EVE BABITZ : SLOW DAYS, FAST COMPANY - THE WORLD, THE FLESH, and L.A. : RAIN

The silver lining was rain.  A sudden, mistaken rain that came all at once in the middle of the following Thursday, vanishing after five minutes upon noticing its blunder. No clouds, seventy-five degrees, no reason, but it rained.  It rained on the hot oily asphalt and made it smell rainy.  It rained the fray from the landscape, just like that, with a snap of its wrong turn.

The wild blue yonder came upon us like a drunken zoom lens thundering into focus.  It seemed that God had made up His mind to change the background without telling anyone.

Los Angeles got huge shafts of pure yellow sunlight surging through office windows.  Daffodils came to mind. Violets.  

You could choose any direction and see as far as you wanted.  Past Catalina and on west all the way to the East. In a quick clap of mistaken thunder the look of Southern California had been transformed miraculously and I have seen nothing like it anywhere else or heard of any such thing.

You could pick up mad gladness from bus drivers and studio chiefs and pool cleaners and check-out girls and guys doing their news on the radio.  "Rain!" they cried, and immediately meteorologists were contacted to predict more rain. Rain from Mexico, rain from the San Joaquin Valley, rain from a storm out in the Pacific, rain coming down from Oregon.  Converging rain -- we're bound to have more rain.

"Did you see it, it rained! everyone said to each other, in soft panting voices as though they were in love.

Excerpt pages 92 and 93 published in 1977

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE : LIVING, DYING, and PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE DOORS by ROBBY KRIEGER : CHRISTINE TRZYNA AUDIOBOOK REVIEW

SET THE NIGHT ON FIRE : LIVING, DYING, and PLAYING GUITAR WITH THE DOORS by Robbie Krieger   "Listened to on an Audio Book"

First, this book is read by someone else, not Robbie Krieger, but the reader's male voice was not terribly unlike Krieger's which is a good thing because I had no trouble believing I was listening to Krieger. The reader did a good job of following the intent of Krieger, the emotions of the telling. So when I think about Krieger's writerly "voice" I mean both the reading of it, and the telling of it.

Unlike many memoirs, this one does not proceed from start to finish in the telling but rather each chapter is topical. The story telling is a circling, a dipping and flying again, adventure, going back to Jim Morrison and the Doors often and Krieger's personal experience and life - before, during, and after being part of one of the most famous music groups in American history, made more famous, I feel, in years after their time with Jim Morrison, the singer. He answered the question "How did being in The Doors effect your life?"

Krieger comes off as genuine and frank. He includes his heroin addiction and what that meant when it came to being a father. That all the doors managed to evade the draft for the Viet Nam war. His honesty includes that he thinks Ray Manzarek, the keyboardist, expressed some strange, if not esoteric, notions in his own memoir.  He says he cannot imagine the Jim Morrison he knew indulging in any "witch wedding." He thinks resistance to using Door's music for commercials makes no sense. He also thinks some of those who wrote books about the Doors, especially those who were not there, are - did he use the word "bullshit"? - I think he did.  Overall, Krieger's memoir is one that takes issue with reportage of the past, including that of film-maker Oliver Stone's exaggerated and erroneous take on Morrison and the Doors.  Importantly he says that Jim Morrison did not expose himself on stage in Florida - or anywhere. And the backstage problems with the police also did not happen as the film suggests.  But, significantly, he was amazed by actor Val Kilmer's interpretation of Morrison.

Krieger wrote Light My Fire, perhaps the most famous of all the songs the group recorded long ago. It's been years since I heard that song blaring out of a radio, and I feel that the Door's music has what can properly be called "a cult following."  

Like most of the music that I find on YouTube and embed into this blog, I became of that music as an Oldie.  I was not aware of the Doors when they were actually a group. There was one kid in my high school who was into their music and supposedly had all their albums, a too skinny kid who was also a genius and once took a brief stroll as an opportunity to give me a gentle kiss. But my best friend was accumulating Beatle's albums. So I came to the Door's music late and like many, mostly after the film. I must also admit that I saw Oliver Stone film in Hollywood on a triple wide screen and thought it was fantastic, that it captured some energy that had come out of that era. I've seen it on smaller screens since, at least twice, each time noticing something new. 

It's been a while since I traveled the canyon and went past the renamed Love Street, in Laurel Canyon, but we all knew that house with "Jim Lives" spray painted on a foundation behind the store, was where he and his girlfriend Pam had lived. So, I feel it is near impossible to be an Angeleno and not learn about the Doors.  And, there is something about their music that IS Los Angeles at a certain time and place - the beach at Santa Monica - Sunset Strip - which is evocative. 

Krieger came from an advantaged family and credits his dad as being especially supportive of his efforts and The Doors as a group. He says that Jim Morrison and his dad could really talk because of his dad's acceptance, unlike the relationship Morrison had with his own father.

After finishing this book, I went onto YouTube and listened to videos of the Doors for a while, including their performance for their induction into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

How many of your friends from your twenties do you still know?  How many of the people you creatively collaborated with do you still?

C 2023  Christine Trzyna

EVE OF DESTRUCTION : BARRY MCGUIRE

Came out in 1965....  WHAT HAS CHANGED?

