The story started something like this.

He had a full head of hair and the kind of abs that don’t require any effort to be seen.

Between his sophomore to senior year of high school more than 20 women had wrapped their legs around his body.

He didn’t require a cellphone or computer to talk to anyone as he grew up in a time in which people had to have social skills to get by.

They didn’t call him the most interesting man alive because they had other names for him, far more colorful and they weren’t always said with love.

You’re probably asking yourself who that man was and whether you could call a male between the ages of 16 and 18 a man.

Hell, you’re probably thinking this guy sounds like he is made up, or at least some of the story.

I am here to tell you I know it to be true because I lived it, I was that boy or man. And between the aforementioned years I gave a lot of piggy back rides to different girls I knew.

So yes, their legs were wrapped around me so you can take your prurient interests elsewhere, I am a very proper and shy man.

And yeah, I am showing off a picture of myself, exactly as described above. That photo is how I prevented myself from going out to get a slice of cake.

That photo and this half baked idea that maybe I’ll choose to starve myself long enough to bring forth those abs are part of what are driving me.

The Experts Say To Sleep & Eat Lots of Protein

I sort of follow some online experts who talk about the best ways for men over fifty to stay in shape and or improve it.

They say sleep is non negotiable and to eat lots of protein. I watch them talk about getting between eight and nine hours a night and laugh.

I’d like to do that and would gladly make it happen if my body would cooperate but the body doesn’t believe in averaging more than 6.5 hours a night.

The body believes that two to three nights a week it is important to wake up to go shake the weasel.

Sometimes it chooses to return to slumber post haste and sometimes the mind decides to punish the body by insisting on thinking about things so falling back asleep can take a minute.

That nonsense above came one night when I was playing around with different obituaries for myself.

Mom, if you are reading this please note I have no intention of dying any time soon but I do want to my write my own obituary. I think it will be much more entertaining and when you’re up at 3:30 you come up with all sorts of crazy ideas.

Some of them are so ridiculous you wonder WTF you were thinking and shake your head. But some are so good you wonder WTF took you so long to come up with them.

For example I have played around with setting up a table with a sign that says Advice: $20 bucks.

I figure if I pay a bunch of people to stand in line I can create some buzz around it and that I can pull upon the sheeple aspect of people. FOMO will push people to line up and pay me $20 bucks to tell them to suck it up and deal with whatever problem they have.

Remember, no one says it has to be good advice and volume is the key to making a buck so I have to move the people through as fast as possible.

The Macallan 12 & The Hematologist

My nurse Stacey called me today with the results of my VCE. She says the doc reviewed it and I am normal so the hematologist will have to discern what is causing my anemia.

So I am celebrating with the last gulp of The Macallan 12 I keep in the liquor cabinet, but don’t tell my GI cuz he says my liver won’t thank me for it.

Can’t say I am particularly worried because I can count the number of drinks I have had in the last 18 months or so on both of my hands.

I don’t do it often other than every now and again.

So I pulled out the results from the blood work I had done last week and reviewed it so that when I see my hematologist I know what he is looking at.

Won’t see him until this Thursday and fortunately I am not the sort who obsesses much about this kind of stuff.

He’ll tell me whatever he tells me and if there is still a problem we’ll talk about the appropriate next steps.

There might not be anything, the way I read the labs things look pretty good. But I don’t have any special training or experience so it is possible I could be wrong.

Not going to worry about it at all until I have a reason to worry. Cue the goofy Barry Manilow music.

Toll Tags & Toll Roads

I installed a toll tag on my new car today. Made me happy to see they shrunk them down and that the smaller size doesn’t obscure my view at all.

Truthfully I don’t think the larger one did either but it is ugly and so I was pleased to see a smaller one.

Reminded me of the Josh from Los Angeles who hated the idea of toll roads. That was anathema to me and I was pleased most of the places I traveled around LA and California in general didn’t have them.

But in DFW it is hard to get around them without adding chunks of time to my drive and I won’t do that.

Time is too valuable and I am fortunate to be in a position in which I don’t make decisions based upon whether a toll will destroy my budget.

But I remember a time in which that absolutely would have been meaningful. It grows farther and farther away but when you have lived it you don’t ever forget.

