints, just wide eyes and shallow breaths.

The pushcart waited, loaded and ready. Weller wheeled it toward the front, the store eerily quiet except for the cameras watching. Upstairs in the loft office, the night guard was perched on a stool with a flask in one hand and a tabloid in the other. "PYRAMID DISCOVERED ON THE MOON— WHO BUILT IT?" NASA forced to respond to conspiracy theorists the headline screamed.

The guard didn’t see the pistol until it was at his temple. “Don’t move.” Weller shoved a sock at him. “In your mouth. Now.”

The old man’s face went pale as milk. He shoved the sock in with shaking hands while Weller taped him up and cuffed him to a post. “Keys,” Weller said.

The guard fumbled, sweat slicking his fingers, but he handed them over. Weller unlocked the office door and stepped inside. At the top of the stairs, Weller could see Barry, slick as an oil spill, was leaning too close to a blonde. She was a head-turner: legs like a thoroughbred, tight jeans, gold everywhere. She laughed high and fake at something Barry said, her perfume thick in the air. Two other women were at desks, heads down, counting cash. The blonde spotted him first. Her scream tore through the room, sharp and piercing. Everyone froze. Barry turned, slow and stupid, just in time to catch Weller’s fist. The punch sent him crashing into the wall, blood spraying from his split lip.

“Phones. Money. Now,” Weller barked, pointing to a bag. The women scrambled to comply, hands trembling as they dropped their phones and cash inside. Weller taped their mouths and cuffed them to a water pipe; he saved Barry for last.

“The safe,” Weller said, hauling him up by the collar. Barry’s tough-guy act crumbled fast.

“Take it, man. Take whatever you want.” He cracked the safe without a fight, loading stacks of cash into the bag. When the job was done, Weller shoved him toward the others.

“Sit down. Be quiet.” Barry tripped, collapsing in a heap. Weller cuffed him to the pipe, then turned to the blonde. She glared at him, defiant even now, her eyes burning holes through him. He leaned in, just to rattle her. Close enough to smell her—she smelled expensive. He dropped the bag of money and cell phones and walked up to her. Her eyes widen in fear. He put his face up to hers. She shook her head and gurgled. He backed off to look at her again. Then got this sudden urge to rip off her blouse.

Yeah, why not? He unbuttoned it slowly, looking at her reaction as each button fell away. She was taking deep breaths through her nose, and pupils were totally dilated. He pulled back her blouse and snapped the bra apart. Her breasts bounced free, young and firm, nipples hard and erect. There were no rules here. He could take her in front of everybody. She flinched, and that was enough.

He laughed, loud and mean, pushed her away, then cut landlines with his knife. The bag was heavy now, stuffed with cash and phones. Weller snapped a picture of the scene with his phone before heading back to the storage room. That’s when he noticed something was off. The guard was gone. The handcuffs dangled loose from the ripped-out post.

Weller caught a flash of movement—a shoe disappearing around a corner. He bolted after it, rage pumping through his veins. He caught the guard two aisles over, the old man stumbling, out of breath. Weller brought the butt of the gun down hard. The guard crumpled, blood pooling under his head.

Back in the storage room, the scene had shifted. One of the gagged guys had broken free. The others sat silent. Something was up. Weller saw it too late. The skinny kid swinging a pipe. The blow clipped his shoulder, and the gun went off. The kid dropped, clutching his stomach, his shirt turning crimson, his face blossoming red in pain as he dropped to the cement floor.

“Shit,” Weller hissed, kneeling over him. The kid’s pulse was faint but there. He checked out the others. No way they were moving. He looked around quickly and grabbed a pack of diapers, pressing them against the wound. He pointed the gun at one of the gagged men.

“You. Keep him alive. Pressure. You hear me?”

The man nodded, wide-eyed, as Weller backed away. The clock was ticking now. The job had gone to hell, and he needed to get out—fast. The guy nodded, terrified. He bolted out the back, the night air cold against his sweat. A patrol car cruised slowly past the edge of the lot, headlights cutting through the dark. He flattened against a dumpster, holding his breath until it disappeared. The bike was against the back wall where he’d stashed it. He hopped on, cash stuffed in the backpack, legs pedaling hard, heart thumping like a drumbeat. He didn’t look back. The job was done. It wasn’t about the money anymore—it was about getting away with it.