YOU NEVER CAN TELL : ERSEL HICKEY

SIT DOWN I THINK I LOVE YOU : BUFFALO SPRINGFIELD

GENTLE ON MY MIND - JOHN HARTFORD

Commercial at the end.... sorry!   Beautiful remaster of the song that was recorded by very many singers.

SALMAN RUSHDIE and BRIAN COX PROTEST THE WOKE CHANGES TO CHILDREN'S BOOKS BY ROALD DAHL : SHAME ON THE PUBLISHERS

I dread to think what my old college creative writing program has turned into, since it was pretty damn Woke already when I attended; overall in literature discussions there was the attitude that if you wrote a character who was of a certain culture or sexuality, a Chinese transexual or a Jewish bisexual, as examples, you damn better BE a Chinese transexual or a Jewish bisexual. Everything you wrote was assumed to be coming from your own experience and some sort of personal point of view, even an agenda of activism, that characters were representative, not that your IMAGINATION was at work or even that you RESEARCHED to come up with a character.  

AT THE SAME TIME in literature classes author's writing was being deconstructed and had various THEORIES such as Marxism or Freudism applied, without regard of the author ....  We were to know nothing of the author, their heritage, background, politics, or point of view at the time in their life when they wrote what they wrote....  Try doing that to ARTISTS.

I wonder what would be SAFE to express verbally or in writing in that program today, how a student who wrote without concern for pleasing professors or TA's or fellow students would be treated by WOKE peers. (I can tell you that if their characters were perverted, that would likely fly.) I think of the day I made a comment about a Native American character and my peers seemed to bristle, as if they did not know if I had the right to make that comment out of some percentage of Native American in my DNA or if I could not be right because I had no percentage.  (I had taken a college class at another college about Native Americans of the South West and California and had also done quite a bit of research for myself on those who had lived in my neighborhood historically.)

I was witness to a vegan staring down another student who dared eat a tuna salad sandwich, kind of like the way young environmental activist Greta Thunberg stares down people with hatred, appearing to want to kill someone with intent. 

I wondered if my TA who smoked and ate lunch meat was doing so just to hold onto his own culture or as a kind of autonomy...

***

Salman Rushdie I last saw at a UCLA LA TIMES Book Fair.  I didn't get into his presentation, but as the fair was closing down I saw him alone, rolling his suitcase behind him, going to his transportation like all other stragglers. I thought about how he'd had to go into hiding because of a book he wrote that was deemed against Islam.  He has paid the price for being an author in this world. So I am glad that the attack hasn't censored him.

It is horrible  that he was attacked and lost his eyesight in one eye because of one more mentally ill, demon possessed person who kills others just because. I used to be one of those people who said that if killing was wrong we should not have the death penalty. (I should research to see how many states that have the death penalty are also against abortion.) Lately I rethink that. I'm through feeling sorry for criminals. 

This article from the Daily Mail is typical of their newspaper on line. You have to deal with irritating popups, articles that are clearly ads, articles that are duplicated in more than one space, a lot of celebrity trash including all those desperate for attention and showing off their selfies such as the Kardashians, and the chronic hatred of President of the United States Joseph Biden and all things Democrat (except for rock stars). I have sworn off reading it - I started during the Edward Snowden and Julian Assange reportage - and am weening myself. Finding what you're interested in reading in Daily Mail is like trying to find a diamond that fell in a pile of shit, icky but possible.

DAILY MAIL : RUSHDIE and COX LEADING BACKLASH AGAINST WOKE PUBLISHERS

EXCERPT:

'Roald Dahl was no angel but this is absurd censorship,' Rushdie wrote on Twitter.

'Puffin Books an the Dahl estate should be ashamed.'

PEN America, a community of some 7.500 writers that advocates for freedom of expression, said it was 'alarmed' by reports of changes to Dahl's books. ' If we start down the path of trying to correct for perceived slights instead of allowing readers to receive and react to books as written, we risk distorting the work of great authors and clouding the essential lens that literature offers on society,' tweeted Suzanne Nossel, chief executive of PEN America. 

Laura Hackett, a childhood Dahl fan who is now deputy literary editor of London's Sunday Times newspaper, had a more personal reaction to the news.  'The editors at Puffin should be ashamed of the botched surgery they've carried out on some of the finest children's literature in Britain,' she wrote ...

C 2023  Christine Trzyna

LA LA MEANS I LOVE YOU : DELFONICS

Searched YouTube for a live performance or recording that had images of the Delfonics themselves and had no commercials..... Finally!

DEATH ON THE MIND - DEATH AS THE INFORMANT - DEATH AS A REALITY

Is it the effect of a modern plague called Covid-19, or perhaps the famous people who have died since the beginning of the year ---  broadcast journalist Barbara Walters,  musicians Jeff Beck, David Crosby, Lisa Marie Presley,  Burt Bacharach ....  ?   Death is a reality of Life.  However, I don't recall the public count being what it is now  -  starting at the beginning of the year instead of the end.  (I checked a list of famous people who had died so far and admit I had not heard of most of them.)

