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David McElroy

making sense of a dysfunctional culture

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AUDIO: Partnership idea sounded great, but it was just a dead end

By David McElroy · August 1, 2021

I’ve spent the last six week trying to work out a partnership with someone for my new YouTube video venture.

Someone with a lot of experience with profitable YouTube channels noticed the idea I was launching with DavidMcElroy.TV, so he approached me about joining forces. He and his partners have a lot of experience with marketing and growing YouTube channels, so it seemed like an exciting possibility.

But not everything is as great as it seems. Here’s a brief report about how things went.

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My ideal woman will never exist, but I keep falling in love with her

By David McElroy · July 30, 2021

I’ve been falling in love with the same woman my entire life.

She’s had different names over the years. She’s had different faces. There have even been very real differences between her incarnations. But at the core, she’s always been my latest and most mature understanding of “the Ideal Woman.”

The ideal woman doesn’t exist any more than the ideal man exists. I know that. But it’s the best phrase I have for this abstract idea. I don’t know where I’m going with this, but it’s constantly been on my mind for the last week. I need to talk about it. Maybe I’ll have a point. Maybe not.

Think about a product that goes through generations of change over years, but it’s still recognizable as the same product each time. If you compare the first iPhone from 2007 with the current model, it would seem radically different. But if you compared the first iPhone to the second, then the second to the third — and so on, including last year’s model to this year’s — you recognize the same idea and same product. But the latest is radically different from the very first.

If you compared my first Ideal Woman with my most recent, you would see differences, but the core elements — the ideal parts in each of them — are startlingly similar.

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Pretty much everyone shrugs at my most life-changing discovery

By David McElroy · July 21, 2021

What if you discovered something life-changing — something that could improve life for everyone — but nobody wanted to hear about it?

About 12 years ago, I discovered the germ of an idea that was astounding to me. It hit me out of the blue. It was an epiphany that I didn’t ask for and which I didn’t control. I immediately knew it was true and I knew it was important, but I couldn’t put it into words simple enough to explain it to others.

The idea was so abstract that my heart felt it more than my brain reasoned it. I knew it would change everything — for me and for others — if I could ever fully work it out. But it remains so abstract and so instinctive for me that others look at me blankly when I try to explain.

Ready? Here it is.

You do not want the real-world things you think you want.

And I don’t want the things I think I want, either. Instead, we all want — and need, require, crave, thirst for — an inner state of being which we can’t consciously understand. Our hearts know this instinctively and abstractly, but our brains completely misunderstand — and our conscious reasoning leads us astray.

Please don’t tune out. Not yet.

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My Instagram

Here’s proof that reality and satire are indisting Here’s proof that reality and satire are indistinguishable these days.
This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot out This was the sunset I saw from the parking lot outside of the Walmart near my house just after the sun went down Friday evening.
This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy This little parody was inspired by my trip to buy gas a little while ago. Even at a no-name brand, the price was $4.09. If I remember correctly, it was $2.29 a gallon at the same station on the day the war started. I don’t know about you, but I’m tired of winning. 🤣
For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, For the best and most sophisticated in lawn care, check out the sponsor of one of my upcoming YouTube video episodes. 🙃 #parody #threestooges
Have you felt as though you’re living through Grou Have you felt as though you’re living through Groundhog Day lately? Me, too. Here’s a quick-and-dirty political satire I made this evening for fun and stress relief.
About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color About three minutes before sunrise, vibrant color is poking through the skies to the east of my back yard.
The lights and color might have been more spectacu The lights and color might have been more spectacular a couple of minutes before this, but this was the best view I had of the Monday afternoon sunset from a bridge over I-20 in Moody, Ala.
I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hour I just remembered this shot I got a couple of hours ago of the fading sunset while I was in the Publix parking lot on the way home. If you suddenly find yourself craving Arby’s or Wendy’s, blame the giant icons in the sky, not me. 😃 (BTW, this was with the iPhone’s 8X telephoto lens.) #nature #naturephotography #sunset #birmingham #alabama
I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night I had just pulled into a parking lot Friday night and was watching traffic through the distortion of the gently falling rain on my car window when I realized that the abstract view I had matched the way I was feeling tonight, so I turned it into a brief abstract video to match my mood.
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Critter Instagram