CHAPTER 3

Cacophony & Blood

He sat in the SUV, chewing his nails down to the quick while the dash clock ticked off seconds like they cost something. He kept his eyes on the front doors of the supermarket, hoping they’d open, praying they wouldn’t. Eight long minutes, and then the siren came—sharp and cutting, but for once, a relief. The ambulance swerved in hot, red lights painting the truck’s interior as it skidded to a stop. Two medics in white jumped out, like they'd practiced it in drills, banging on the supermarket glass to see what the hell was going on inside. More sirens now.

Squad cars—three of them—roared in, tires screaming, doors flying open. Six cops in full uniform piled out, guns heavy on their hips, flashlights up, converging on the medics. They huddled together like a high school football team calling plays, staring into the store at something Weller couldn’t see. The knot in his gut pulled tighter as the security guard—his security guard—hopped into view in the window, cuffs in front, stumbling like a bad comic routine. The cops saw him, all right.

One of them grabbed a shotgun, smashed the glass with the butt, and then they all stormed in. The show started, and the audience showed up quickly. Clusters of people wandered into the lot, whispering, pointing, some bold enough to jog closer to the broken glass and flashing lights. By the time the stream of bodies flowed past his truck, He knew he should’ve left. Too many faces, too many eyes. But he stayed. He needed to see.

Four minutes later, they rolled the kid out, stretcher bouncing as the medics hustled him toward the ambulance. One of them held the IV bag, walking fast but steady. Weller saw the kid reach for the wound, and he let out a breath he didn’t know was holding. Alive. The ambulance doors slammed shut, the siren screamed again, and they were gone. Weller felt a little better—for about five seconds. Then a hand clamped on his shoulder through the open window, and his heart damn near stopped.

“Whatcha doin’ here, Weller?” Norm Karlock. Skinny guy with a puffed-out face and glasses thick enough to stop a bullet. Norm ran a cell phone shop in the strip mall across the street and never knew when to shut up. He leaned in close, like this was a social call.

“Norm,” Weller said, trying to sound casual, but his voice cracked, and he coughed like he was choking on it. “How’s it going?”

Norm didn’t answer, just squinted at Weller’s face, then at the bike and knapsack sitting on the passenger seat. “You all right? You look like you seen a ghost.”

“Flu,” Weller said, swiping at his sweaty forehead. “Sweating all night.”

Norm tilted his head, unconvinced. “What’s with the gear?”

“Bike was in the shop,” Weller said fast. “Stopped by for a few things.”

Norm still didn’t back off, hung in like a tic. “Hell of a ruckus in there. Wanna check it out?”

“Can’t,” Weller said, throwing the truck into reverse. “Wife’s waiting. Catch you tomorrow, yeah?”

Norm smacked the door as Weller pulled away. “Take a sick day, Weller. You look like hell.”

He didn’t stop driving until he hit the Ramada parking lot. Upstairs in Room 239, Weller dropped the knapsack on the bed and went straight for the bourbon. The first glass burned and calmed him some. The second didn’t burn at all. He sat on the edge of the bed, staring at the ugly green drapes. His temples throbbed, the headache pounding against his skull. He’d tied up the guard, shot the kid. On the other hand, he had the cash, and in a week, he’d be gone. No way they’d pin it back to him that fast.

He poured another drink and dumped the knapsack out on the bed. Bills spilled across the bedspread—some loose, others wrapped in rubber bands. This was why he did it. Why he risked everything. He sat there, staring at the money, still seeing the kid’s face, and dialed another number.

Brenda picked up on the fourth ring, her voice annoyed, irritated. “You know what time it is, Weller? You know I don’t take calls after 9.”

“I know. I know Brenda, but I need to see you,” he said, voice low and flat.

“This about your job?”

“Sort of,” Weller muttered, staring at the pile of cash. “I just need to talk.”

“Talking’s extra,” she said, but her tone had softened. “Where?”

“Ramada, Room 239.”

“Give me an hour.”

* * *

When she knocked, Weller was three sheets to the wind. He stashed the cash under the bed. Brenda stepped inside, her heels lifting her to his chin. She looked him over like he was some kind of roadside wreck.

“You look like hell,” she said. “Thanks,”

Weller said, and poured her a drink without asking. She didn’t have to chat. Just took off her clothes. She knew why she was here. Brenda was good at sex. Better than good— extraordinary. Even at thirty-five she had a body that was engineered for pleasure, like all her nerve endings were on a direct line to her brain. A hand brushing the back of her neck would send her shivering, the kind that rippled through her in waves. A slow stroke down her spine? She’d arch off the bed with a gasp that came from somewhere deep.