In recent days the Turkey-Syria Earthquake - their Big One - has taken thousands of lives.Thousands more are injured and in need of medical care.  Thousands more survived but lost everything and are homeless. The smell of death hangs over in the air, while others die beneath the rubble awaiting rescue that may never come. Teams from all over the world have sent help, including a group called Samaritan's Purse, a Protestant Christian group known more for sending shoe boxes with this and that and promoting Jesus - to poor children all over the world. They sent a plane containing all that it takes to set up a field hospital.  Teams from Russia as well as China are there.  Teams with sniffer dogs from Germany. Teams from our United States... With hundreds of buildings down, every rescue is greeted with joy and often thanks to Allah.  *But Allah or whatever It's Name Is, allows these things to happen, too busy to care.  I say that humans need to stop associating natural disasters as punishment from God. Who wants to worship or live their life around such a character?

It also seems the Idaho Four murders, with Bryan Kohberger the only suspect, has not been forgotten by the media.  Of 35,000 murders in the U.S. every year, you can delete all too common gang warfare and domestic violence as interesting unless it's truly bizarre or includes a famous person.  Only a few murders are taken up by the True Crime Internet community as worthy of their every suspicion. Finally a few posters are posting why they do not believe he did it or did it alone, or do not believe he will be Found Guilty are coming up.  (I hope the Gag Order remains. I really do not want to hear from Kaylee's family lawyer. I note that while other murder victim's familys public records of arrests and divorces have been publicized no one seems to know how her family has money. It's clear that of the Four, it is her parents who do have it.)

We are obsessed with Death.

My recall may be a little fuzzy regarding Carlos Castaneda's reveals in his books, likely read by me years ago, one here and one there, but was there not some wisdom relayed to him via Don Juan or some other shaman, about Death being an Informant?  Well, if one keeps in mind that time alive is limited, it might influence one to stay focused on what one wants to accomplish. But, likely like you, I too can be interrupted by hunger, and distracted by all the things one does to stay alive, and a certain poverty of advantage. For instance, I got up and made myself a peanut butter on whole wheat bread toast sandwich just now, but rushed to eat it so I wouldn't loose my focus for this article. 

I'm writing this on Sunday morning - that is to say yesterday morning - because I'm truly beginning to think I'm starting to be aware on some level when people have passed.  I'll clarify in a moment.

I mentioned my friend who has been in stage four lung cancer for about five years, defying all predictions.  I mentioned he does not want me to be involved.  I should have clarified that he does not want me to be involved in his care not that he doesn't want me to care about him.  What happens is that most of the time when I catch up with him or see him, such as at the Christmas potluck we both attended, he says he does not want to talk and I respect that. Yet once in a while he will blurt the latest such as that his doctors said he had a month to six months, which was actually about nine months ago. I feel he does not want to feel himself to be a burden but needs to vent. When he told me that I said, "You have outlived the predictions again and again."  Based on his symptoms I did some research about lung cancer and what happens to the body in the last days.  He has those symptoms and has had them, a lack of oxygen giving his skin a mottled appearance. So what is keeping him going?  Is it Fate? Stubborness?  That he has had very strong heart ?  Fear of Death?  Something more that he was meant to do when he took on the Assignment?  Well, something is going on that is not explainable.

This is an example of my trying to use science to predict and prediction as a way of being prepared.   

On perhaps the best of the true crime podcasts, Surviving the Survivor, the host, whose mother is a Holocaust survivor, mentions this Jewish saying.  MAY THEIR MEMORY BE A BLESSING.  Just the other day I was thinking that the memories of my dog, who passed in July, are all a blessing.  She was a blessing to me from the day I got her to that last day and so often some memory of something that happened or something that she did, showing how perceptive she was, comes to me and puts a smile on my face. I can rarely say that about others I've encountered in this life who have passed or even many of those who have left my life who are still alive.

What happens is that I start thinking about someone or something that happened in my life years ago, someone who was once important in some way but who I moved on from or who moved on from me, someone I have not thought about in years, and then I find out they recently died. Could it be that as a person approaches their death they are reviewing their life and thinking of me (as well as others) and that's what I (they) pick up on?  I have to emphasize these are not people like my friend with the stage four lung cancer, but people who I would consider to have been forgotten.

A couple months ago I started thinking about a friend I had whose mom was friends with my mom. Our episode of friendship ended because of her drinking, or to be more specific, I barely ever drink and after one of her cocktails I was drunk and did not want more. She openly ridiculed me for not being willing or able to keep up with her.  (This happened on a few Friday nights in her mom's kitchen. I suppose her mom felt that at least we were not in a bar or on the road.) I had figured her parents had probably long ago passed but I found out that both of them had just recently died. My mom's friend died a few days after her husband! 

And then, about a week or so ago I started thinking about an employer I had, a husband and wife who owned a business back in the day, and what it was to work for them. They were greedy people, cooking the books while underpaying and working their employees hard. We didn't get breaks or lunch which was not legal, so we could not leave the place to even go out and make a phone call. He had been a lawyer.  If they had no spiritually driven morals, one would think at least they could obey the law. Their children were spoiled brats. Their son at 12 years old started screaming at me one day, telling me how I worked for HIM. I finally quit without another job lined up, unable to find another job while so entrapped. They acted as if we owed them and were owned by them. Though paid an unlivable wage, they resented that I quit. 