I came home long enough to change clothes before h I came home long enough to change clothes before heading back out. Oliver decided that what I really needed was a mandatory lap session. As usual, the cat won.
Alex was confidently relaxing on the fireplace man Alex was confidently relaxing on the fireplace mantle Thursday afternoon, carrying himself with the quiet certainty of a cat who has never once doubted that he belongs exactly where he is.
Alex has been hanging out with me while I worked a Alex has been hanging out with me while I worked after midnight, but by 1:30 a.m., he’s given up and gone to sleep right under the lamp on my desk.
Sam is taking the morning shift of Neighborhood Wa Sam is taking the morning shift of Neighborhood Watch today.
Oliver thinks it’s a remarkably nice morning for s Oliver thinks it’s a remarkably nice morning for some extra sleep.
It’s unusual for me to get all three of the cats i It’s unusual for me to get all three of the cats in the same shot. Although this is primarily showing Alex grooming Oliver, Sam is in the background taking a bath for a good portion of it.
Alex is in an office window at the front of the ho Alex is in an office window at the front of the house keeping an eye on the neighborhood Tuesday afternoon.
Oliver has been sleeping on the top level of the c Oliver has been sleeping on the top level of the castle all morning, but he opened his eyes briefly when I told him I was leaving the house for the rest of the day. He just wanted assurance that I’d be back in time for his dinner.
Sam doesn’t have a care in the world as he hangs o Sam doesn’t have a care in the world as he hangs out in may arms just before midnight. The rest of the office is dark, but we’re at a front window that has a light above it. I probably shouldn’t try to take a photo of a black cat when I’m wearing a black t-shirt. 😺
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Here’s the latest of my ridiculous parody shorts. It crossed my mind Tuesday to wonder what a slick and fast-talking car dealer might do right now to try to turn the high price of gasoline to his advantage. So I conceived of a fat and lovable character who tried to sell cars that don’t use any fuel — and then I started wondering if it would be funnier if all the characters were felines. Designing the King Cashpaw character took about four hours, but the rest took only another four hours, so this was a relatively quick piece that virtually wrote itself. I know it’s almost impossible for these parody videos to find a larger audience, but at least they amuse me — and there are 19 of them on my YouTube page now. The first few were very limited, but they’re getting more complex.

The Republican Party is dead. It still exists in name, of course, but it’s nothing but a shell. All that’s left are idiots and stooges and con men of the MAGA party. When Donald Trump is gone — which won’t be long — those populist idiots and pragmatic fools will have no one to follow. Democrats will thrive. They will take more power than ever and they will push the federal government further to the radical far left than ever. When that happens, don’t just blame Trump if you’re a conservative. Blame every person who has claimed to be a conservative and has given up on principles, character and everything else that Republicans once claimed to stand for. As someone who worked as a GOP political consultant for many years, this is disgusting and disturbing to me. Those who have enabled Trump to have almost unchecked power are going to be shocked when they see what they will unleash in the long run. It’s been plain all along what this narcissistic con man is. It’s your fault that you chose to pretend not to see what he really is.

We are ruled by the dumbest and most incompetent people among us — and we have a system which allows stupid and irresponsible people to force the costs of their idiocy onto smarter and wiser people. Can we get away with that? Yes, for quite some time. But we eventually reach a point at which the dumbest of the dumb — who are habitual liars and mentally ill fools — lead us to the disasters and destruction that some of us have seen coming for years. We are approaching that point. And yet most of the idiots around us still wave their rhetorical banners of support for the evil people who are leading us to ruin — and all of them point their fingers at someone else, never noticing that their own enthusiastic support of evil is to blame. When things finally fall apart, blame yourself for your blindness to the evil, not whoever happens to be in power when it happens.

I’ve been making some changes to the site lately and there are more changes coming in the days ahead, so don’t be surprised if you some small differences. This is not a wholesale redesign, but rather the addition of some features. Since they’re smarter than I am, I’ve put Oliver and Alex in charge of the technical work, which you can see in this action photo from the control room of our media complex. I recently added a series of landing pages for readers who randomly discover the site from an Internet search. I’ve also changed the YouTube link at the top of the page to go to the new YouTube channel for video essays that reflect things I’ve already published here. (Here’s a little bit about both of the YouTube channels I’m working on.) In addition, I’m trying to move away from using Instagram, so I’m experimenting with photo plug-ins that will eventually allow me to host the pictures — cats, dogs, sunsets, whatever — that I often take. So don’t be surprised to see more changes. Thanks for your patience. Let’s hope Alex and Oliver know what they’re doing.

I have no use for the theocratic and repressive government of Iran. The people who run the country are cruel at best and evil at worst. The Iranian people deserve freedom. But I have no personal quarrel with anybody in Iran. While I’m not thrilled about a future Iranian government having nuclear weapons, I’m just as concerned about nukes in the hands of politicians in Israel, Pakistan, India, China and Russia. I’m not even thrilled with the U.S., Britain and France having them, either, because I don’t trust any politicians to be responsible with such terrible weapons. All I can say with certainty is that American taxpayers have no business attacking Iran, especially since we’re being forced to pay for this attack in order to benefit the politicians of Israel — and nobody else. If Middle Eastern countries want to fight among themselves, that’s none of my business. It’s not the business of the U.S. government, either. I have no quarrel with anybody in Iran — and having the government which claims to represent me launch an unprovoked attack against a sovereign country will only make all Americans less safe in the near future. This attack is poorly conceived and morally unjustified. Remember that when the Iranians launch attacks that we will then condemn as “terrorism.” What the U.S. is doing right now looks like terrorism to me. And let’s not forget that the attack is the latest in a long line of unconstitutional wars by various U.S. presidents — who have no legal power to declare war on their own, according to the U.S. Constitution.

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