It wasn’t just her physical reactions; it was her attitude. Completely, unapologetically. No holding back, no hesitation. Brenda wasn’t worried about how she looked or sounded—didn’t care if she smudged her lipstick or tangled her hair. She’d leave the evening perfect, and by the time they were done, she was undone: flushed cheeks, streaked mascara, her perfume gone except for faint traces where his hands had been. And somehow, she was more beautiful that way—raw, bare, real.

John Weller told himself it wasn’t just because he paid her that she was like this. It felt real when he was with her. Brenda didn’t do “transactional”—she was all in, every kiss, every touch. She could make you believe you were the only man in the world, even when you both knew you weren’t.

But tonight? Something shifted. His pent up emotions did something he never did. He gave her a hard slap on the ass—too hard. A moment where his hands and mind didn’t agree. Brenda spun off the bed like he’d hit her with a cattle prod, all fire and fury, her eyes burning through him.

“What the hell was that?”

John blinked, dumbfounded, watching her stand there, legs apart, hands out like she was ready to shove him through the wall.

“What… what did I do?” He meant it.

She snorted, the sound sharp as a knife. “What did you do? If I wanted to get assaulted, I’d walk through a dark fuckin’ parking lot. I don’t care if you’re paying me, John. I’m not here for that.”

She was already storming into the bathroom, the door slamming hard enough to rattle the picture frame above the bed. John sat there, staring at his hands. The words hit him as hard as the slap he’d given her. He hadn’t thought about it. Not really.

When she came back out, her makeup was gone, her face clean and resolute, the anger worn down into something harder.

“Brenda…” His voice was low, uneven. “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to hurt you. I just… I think I’m losing it.” He hesitated, running a hand over his face. “I feel like I’m dying. Piece by piece. There’s nothing left. I’m the living dead.”

Brenda didn’t say anything, just watched him with those sharp, whiskey-colored eyes, wondering what the hell was wrong with him. He swallowed hard.

“The only time I feel alive is when I’m with you. You’re the only thing keeping me from disappearing altogether.”

Something softened in her expression. Not pity—she didn’t do pity—but understanding.

“All my life,” he said, the words coming now, spilling out like a confession, “I’ve been the good guy. A good husband, a good father, a guy who played by the rules. And for what? The clock’s ticking, and I’ve got nothing to show for it. I haven’t lived.”

She was quiet for a long moment, just watching him, before a slow smile tugged at her lips. “So, what you’re telling me, John, is you’ve been too decent to die?”

The words hit like a bucket of cold water, and she laughed, this free, irreverent sound that pulled a reluctant smile out of him. That was Brenda. Cutting through the crap with one sharp line. She sat down beside him on the bed, her tone softer now.

“Listen to me, John. If you’d come to me a couple years ago, asking me to be your woman, I’d have jumped at it. You’d have made a damn good husband. But look at me now. I’m a whore. Could you live with that?”

John thought about it, really thought about it. Could he share her? Could he handle knowing she went to other men? The answer hit him like a gut punch: he couldn’t.

Brenda saw it on his face. “I’ve got a good life now,” she said matter-of-factly. “A house. A college fund for Charlie. A new car. I don’t mind the men I sleep with. Hell, most times I enjoy it. Dessert without having dinner.” She tilted her head, looking at him. “And let’s not forget to ask—you ready to leave your wife?” “

In a heartbeat,” he said, meeting her gaze.

She believed him. That much was clear. But still, she shook her head, slowly and steady. “Sorry, John. It’s too late. I’ll be here for you if you need me. But not full time.” She stood, smoothing the dress back into place like she was leaving the room, leaving him, leaving this.

John sat there, staring at her as she walked away, feeling like he’d lost something he never really had.

CHAPTER 4

Max Hardin, Private Eye

Max caught sight of Atlantic City from the Parkway—a jagged line of glittering diamonds stabbed into the black horizon. Always looked better from a distance. Up close, it was pawn shops, piss-stained sidewalks, and desperation in a cheap suit. But from here? Damn near poetic.