I'd started writing about that experience, not for publication, and then what the hell, I put his name in the internet, as in my mind the man still looked as he had the day I quit, and it turned out he had been buried the day before. (The obituary mentioned his law school, the firm he had worked for, the business they owned. The rotten brat son went into public heath and might have been working selflessly while independently wealthy, to provide for the poor. Requests were made for donations to a food bank!) This means that he was dying while I was writing about what it was to work for people like that.  (Obits rarely have anything bad to say about a person.)

Geeze, I said to myself, I really need to talk to someone like James Van Praagh about this! In a video this psychic medium says that when a person has their life review after death they get to feel the happiness and pleasure they gave others as well as the sadness and pain they gave others. Better or Worse,  if someone has wronged you in a way where it effects the rest of your life, they get to feel that too. Every damn thing they set in motion.

At least Van Praagh is not in the "It's All Good" mentality.

 C 2023  Christine Trzyna

Note  Feb 13th.  I have no idea why the font on this blogger is not holding firm.  The problem seems to be when I use the medium font. I just went through this post and fixed the crazy font changes.

MYSTERIOUS DOODLES IN ANCIENT BOOKS : BBC REPORTS

Excerpts:

Centuries old books, manuscripts and printing plates often contain invisible etchings, mysterious letters  - and even doodles.  A new technology that maps the surface of these objects is bringing them to light.  ...

Lowe suggests that, through this new approach, there could be thousands of new discoveries waiting to be made, hidden in plain sight in libraries and art collections.  "People are starting to realize that 'relief information' is transforming our knowledge.  There must be objects in libraries all over the world that could benefit for this technology... It's about treating material objects as evidence, " he says.  "There's a lot that's known, but there's a lot more that can be, and I think that's an incredibly inspiring and exciting thought."

BBC - FUTURE - DOODLES IN OLD BOOKS

Using new technology, previously unseen doodles - as well as notes and good art - are being discovered impressed upon the pages of old books and manuscripts.  Were children having their way with their parent's precious books?  Were some of these images deliberate?

HAVE YOU SEEN HER : CHI LITES and A FRIEND IS IN HIS LAST DAYS WITH LUNG CANCER

Sorry about the commercial at the very end.  At least it's at the very end.

This song came into my mind this morning.  Don't know why...  Has nothing to do with...

Listening to the U.N. and other broadcasts regarding the horrific situation in Turkey and Syria because of the twin earthquakes that hit that area.  A lot of people who anticipated getting up in the morning and starting with a cup of tea have left their bodies. Over time I've begun to think that maybe the Buddhists are right and we all come into this life with a certain number of breaths.

A friend of sorts, someone I met about five years ago, who was diagnosed with stage four lung cancer then, and refused radiation and chemo, and kept smoking (though exposure to smoke while working in a ship engine for a decade is more likely the cause), is still walking around.

Each time I see him I think that a person could not be more skinny, more without fat or muscle, and be alive.

More than once I felt that he had to be in his last days.

He eats a lot but is past the point where he can get back the fat and muscle.

So concerned that he not be alone when he dies.

Yet, he does not want me to be involved.

Sent along a crochet blanket a year or so ago.

Last heard that a man friend of his is checking in on him daily and also providing food and water.

C Christine Trzyna

ONE OF THE MORE SANE OPINION VIDEOS ABOUT THE IDAHO FOUR MURDERS : TIMOTHY ALLEN CAMPBELL : BRYAN KOHBERGER'S CHANCES OF A FAIR TRIAL : TA REALITY

May 14 2026  Well Bryan pleaded guilty, and so it goes... And I've learned there are about 50,000 murders in the USA in a year.

Having watched dozens of videos, I'm convinced it will be near impossible for Bryan Kohberger to get a fair trial. He has been convicted in the media for sure. Innocent until proven guilty is fundamental to the law in the United States of America but experts including ex FBI agents are talking as if he is guilty, even just calling him Bryan like they can own that over-familiarity. He is a suspect. A suspect.  The ONLY one? 

For a while I was immune to NewsNation broadcasters being negative and opinionated but Banfield is now on my nerves and I no longer think NewsNation is what it claims, news without bias. Nancy Grace, go back into the hole you crawled out of.  You don't need to be outraged for the rest of us.

I'm so glad I did not pursue journalism as my major as I would be ashamed and embarrassed to be in journalism at this point since almost all news is now soft, tabloid, badly researched news.  MURDER HAS BECOME ENTERTAINMENT.

THINK ABOUT THIS.... There are about 35,000 murders in the United States each year but very few are taken up like this one by the media and few get the manpower and funding to be solved that this one has. Name the ones you remember that got this much attention...  O.J.... Name the people you know or know of who have been murdered. (I know three.) I can bet you that if there was more than one or two investigators on the case who gave it a week or two, that would be exceptional.