I make a point to remind myself of all of the reasons I have to be grateful, it is even more important now than it once was.

My children have lived through more chaos and uncertainty than I did at their respective ages.

Pandemics, political uncertainty and Jew hate have been things they have known that I really didn’t, thought I do now.

Some of you have expressed surprise at how light some of this is compared to what you have seen me post elsewhere.

You have seen me go into battle and offer no quarter and wondered why I don’t bring the same heat here.

The truth is I do sometimes and you may not have seen it.

When I say I am not inclined to be kind to those who say they would rape and or murder my family and friends it is not a joke. I take it seriously...very seriously.

But I also understand the importance of mental health and you have to build places where you let your guard down and relax a bit.

I have complete faith we’ll get through this time in life. Better days will come, but I don’t know what will take place between now and then.

So I let my hair down and think about other things. Let my hair flow free and think about who is in my life and who isn’t.

Who should be, and who shouldn’t.

I sit down and review my list of things to be happy for and smile because I danced my way through the fire and sailed through the storms.

That experience is part of why I am so certain of outcomes but it didn’t come without a few scars.

Haven’t decided whether this will lead to the end of Joshuawilner.com as my hub for writing though I can promise I will retain the URL because a man needs to control at least one part of his digital domain.

I used that line long ago and someone said it sounded goofy and another said I shouldn’t paraphrase Seinfeld. I wasn’t trying to do the latter nor did I care about the former.

In a digital age it seems important to take some control of our name as it impacts our personal brand. But that’s not what this post is about so we’ll start with a silly palate cleanser.

About Moishe The Mohel & The Angry Mohel Chronicles

The idea came about six or seven years ago but I can’t say what made me think of it cuz I don’t remember.

Spent a few minutes here and there thinking about how to flesh out the character and the sort of points he could make. Bad puns about pricking the egos of the pompous or making him a roguish superhero who was more than a mindless Golem.

My buddy Moisheleh is like so many characters who live inside my head, Remorse Brown, Mr. Screw, Slappy and others.

Figures I can picture, hear and see who I may never introduce to those who aren’t granted a tour of the facilities between my ears.

Sometimes I sit down and intend to expose them to air and give them life but other things happen and I go a different direction.

Is it because of a an inability to focus, some sort of Attention Deficit Disorder?

No, it is because they haven’t been important enough to make me focus solely upon them.

Aspects of them have appeared in multiple places on multiple occasions and I have no doubt the time will come when they have their moment.

But there have been other things that have presented reason to focus elsewhere. The events of the post October 7th world have been one of those.

The coordinated attack on Jews and Israel. The intentional effort to delegitimize us and to try to paint Israel as something it is not.

Those things have caught my eye and ear because bad things happen when you allow others to create a false narrative and to try to use for their agenda.

I was a big fan of the Rubik’s cube though I never solved it. Got four sides done multiple times and that was as far as I got.

It’s at least 30 years since the last time I tried, maybe more. I like to think that 57 year-old Josh would bear down and get it done as I have gotten more tenacious about some things.

Social media and the 24 hour news cycle have a played a big role in that as I routinely shake my head at how ignorant and easily manipulated people are.

The lack of fact checking and the ease with which people accept ‘facts’ that fit their preconceived narrative bothers me.

The picture below hits two hot buttons for me. It’s an intentional perversion of Anne Frank and it’s an example of how the easily manipulated blindly eat whatever shit sandwich they’re fed.

The people who post this don’t bother to ask any questions. They can’t tell you this is Oliver Elias, who is 54 years-old meaning he was born 26 years after she died.

Anne was 15 years-old when she died in a concentration camp and there is no way anyone can know what she would or wouldn’t have said about Gaza.

Elias says nothing about the billions Hamas stole to build 350 miles of tunnel under Gaza nor does he comment on their failure to build civilian bomb shelters.

He doesn’t comment on how the October 7 attack was the 5th war Hamas launched in less than 20 years of governing Gaza. There is no comment on the people Hamas raped and murdered or those they kidnapped.

Elias doesn’t hold Hamas accountable, doesn’t talk about how Egypt shares a border with Gaza or how they were condemned by the Arab league.

He is like so many ‘As-A-Jews’ who either through ignorance or intent push a one sided, fallacious claim that ultimately hurts all Jews.