He rolled into town around eleven, cruising down Martin Luther King Boulevard toward Pacific. Driving through the busted-out ghetto to get to the casinos. Jersey clowns never took a lesson from Vegas—spent all their money on slot palaces and left the streets looking like Beirut. The neon was alive, flickering like a busted fever dream, luring suckers with promises of instant wealth. Step right in, take a spin, kiss your savings goodbye.

Saturday night, the place was crawling. Sidewalks packed with tourists—half holding hands with regret, the other half bragging how they put one over on the house. Laughing, backslapping, looking for someone to believe them. For a moment, the whole scene shook Max out of his funk. The weight in his chest eased a little. He wasn’t thinking about Sherri—the skank wife who made him look like the town fool.

After he caught her screwing the lieutenant, he had half a dozen guys slap him on the back, saying, “Aw, you didn’t know? Shit, she was doin’ everybody.” He saw it in their faces. Not sympathy. Envy. Like they were pissed they didn’t get a turn.

Sherri. High school sweetheart. Sweet looking, busty honey. Max put her on a pedestal. Watched her run off to the city for design school while he stayed home, studying law at the local community college. Drove out to see her every chance he got. She shared a studio apartment with a roommate named Alexa. Cramped little place where they had to lock Alexa out just to screw. Alexa was a looker—legs for days, lived on free drinks and good intentions. She always had some chump on the hook. Made Max wonder what Sherri was doing when he wasn’t around. But he married her anyway. She swore he was the only guy she ever had. And like any man in love, he was dumb enough to believe it.

He parked near Bally’s, grabbed a pack of stale Marlboros from the glove box. He’d quit, but fuck it. Lit one up and dragged hard. The smoke clawed the back of his throat. His eyes watered a little. He exhaled into the salty wind coming off the ocean. Low tide. The stink of dead clams in the reeds. He flicked the cigarette into the gutter and headed for the boardwalk.

The casino was a blur of noise and flashing lights— machines chirping like demented birds. Max bought in at a blackjack table, just to feel something. He knew better than to play cards when life ran bad, but he did it anyway. A kid with spiky hair and a smirk like he’d just pissed in Max’s drink wiped him clean. Two hundred bucks gone in thirty minutes.

He walked through the slot section, where the Social Security crowd sat stone-faced, feeding their pensions into machines that teased them like high school cheerleaders. Every now and then, a machine coughed out a few quarters and someone let out a halfhearted cheer. A man in a green tracksuit sat hunched over his machine, talking to it like they were making plans.

That’s when they glided over. Two of them, early twenties, arm in arm, skin smooth as a movie poster. Both in tight skirts and heels high enough to sprain an ankle. The blonde smiled first. Slow and easy, like she was letting him in on a secret. Her eyes ran over him—shoes, belt, face. She liked what she saw. Or maybe she just liked his jacket.

“Hey, handsome,” she purred, voice dipped in honey. “You up for a duo tonight?”

The brunette trailed a red fingernail down his sleeve. Her perfume was something cheap with a fancy name. Max barked out a laugh before he could stop it. It caught them off guard.

“Sweetheart,” he said, shaking his head, “I wouldn’t know what to do with one of you right now, let alone two.”

The blonde pouted. “You sure? We could—”

He waved them off with a flick of his wrist. A 750 ML of Johnny Walker Black would do fine. Pretty sure Johnny wasn’t bi, so no sex tonight. The girls stared a beat longer, waiting for him to reconsider, then drifted toward the next lonely guy with a wallet.

He stepped back onto Pacific Avenue. The warm wind barely stirred the trash on the sidewalk. His pockets were light, his head was heavy, and he was just sober enough to hate himself. Down the block, he saw the neon sign. LIQUOR & WINE. OPEN Perfect. 24 HOURS.

He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and walked into the light. Next stop—a bottle and a room. Nobody was comping him tonight.

* * *

It wasn’t long before Max found an office at the end of a strip mall that looked like it hadn’t seen a fresh coat of paint since the Beach Boys hit the charts. But hey, it was cheap. He was dyin’ for a smoke. Except for his weakness that night he rolled into town, it was a year since he quit, but the craving stuck around like an ex who still wanted an alimony check. Sinatra was spinning on the old turntable in the corner, “My Way,” of course. Ole Blue Eyes always hit him somewhere deep—not just because was a Hoboken guy, but because his voice carried all the stuff he’d left behind.