And while the Idaho Four case has it's ironies, it's true that the Victims have all been turned into Saints, yet it IS likely that overall the party house was the scene of underage drinking and the use of illegal drugs and a pain in the ass in the neighborhood where serious students also lived. IT WAS NOT SAFE BEHAVIOR TO HAVE PARTIES GOING ON THERE WHEN NOT ONE RENTER WHO LIVED THERE WAS HOSTING. IT IS NOT SAFE BE DRUNK, especially not stumbling drunk - EVER. Were one or all of these students so brilliant that they could excel in all their classes, work part time, and be involved in all that frat and sorority partying and volunteer work?  What was their priority?  If so they were all more brilliant than Brian Kohberger, a serious student.  Rather, I think perhaps the University of Idaho college is really what they call a "party school" where students major in drinking and drugging, and where it is simply well below the usual academic standards, a college where it is easy to pass a class. For these people college is just something you do, an inevitability, not something you strive for, perhaps a rite of passage for a certain class who will spend their lives not really having to work: even sliding through you will end up well employed because someone your parents know will hire you but you can spend most of your time skiing or on the boat.

It also pains me that one expert and media person after another excuses their unsafe behavior as "Typical" of college students, and calls them "Kids." Last I heard age 18 begins adulthood.

I will never get it why ANY SERIOUS STUDENT would even WANT to be in a FRATERNITY OR SORORITY.  I'm no longer in the position to hire, but I would consider that someone was in either to be a NEGATIVE. I would be hiring a drunk or druggie and someone who apparently thinks HAZING is OK. What does hazing TEACH people?  That it is OK to Bully? To be a SNOB?  To be a ROTTEN BOSS who treats underlings like shit? Is that what these stupid frats and sororities teach members? I think of the drunk coworkers and bosses (usually sales people) I had over the years and I can tell you they and their moods and verbal abuse were no fun nor was having to do their paperwork because they just didn't feel like it.

Some of the things that apparently make Bryan guilty that the media is running with are utterly ridiculous, from turning a shaving nick into being beat up in jail, from cleaning a vehicle that was just on a road trip and is visibly filthy with grime in those pull-over videos to be trying to cover evidence, to the whole cell phone ping thing.... which is not the same as GPS. I haven't even been using a cell phone for some time now after having more than one at more than one location that could not find a place to ping.  Having to go out on the street (no privacy) to make and take calls was lousy.  Finding out messages I sent early evening were showing up on other people's phones in the middle of the night was a problem. I also, when writing and researching, do not want the interruption, not even the annoying buzz, and I am not ON CALL!  It is near impossible to even find a place to work outside of one's own home, because the library is full of people on phones and buzzing.

Maybe Kohberger's phone needed to be recharged. So I would like to know if this insomniac who had trouble sleeping at night had a pattern of turning the phone off, to recharge, or perhaps to try and sleep. (TRY LEAVING YOUR PHONE AT HOME and GOING THROUGH YOUR DAY! We used to do it pre-cell and it is possible.)

Worst, Kohberger's teenage angst expressed years ago on the Internet is being held against him as a man. Including by the obnoxious psyche "expert" Dr. Grandy.  One more wanna be influencer who  should pack up shop and go home. I suspect Grandy has narcissic personality disorder himself, because he has called himself an expert and there is no reason to think so if you listen to his speculations about various people in the news. He should admit that Bryan Kohberger was never his patient.  And if he was his patient, then Grandy would be under the GAG ORDER.

Many of these people who are talking speculations and convicting Bryan Kohberger have advanced educations and are in the professions yet they apparently do not know much about our legal system. How did they manage to be educated and not know a suspect is NOT A CONVICT?

And I'll bet vegans, but also especially Kosher Jews, are cringing as the media tries to make it mentally ill and weird that Kohberger would not want to have his food cooked in pans that had meat in them. I met a number of brilliant grad students - these in the sciences and from other countries who had food weirdness. One slip of an Asian scientist  - not an ounce of fat - ate only cup sized balls of white rice with a little seaweed mixed in. She had her rice cooker, and this was what she ate for three meals and a snack each day - four cups of white rice with seaweed. Another each morning had a ritual in which he carefully folded a cereal box and laid it flat, then put his bowls and utensils down. He was unable to eat without performing this set up first. Well, if you read this blog you already know I have some opinions about vegans and vegetarians and organic foodies being in denial of their own human body, their carnivore teeth and intestines, but I guess what I'm saying that I think food weirdness and PhD candidates may go hand in hand.

The owner of the Mad Greek Restaurant has spoken out that NO, Bryan Kohberger DID NOT eat there, yet many media are still reporting that he did. So I decided to do something I rarely ever have and that was make comments.  BUT MOST OF THESE SLANDER SLINGING VIDEOS HAD COMMENTS TURNED OFF.

ALL TIME WASTING VIDEOS IN WHICH THE INFORMATION PROVIDED HAS ALREADY BEEN PROVEN WRONG SHOULD BE TAKEN DOWN.

So, give Timothy Allen Campbell a listen because he may not be all wrong. 

This morning it was considered suspicious that a brilliant grad student would apply for an appropriate internship with the police.  

Even Bullhorn Betty is apparently ignorant of the typical Graduate Student, PhD candidate's way of life.  

