Raoul’s Two Cents: May 13, 2022I’m rushing this issue. Been away from my office for almost the entire week. Had to work remotely and so I put this whole issue in bits and pieces from different places. I’m watching that clock tick towards midnight as I type this intro. I hope I am coherent because I have no time to …

It defies logic why anyone would want to become an actor. It’s a profession of pretensions. With a little makeup you are called to pretend to be someone you’re not. You pretend to be handsome or beautiful on stage and you need to keep appearances with wigs and plastic surgery off stage. To be true to your image, you pretend to be rich and successful so you buy into this extravagant lifestyle and feed the parasites around you. Because you are in a position of influence, you give endorsements and opinions about topics you know nothing about. Who cares what Bill Nye thinks about global warming? He’s not a real scientist. Who cares if celebrities threaten to leave for Canada if their candidate doesn’t win? And talk about privacy! --- paparazzi stalk you in your most private moments. You are no longer a person but a property that can be exploited. Hollywood is a breeding ground for narcissists.

The big news nowadays is Elon Musk's purchase of Twitter. The gregarious billionaire claimed he needed to do it to advance freedom of speech which he believes has been suppressed by big media for years. He encourages a free discourse among people from all sectors of the political landscape including people who disagree with him. Sounds fair, doesn't it? That should be a good thing, right? So why are there so many upset beyond words? What’s really going on here?

We have 3 cats and 2 dogs in our home and those animals shed lots and lots of hair. And the hair (especially the soft cottony ones) are so light they go airborne like the Rono virus. Guess who vacuums the dander? My daughter who brought in the 3 cats? No way! My wife who adopted the 2 corgi dogs? Never! It's poor, forsaken, forgotten, unlucky me.

I was so busy, I didn’t realize  it was Good Friday until I started writing this TGIF edition. It makes sense now why this has been one of the saddest weeks for me. No TGIF jokes today.

The plan was already in place when PJ was struggling to fit in Film School and the quiet work she did in the background was credited to someone else; when she worked as a barista in Starbucks (even though she hated coffee) dreaming that she would get a real job; when my little girl drove a truck on weekends to set up a display booth for Califia and stood greeting customers for hours causing her feet to swell and needing a massage at home; when her tender heart was broken because the people she trusted treated her so callously. Yes, in all of these life struggles, God knew PJ would be blessed today.

Did you know what you were going to be when you were still a kid? I did. I love to draw so even at a very young age, I dreamed I would work as an animator for Disney or an Art Director of a famous magazine..

Late Thursday night and I'm stuck staring at my monitor wondering what to share to my TGIF family. I originally planned to write about how well my mini-concert went last Sunday but I went to Facebook for the first time in years and I looked for photos of the event to share. And I couldn't help but notice the old man wearing my clothes and playing my guitar. The stranger with the receding white hair was me.

I had a funny feedback from Lito (one of my subscribers). He said my TGIF emails remind him of a telenovela (television novel or soap opera) but he looks forward to it every week. We had a good laugh. Well, I can assure you that the stories I share are all real. I don’t make these things up.

Can't believe the price of gas in America. The average price is over $4 per gallon but in Los Angeles (where I live), it's over $5.50. And I hear in San Francisco it's over $7. The price has tripled since just a year ago. I'm worried that the regular minimum wage earner won't be making enough to survive. When that happens, they will join the homeless. When that happens, crime will escalate even more. I believe this blunder is the straw that will break the camel's back.