He was born to that town, part of a legacy—his dad a fireman, his granddad a cop. Plus, that’s where Sinatra came from. He loved the hustle and bustle of the city life--being able to see the Big Apple skyline from across the river, taking a long lunch on a ferry cruise to the Statue of Liberty and back. The Hardins didn’t just live in Hoboken; they were Hoboken. And Max was good at being a part of it.

It started with the captain. A big shot with greasy charm and a smile that turned the stomach. He’d pulled Max aside one day, all casual, like he was asking about the weather. Instead, he asked if Max and his wife, Barbara, wanted to swing with him and his wife. Max’s jaw had clenched so tight it was a wonder his teeth didn’t shatter. And then the captain, grinning like a kid about to steal candy, said the worst part out loud: “Always wanted to screw Sherri.”

The punch came faster than the thought. Max’s fist connected with the captain’s mouth, split his lip, and sent blood spraying all over the desk. It was satisfying in the moment, but the aftermath was a shit storm. Internal Affairs sniffing around, fellow officers whispering. And Sherri? She had a secret of her own: she was already screwing the captain.

Goodbye job, goodbye wife, goodbye Hoboken. So, here he was, an hour and a half down the road in Atlantic City. Far enough to start over, close enough to remember what he’d lost. It was a shitty office, no doubt about it. A cracked window with a peeling sticker advertising “Atlantic City Real Estate” from God knows when. The desk, salvaged from a flea market, leaned to one side like it was tired of holding up the weight of overdue bills and ashtrays. The carpet? Forget it. More cigarette burns than fabric. The whole place smelled like stale coffee and damp plaster.

Max Hardin knew it was a dump. Ocean air was wet, but it was the best he could afford. That, and the landlord didn’t ask too many questions or care if the rent came a couple days late. Atlantic City hadn’t grown on him yet. Hell, it still felt like wearing someone else’s shoes: wrong fit, wrong vibe. Hoboken had been home, where every cracked sidewalk and corner store carried memories. Until it wasn’t.

It wasn’t all bad, though. Atlantic City had its own charm if you squinted hard enough—the kind of charm you find in a well-worn blackjack table or the neon haze of a dive bar at three a.m. Seedy, corrupt, crawling with lowlifes who thought they were untouchable. Max could work with that. He’d gotten his private investigator’s license and set up shop in this shit hole. The cases weren’t glamorous, but they paid the bills. Sometimes. Cheating husbands, cheating wives, shady business partners double-crossing each other over a couple grand. Once, he even tracked down Mrs. Henderson’s Pomeranian. Not exactly the stuff of legend, but it kept the lights on.

Then Barry Albertson walked in. Barry didn’t just walk in. He swaggered in, the kind of guy who thinks the world owes him a favor just for existing. Max sized him up instantly: slick suit, manicured hands, a fat gold watch that probably wasn’t real. Barry wasn’t here because he couldn’t afford better. He was here because he knew Max was cheap, and he wanted cheap.

“You Hardin?” Barry asked, dropping into the client chair like he owned it.

“What’s it say on the door?” Max said, leaning back in his own chair. “Who’s asking?”

Barry smirked. “I’m Barry Albertson. Heard you’re good at finding things. Or people.”

“Sometimes,” Max said letting the silence hang, watching Barry squirm a little. Guys like him didn’t like being kept waiting. Finally, Max started the real conversation.

“What can I do you for, Mr. Albertson”

“Not what. Who?” Barry said, leaning forward. “Some punk robbed my store. SuperGoods Supermarket off Route 9.”

“You report it to the cops?” Max asked, knowing the answer.

Barry’s face tightened. “Course I did. They’re dragging their feet. Said it’ll take time. Time I don’t have. It’s not about the money—insurance is covering that.” He paused, his jaw working like he was chewing on something bitter. “It’s about respect. That bastard didn’t just take my cash. He smacked me around in my own store. Humiliated me.”

“Ah,” Max said, nodding. “It’s personal.” Barry’s eyes narrowed. “Damn right it’s personal. I’m Barry Albertson. Nobody lays a hand on me and gets away with it.”

Max didn’t laugh, but it was a close call. He’d heard that kind of bravado before, usually from guys who weren’t half as tough as they thought they were. Still, Barry’s money was good, and Max needed the work.

“Fine,” Max said. “But it’s gonna cost you.” He named a number that made Barry’s face twist like he’d bitten into a lemon.