So let me tell you. Grad students very often are hired to be Teaching Assistants or TA's as a way to earn money and as part of their education, especially if they may want to stay in academia and teach themselves rather than be a researcher or employed outside academia. I had many of them, in "sections" where a professor, who lectured to a huge crowd, would then divvy out the discussion groups and testing and so on to a number of TA's. TA's go on strike due to their work load and lousy pay (University of California). Some of them not only TA but also have other part time work as well as massive student loans in order to get through to a PhD so they have to have confidence and gumption. However, depending on the school and major, they may not be expected to get on out of there quickly, they may TA for years. Their (personal) work is under an advisor and falls into the category of independent research.

As TA's they work under a professor who is responsible for their work. But some of those professors are just so happy not to be teaching themselves. They actually find they must PUBLISH OR PERISH so they are focused on their own research and writing. They are supposed to review the TA's work but I can tell you from personal experience that some of the professors really are in their own world, the so called Ivory Tower, and don't bother. Unless you call them up on it.

If a TA is grading unfairly, if that professor hears that from too many students or a particular student makes their case, he or she will very likely call in the TA and have talk with them about grading. After all, he or she doesn't want students to quit the class or talk to the Dean and cause them trouble. 

Very likely Bryan Kohberger was on such a higher level in his own education and didn't realize it, which is also not uncommon among professors. We would say that the professor was so into his theories that he failed to any longer be able to communicate to beginners. Bryan Kohberger was also a beginning grad student. He had only been in his program a few months. He had years ahead of him. I would hope that if he is not found guilty, he will be able to go back to his PhD, because as I see it, the media has ruined his life.

A good number of grad students do not make it to a Phd. Phd students work with an advisor who guides them and may have strong opinions about how to write their thesis. I've heard of grad students finding their advisor to be sabotaging and jealous, to basically live to make the grad student quit. Also I came to think that most of the grad students I met had parents who had been pushing them to be PhD's from an early age.  Often this meant that they were, when it came to relationships, very immature. Their head was in the books for so many years that they did not have much socialization as compared to someone whose parents were accepting of them as they were. I would say (many of those I met) grew up with parents who were snobs and who WOULD NOT LOVE THEM UNLESS THEY SUCCEEDED. Some of them were practically horse-whipped as children to be professionals and a normal childhood was taken from them.

The student will present a thesis, usually about five years after they began their program, often attempting some new research, an innovation, a discovery. Bryan Kohbergers on line questionnaire is not creepy but is totally in line with a grad student who is trying to get focus to hone in on what their specialty area will be. 

Sorry but the video I posted is no longer available.

One of a few this man has posted, he is serious, not trying to be funny. Timothy Allen Campbell has the alternative viewpoint that isn't in the media and he has made some important points. He says the murder victims were irresponsible.

Another thing that is true is that grad students find themselves so busy (trying to teach as well as proceed to do their own work that they) are often overwrought under pressure, THEY OFTEN DO NOT HAVE TIME FOR RELATIONSHIPS but look to marriage after they get their PhD - usually to another grad student - because by that time their peers advise them to "do better" than someone who only earned a bachelor's degree. They are advised professionally to not have relationships with underlings, such as students in their classes, and also to avoid relationships with their peers as grad students in their own programs. So, if you are getting a PhD in literature, forget that department, and consider someone in Anthropology.  (And so it would make sense that Kohberger would go to the campus a ten minute drive away and sit in the student union, perhaps hoping to start up a conversation with a student there.)

At least one of my grad student associates started a sexual affair with her married advisor in the literature department within the first months of her arriving on campus. But then she was a sex addict and might not have used this to get an advantage over him. (She had a list of men she wanted to have sex with which included a couple of my platonic male friends.)   

The saying went IF YOU ARE NOT IN A RELATIONSHIP WHEN YOU START GRAD SCHOOL YOU PROBABLY WON'T HAVE ONE UNTIL YOU'RE OUT OF IT.

Also said to be suspicious but it is not, is that Bryan Kohberger sent a few electronic hellos to one of more of the young women who were murdered.  Really?  This is not harassment.  I've been harassed and I know what that is. It is especially horrible when an intellectual property thief publishes something without your permission.

You can file a complaint with the FBI for internet harassment. And back when I had the comments turned on for this blog, I almost did file a complaint.  Someone from long ago, who had proven to be a ripe asshole in real life, found me and sent me at least a dozen haranguing comments, probably attempting to lure me to see his porn site. I knew he had always been unstable and also had also been unappreciative back in the day.  It was sad to learn that he had not overcome his personality disorder or mental illness. But I figured he was a better candidate for a visit from the San Francisco police and a waste of time and money for the FBI.

These simple hellos via Bryan Kohberger were not "love letters" and since there was reportedly no response it's not like one or all of them sent a message back or blocked the hellos.

(At least two of the murder victims) were posting photos of themselves in sexy outfits and various poses frequently. Tell me that these some of these brilliant women who dyed their hair ice blond and paid to have their teeth perfect and brilliant, (What is called the $100,000 smile) and posted pictures of themselves showing skin, did so because they did NOT want attention! No, they were reaching out for attention, they were attractive, and they wanted to prove to the world constantly that they were popular. If you do NOT want such attention, what you do is keep the social networking to a minimum, such as putting your Facebook on PRIVATE.