“You serious?” Barry said. “Dead serious. You want fast, you want personal, it’ll cost you.”

Barry stared at him, calculating. Finally, he sighed and pulled out a checkbook. “Fine. But you better deliver, Hardin.”

“Always do,” Max said, taking the check and slipping it into his desk drawer. “Now, tell me everything you know. Description?” Max asked.

“Six-foot, maybe six-one. Built. Black jacket, jeans. Didn’t get a look at his face. He had a fist as big as a softball, except it wasn’t soft.” Voice was low, gravelly like he didn’t want to admit it.

“That it?” Max said, jotting notes on a pad.

“He seemed like he really know our routine. Humiliated me in front of my employees and my girl. That’s the part that pisses me the most.” Barry said, leaning back. “That’s it.”

“How much did he get?”

“Counted it up. Looks like around ninety-five thousand.”

“That much?” The guy was lying for sure, especially since people used a lot of plastic instead of cash.

“Think you can find him?” “

Max Hardin always gets his man,” he was being ironic. Barry smirked. “I’ll track him down,” Max said.

When Barry left, Max leaned back in his chair and reached for anther non-existent cigarette. He’d dealt with guys like Barry before—all swagger and ego, quick to anger, but a job was a job, and this one had potential. Max glanced at the legal pad, tapping the pen against his temple. The guy made it personal for Barry. The way he kicked his ass, humiliated him. Must have been based on something other than aggression. That’d give Max an edge. People always left traces, especially when they let their emotions get the better of them.

He popped a tab of nicotine gum in his mouth, grabbed his coat, and headed for the door. The office might’ve been a dump, but the streets of Atlantic City? They were exactly what he needed—dirty, loud, and full of secrets waiting to be uncovered. It was time to get to work. First thing was to do some scouting. Talk to the Evergreen Supermarket people, get some first-hand info. Then canvas area supermarkets to see about any disgruntled employees. He was always good with hunches. This seemed to be the best bet. He looked at the check. Maybe play some blackjack later. It seemed to be a lucky day.

Want to read the rest? Let me know, and I’ll send it or just buy it at Amazon.com. Hope you’re having a great holiday season.

Lou Mascolo

This is part of an email Greg Zyla sent me, and I had to just share it with you. Two great old time buddies getting some kudos. Congrats Guys! …and I hope everyone had a great Thanksgiving!

the following by Greg Zyla

…SpeakinIg of pinball machines, my friend Lou Piccone, a former NY Jets, and Buffalo Bills NFL veteran, and I were the area’s top “pinball wizards” in the 1960s.

My friend Lou Piccone?

We grew up together in Vineland N.J. starting in 1958 when I moved with my family and started third grade at Sacred Heart grade school in Vineland, N.J. Lou was an already popular third grader.

Lou played nine seasons in the NFL as a wide receiver and kick returner. His career spanned from 1974 to 1982, starting with the New York Jets (1974–1976) and then the Buffalo Bills (1977–1982). Over that time, he appeared in 118 games, caught 100 passes for 1,380 yards and six touchdowns, and was also a standout on special teams, leading the league in kickoff returns twice (1974 and 1976). We communicate regularly here in 2025, and he lives outside of Buffalo with his wife JoAnne.

Now, some of my readers might wonder why am I bragging up my friend Lou Piccone? I’ll tell you why: it was Lou Piccone that allowed me, at the age of 13, to drive a real car for the very first time. It was his brother Steve’s black and red hopped up 1953 Plymouth, a very cool car for the day. It had hubcap spinners, exhaust tips, headlight lenses, the whole bit.

Specifically, Steve wasn’t home at that time, but his keys were in the ignition. Lou and I took a joyride around his house that featured a circular driveway. One could tell Lou, who was of course behind the wheel initially, had driven many times before “my big day.” After I asked Lou if he would let me drive, he surprisingly said yes, knowing I never had driven a real car. He allowed me to drive it several times around that circular driveway on Landis Avenue. It was a 3-speed on the column, with a flathead inline six. I never stalled it, but Lou did tell me to slow down a little. LOL. Thanks so much Lou Piccone. (And, unknowingly, Steve Piccone, too)….

That pretty much wraps it up this week as I’m researching info needed for my end of year columns “Saga of Young Joe” and safety columns on DUI and Texting. Stay tuned.

P.S. (Publisher’s Note) This is an addendum sent by Greg.

Caption: Back in 1963, when the principals were all in 8th grade, Coach Alan Bernadini, came to class one day and told Lewis Carluzzo, Lou Piccone, Greg Zyla ad Steven Ward to go to the gym immediately. He told the kids he entered them in the Penn Relays Indoor Elementary School 440-relay championships. They had two days to practice, and competing against over 100 schools in the Philadelphia/South Jersey Division, the team came home with the1st place award, winning out over much larger schools. Shown, left to right, Carluzzo, Zyla, coach Bernadini and Piccone. (Hurley Photo)

Which leads me to my first ever “drive” in a much smaller format…namely my third-grade friend Lewis Carluzzo, who went on to become a noted Special Trial Judge and to this day is still hearing tax liability cases.

Lewis had a homebuilt go kart that if I remember was constructed by a family member, possibly his grandfather. This go kart had what looked like a cut in half 55-gallon drum which functioned as the go-kart’s hood, hiding the lawn mower type engine. It also featured a long wheelbase and was nothing like the go karts advertised in the many magazines back in 1958.

Sitting low to the ground, Lewis allowed me many hours behind the wheel, which we rode in his very wide dirt driveway on Myrtle Street in Vineland. It was so much fun!

To this day, Lewis and I are still close friends. We went through our growing years graduating Sacred Heart High School together and built hundreds of AMT car model kits along the way.

Lewis also introduced me to “Mad Magazine” as we hit our teen years, and the joy of reading be it comedy or not. They were great years.

From 1992 to 1994, he was assigned to the Office of Special Counsel, Large Case. He was appointed Special Trial Judge, United States Tax Court, on August 7, 1994, and Chief Special Trial Judge from 2007.

In 2020, Carluzzo received the J. Edgar Murdock Award for distinguished service to the Tax Court.

In summary, be it Lou or Lewis, I was fortunate to have such special friends that played major roles in who I became in the word of motorsports.

(Greg Zyla is a syndicated auto columnist who welcomes reader input and questions on collector cars, auto nostalgia and motorsports atextramile_2000@yahoo.comor at 303 Roosevelt, Sayre, Pa., 18840

I like to cook. It’s the Italian guy syndrome, I guess. In any case, I was cooking up a pot of chicken orzo soup for my 101 year-old mother-in-law at her request. (My pleasure.) When I cook I put in my ear plugs, turn on You Tube and listen to music.

I just happened to see Amy Winehouse up, so I selected the clip an listened to her smoky, sexy, contralto voice singing “Back to Black.” Such an unusual voice. So the next song up is “Zombie,” by Dorothy O’Riodan of the Cranberries. Another unusual compelling voice. Both now gone at such young ages.

Amy Winehouse died from alcohol poisoning at 27 years old in 2011 after a period of binge drinking. The final cause of death was determined to be alcohol toxicity often associated with fatalities. While she had a history of substance abuse it wasn’t drugs that killed her.

Same for Dolores O’Riodan. She died in January 2018 at 46 years old from drowning due to alcohol intoxication. Older than Amy, but still relatively young. The coroner ruled her death an accident after an inquest found she was submerged in a bathtub at her hotel after heavy drinking. Evidence of alcohol and prescription drugs were found in her hotel room, and her blood alcohol level was over four times the legal driving limit.

What is specifically relevant for me is I recently wrote a book, “Rock ‘n Roll Book of the Dead,” which is the only reason I knew of these two, talented women. If I hadn’t written that book, I would have never know who they were and never heard their voices.

We all come from a certain decade that shaped our taste in music. I’m a Boomer, so early rock and classic rock from the ’60s and ’70s are right in my wheelhouse. Pretty much everything after that lost me—there were a few exceptions, like Michael Jackson (and maybe Prince or Springsteen), but overall the main stream music started feeling too homogeneous. Same formula, different artists. I tuned out.

I originally thought doing a book with a title with Book of the Dead in it was a little over-the-top, but I thought it would get some attention, Not so much. I think it turned people off reading about death, especially with my generation getting so close the final refrain. But after listening to those two women sing, I knew I did the right thing. Maybe the title’s a little overwhelming, but the heart behind it is dead-on, so to speak.

The important thing is it exposes different generations to talented artists lives; those who made significant musical contributions and have now moved on to the great jam session in the sky.