Now, I do want whomever murdered the Idaho Four to see Justice but Justice in the United States of America still assumes the person is innocent until convicted.  But what is happening with all the True Crime YouTubers and the very many who have not established themselves but are hoping on the caboose of that train and are causing MOB RULE. 

I reported to Google/YouTube in FEEDBACK that it was really disgusting to be watching videos about these murders and be getting ads to buy knives and military quality equipment for survivalists and chefs. 

C 2023  Christine Trzyna

Slightly edited for clarity  2/10/2023

I want to emphasize that being a TA may not at all be a requirement to earn a Phd.  It would depend on what college, what program, and what their particular goals are.

FROGGY FART CHRISTMAS

SOMETHING GOOD THIS WAY : JAKOB DYLAN

JOINING GREEK LIFE? YOU MAY NEED A TRUST FUND FOR REHAB and UNDER-REPORTED ON THE IDAHO FOUR MURDERS

GREEK LIFE and "ALCOHOL ADDICTION" by Recovery Village Interesting stats.

Statistics from other surveys show the direct effects of substance use in Greek organizations. Each year:Around 500,000 members suffer unintentional injuries related to substance use
70,000 cases of sexual assault and acquaintance rape
1,400 members die from alcohol-related causes
600,000 assaults occur
50% of members perform poorly on important school assignments

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GREEK LIFE is your straight ticket to being a boozer and druggie.

Let's say you yourself are not an "alcohol addict." But somehow you get into one of the frats or sororities where you are surrounded by people who are....

I chose to link to this site because it seems comprehensive.

*************************************

Though I don't usually follow true crime podcasts, I've been following the many articles and videos regarding the "Idaho Four." By doing so I've been able to eliminate a great number of content creators who are piggy backing on more journalistic offerings. I'm also avoiding any headline that might suggest the police and many other investigators aren't qualified.

I have yet to find ANY media that would suggest that any of the four murdered college students were alcoholic. Never the less, while again I don't think anyone deserves to be murdered (or the victim of any crime) I think the investigation WILL have to ask some tough questions about the victim's life styles.

For instance a person who drinks to the point of stumbling around drunk IS NOT BEING VIGILANT.

From reviewing hundreds of articles and broadcasts repeated on YouTube, it does SEEM that Kaylee, was supposed to be part of the winter graduation, but had already moved out of sorority house in the past, had already moved or was moving out of the house in which she was murdered. She had broken up with her long term (five year) boyfriend, you could say her high school or college boyfriend, and was moving to Texas to begin a career. She was back in town to visit and tie up loose ends. She was doing what many do once graduated, starting a new life in another part of the country, but was there someone who could not bear that thought that he or she would never see her again?

She might have been sleeping in the same bed as her best friend/sister since the 6th grade Maddy because? Perhaps her own bed had been moved out. Perhaps they drunkly fell into bed together. Perhaps they were both bisexual.

Her dad is the most openly vocal and angry of the parents. We do understand the shock that the parents and family members, close friends, and living housemates, must have experienced, and the grief they are experiencing. Never the less, Kaylee's parents hiring a lawyer to go against the police give me the impression they will sue someone - the police, the landlord, the school.... Someone! It will not be enough for them that hundreds of professionals and millions of dollars are spent on finding the murderer. They are acting as if they are special.

THIS IS NOT CSI the television crime solving series. Even CSI - admits that technologies that do not yet exist are used on the show. It takes much more than an hour to solve a crime. DNA evidence is fairly new.

I await the reveal of the autopsy information including the booze in Kaylee's blood... If she were not drinking for some time at the bar before going to the food truck, I would be less apt to think of this as a "crime of opportunity." That phrase is used to describe a criminal who preys upon someone because they are a good target, and in that sense there is nothing personal. I.e. the rapist who follows a drunk woman home.

I also feel speculative about the identity of the killer or killers and their motivation. The idea that there might have been a get away car. Or that there was more than one murderer.

I think it's possible that other people did show up at the house and see the crime scene and fled, perhaps out of shock and fear.

As for individual locks on the doors, it's clear to me that the owner of the house clearly intended to rent to students, one after another. Someone still on the lease and paying rent for months though moved out? An empty room for the dog to be put into to the killer to hide in? I'm curious about the rent, and if the rent was only affordable to students with rich parents. I can imagine the individuals in the house locking their personal doors when out for the day, but not locking them while at home.

Maybe a frat boy went on a rampage.

It could be that someone heard she would be back in town. One last chance.

So, was Kaylee nice to everyone? Too nice? Or was she a Greek Life snob? There has been no discussion in the media about that possibility. Her grades were excellent AND she had time to party? She also worked part time at the restaurant. She does sound like a dynamo. WHY do people join Greek Life? I think, from reading around this subject, that they intend to have networks for career in place, that they want out of the dorms, and that it's also about being elite or rich enough to afford all that comes with it. But if your purpose in attending college is a career, perhaps the social and career network is the purpose of Greek Life. Oh, and to find a marriage partner who also has potential, comes from money, etc. As campus get to the point of having thousands of students, the frat or sorority becomes a smaller pool of associates.