If you are into rock and rock history, I think you will really like this book. It’s a great musical reference. Put this on the coffee table, and when you friends see it, it will start a ton of great conversations.

Here’s what Chris Orazi, a very talented, local composer and producer, and friend of mine said about the book, so I consider this gold.

“Lou Mascolo created the perfect blend of encyclopedia and rock and roll storytelling. It’s a reference going forward to keep around. Well researched and concisely written!”

Here’s a good description from another reader: A fascinating and accessible book for music lovers, this collection offers engaging biographies of rock legends across the decades. Each entry captures the rise, impact, and legacy of influential artists, while also painting a broader picture of how rock evolved from the ‘50s through the MTV era and beyond. The writing is clear and lively, making it easy to dip into or browse at leisure, and the mix of history, culture, and personality keeps it compelling throughout. A great pick for fans of classic rock, music history, or anyone curious about the stories behind the songs that shaped generations.

So what do you say? Want to pick up a copy? The holiday season is upon us and it could be a great gift.

Get it here: “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead

Here are the two songs mentioned:

Amy Winehouse: Back to Black:

Dolores O’Riodan: Zombies

My other books and plays: https://tinyurl.com/5n7wehsw

P.S. She liked the soup

Have a great weekend!

Lou

My new book, “Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead” is officially launched. I made a slight mistake by issuing different dates for the availability of the e-book and print and the hardbound, but everything is now is sync, and you can order any version.

I wrote the book this mainly for the over 50 crowd since we’ve been around long enough to miss many of these great musicians. They left big, empty holes in our musical hearts. Fortunately, we can still listen to what was created in the past, but their passing indicates we are growing older by the day. The sad part is so many died tragic deaths. I have special write up on the “27 Club," This sees to be a fatal age that many of the died.

The book gives a 500-word biography capturing the rise, triumphs, struggles, and final days of the greatest names in rock. From their biggest hits and chart-topping albums, to their awards, scandals, and legacies, to the details of their passing and where they rest today their awards and an original sketch of the artist.

I have over fifty bios in it. I also get into a description of each decade and it effect on the the rock music of the times for those who are interested. You’ll see how rock ’n roll evolved decade by decade, and how the music and the musicians both defined and were defined by their times

• The rebellious spark of the ’50s

• The psychedelic revolution of the ’60s

• The arena-rock power of the ’70s

• The MTV-driven explosion of the ’80s
  …and beyond.

It’s an easy read. A browser’s book really. Read as little or as much as you want. You can put it down and pick it up and always find something new and interesting in it. Great conversation starter also. If you do pick up a copy, please leave a review. People are hesistant to purchase without reviews.

In any case, take a look at the description on Amazon.com. Browse the table of contents and see what I have put together. You might be tempted to order a copy. It’s our musical history.

Click the link and order your copy today. “The Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead.”

See all my titles on Amazon.com

Thanks for your support. I appreciate you!

Lou

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I just wanted you to check out this promo video I did for my new book, The Rock ‘n’ Roll Book of the Dead. I wanted some opinions on whether you thought this was a good idea or not. Of course, I thought it was a terrific idea, but my opinions aren’t usually broadly held. Take a look at it. It only about 4 ½ minutes. Let me know what you think. Just comment here or on YouTube. If you watch it on YouTube please, like and subscribe to my channel. I have over 500 subscribers and I need 1,000 before I get monetized, so your help is appreciated. I’m just an old 80 year old man, and you should help out your seniors. :-)

If you do watch it on YouTube, please watch as much of it as you can. They watch you watching it. If people click off quickly, they don’t promote the video.

Also, I received a nice write up in Mainland Living Magazine and Egg Harbor Living Magazine about my book “Scoundrels & Seafarers”. I’m going to provide them with columns from local authors about their books. Sounds easy, right.

I’m finding authors are harder to deal with than actors. Out of the twelve of us who were at the Atlantic County Author’s night, only two responded. I even asked twice. Really? Free publicity, and they don’t want it? It has to be that I didn’t impress them very much, I guess. So, any of you writers out there who want their book promoted, for FREE, let me know. I’ve done some nice book sales because of the articles.

Very interested in seeing if M1/ATLAS Comet is a comet or alien spaceship that is going to land on Mars, terraform it and populate it. A lot of scientists are worried.

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Oh, and before I forget. This being America, set me encourage you to buy something. Like one of my books. Just click on it.

Have a great week.

Lou