But all the reportage that drinking is "just letting off steam" and something that all college students do - they are adults but called "KIDS" shows me just how ignorant the media is about alcohol.


*****

Addition to original post on 12/23/2022

As I search for new information on this case, "the Idaho Four" I see that the case may not be cold, but after about six weeks of very frequent reportage, including by independent content creators who post on YouTube, reportage with NEWS (ie what's NEW) is subsiding. It may be that there is a lull, that the speculation has not been fed with anything much since the spectacle of the white car search, which seemed to end when a crashed car fitting the description was discovered in Oregon. The video of a police call to the house when a party was going on but none of the room mates was actually home was revealed.

More proof of behavior that's NOT SAFER BEHAVIOR. And proof that there wasn't just a hell of a lot of DNA in that house, but also that at least one, if not all housemates, were terribly irresponsible about allowing access to the house. I'm really sick of the reportage being that they were KIDS, and also that they were TYPICAL COLLEGE STUDENTS. No they were not.

I'm using the term Safer here akin to when we use the term Safer re Safer sex rather than Safe Sex. Safer behavior may not entirely eliminate danger but will greatly improve your chances of not being exploited or infected so...

If you're reading this and wonder...

Drinking to the point of being drunk, especially stumbling around drunk, greatly increases your chances of being exploited and targeted. Usually for sex, but could be for murder.

Giving out the codes to bypass the security of your house or room is dangerous behavior. You really want people to know what all you have? To go into your personal areas?

Allowing people to use your house to party when you are not home is ridiculous. They bring other people in who you may never have met. This level of "trust" is foolish. Not to be confused with being "social."

You cannot trust the vetting process of a sorority or fraternity to ensure that the people you surround yourself with are all OK. While you can have by choice a "family of friends" in addition to or as a substitute for the family of birth or adoption, the entire sorority or fraternity is NOT YOUR FAMILY. Further HAZING and other stupid rituals of acceptance that are about power and degrading or humiliating others to prove how much they want to be one of your brothers or sisters is fundamentally beyond immature, it is sick. Do you intend to keep up that attitude and behavior when you graduate and are employed or working your own business? (In my opinion, colleges should no longer allow these organizations on campus' because colleges supposedly stand for inclusion.)

So let me tell you what those I've met in life who became members of AA and other 12 step type clubs told me years ago, when I asked them to explain. THE TIME YOU SPEND DRUNK OR HIGH is not time in which you experience life, but time you are escaping it. A person who starts drinking as a lifestyle at 18 who quits at 38 is often a 38 year old who is still thinking and acting like an 18 year old. I do realize there is controversy and confusion about at what point a person is actually alcoholic. For instance, drinking and driving - when you are impaired - could be defined as one beer. Also, some people are allergic to alcohol or do not physically process it through their system the same. If you rarely drink it may effect you more profoundly. Some people define it as, even if it is only one glass of wine, if it is being drunk for an alteration of mood or to escape, then it is your purpose in drinking that defines you.

A while back some friends took me out to lunch and we ate a lot of food and I had one glass of wine. That wine hit me quickly and did not seem to effect them at all.

Your friends who drink more than you may be your examples or define for you that since you're not keeping up with them, they have the problem, and you don't.

I simply ask you to be self aware and ask yourself honestly how much you are drinking and how often and why.

If you graduate or leave college after the Greek Life, you may network with others in that life for years, however, if you have been alcoholic as a way of coping with the "stress" of academic stress, before you move to another state to begin your career, or attempt to have an adult, independent life, with a good career too, you very likely want to quit the booze. (Or drugs.) The stress and responsibility of adult life is usually beyond what you experience in college. You won't just have to show up for classes but be on time for work and work for many hours a week. You may partner, have children to raise right, have family responsibilities that include caring for parents.

Going out to celebrate after completing a semester or quarter or on break is different than parties every day or every weekend. A drink with dinner is different than a case of beer. However, some people can still have that one beer, be drunk, and drive irresponsibly. Some people can drink to the point of throwing up, then ace a test the next day. But, it's more likely that you wont study well with a hang-over.

Some people point to the Greek Life brother or sister as an example. Academic excellence as proof that the person does not have a problem with substances. However, that person may also be blessed with a high-IQ, may have had a pre-college education that put them ahead of their peers, may cheat, or in some way be exceptional.

Take it from someone who has had the alcoholic boss, who, along with others at work, lived around what mood or condition he would come into work with. His lateness and his excuses for being out and gone most afternoons, while his secretary help-mate did massive amounts of trouble-shooting.

At another job, an alcoholic co-worker of sorts who came in most mornings in a rotten mood, even abusive. One wondered why this person had not been fired for all the misery, but like a college student who still got good grades, he managed to make his quotas. There were (and still are) lots of people who accommodate.

There is also this aspect of alcoholism, and that is that is one way or another, in adult life it throws responsibility that is yours onto other people who are often unable to say no to taking on more.

C 2022 Wishing all of you a better tomorrow. Christine Trzyna