And given he has made it ok to pretend to know what Anne would say I wager she’d call him a fool and say language like his is what helped the Germans dehumanize Jews.

Maybe I Don’t Have The Write Stuff

Remember way back however many words ago when you read the headline and decided you’d give this place a shot.

There are two things I always remind myself to be aware of and that’s King’s note about remembering that honest writing makes it difficult to be a member of polite society.

It’s impossible not to irk, upset and or irritate someone or multiple people regardless of what you write.

It’s manifestly harder when you touch upon hot button topics. You are going to be excoriated and insulted two to three times as often as you are praised.

The other thing I remind myself is that sometimes you aren’t going to feel like you have the write stuff.

Sometimes the words flow freely and you’ll be excited at what your produced and find that others think it is drek.

And sometimes the stuff you consider drek is what resonates with others and you’ll wonder why they think your crap is golden. There is no real rhyme or reason to it, but if you are like me you’ll try to to figure it out anyway.

That’s all I have got for now, time to see if the US can beat Belgium. If you’d like you can subscribe and see what and where I take this.

Maybe there will be more tales of Moishe, you never know if the first cut really is the deepest.

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If you have been around you know I once wrote the Brazen Confessions of An Almost Middle Aged Man and that I have been blogging for more than 20 years.

But I don’t recall having fancy tools to engage in self promotion like the picture that Substack produced for me.

Check that out, it tells you how to get to the very first post I published on this fancy platform.

Why I Fought 873 Clowns & A Rabid Easter Bunny

Some of you are only here to find out if I really did fight 873 clowns and a rabid Easter Bunny. Some of you want to know if I am have the sort of skills that would have made Chuck Norris and Bruce Lee jealous.

I can hear you trying to figure out how one man could possibly beat 873 clowns. You’re certain I didn’t take them on all at once and trying to weigh the odds of how it would all work.

“Well, he is an American who lives in Texas so many he has guns and maybe he pulled out an automatic and mowed them all down.”

If you actually got that far and you didn’t ask if you are reading about a serial killer and the largest mass casualty event of clowns in history I am seriously worried about you.

If you went a different direction and wondered if on the weekends I hit underground MMA events in which I enter an octagon and fight clowns I am impressed with your imagination.

Picture me rolling into a barn out in rural Texas and fighting guys covered with white face paint, red lips, big floppy shoes and a flower that squirts water.

Sounds ridiculous, but if you live long enough and spend enough time online it doesn’t seem quite so crazy anymore.

You can find fights with little people fighting Amazon Women, men in armor beating the hell out of each other and more.

Hell, there has to be a place where people in the furry community enter their own Octagon and smack the crap out of each other.

Note, that is an assumption, I am not going to search it. Note to self, please delete your Internet search history ASAP.

Aging Isn’t For The Weak

Those few of you who know me in person can attest that I have a body built for demolition and not grace.

I am a good guy to call if you need to tear down a wall, move and or carry heavy crap.

If you want someone who is willing to dive on the floor for loose balls, jump over chairs, set screens, block and or tackle people you can call me.

If Baryshnikov is more your speed I might not be the person you want. Well, I am happy to watch ballet and or listen to classical music with you but ask me to put on tights and it better be for a comedy routine.

That is not me. I am not a klutz or particularly clumsy but I am not Fred Astaire. But I do know how to two step, actually learned how to do it when I was living in my hometown of Los Angeles.

I started doing Yoga in early June, paid for an online class that I downloaded to my phone.

Every morning I walk into the living room, set up my mat and blocks and try to do the poses I see on the television.

Every morning I think about how ridiculous I must look and laugh at myself.

Every morning I remind myself that I almost died in October and that a guy who got two units of blood isn’t here solely because he kicked the Angel Of Death’s ass.

This is about second chances and getting better. This is about working hard to prepare my body for the second half of life.

If I match both of my grandfathers I have another 35 to almost 40 years. If I match my father I still have 18.

That last number sounds awfully short and I am not sure that 40 is long enough for me. I have plans.

But what I learned after my October incident and the distal tendon I tore in my left bicep in January is I hate needing help for basic things.

So the yoga is connected to my weight lifting and balance work. It’s connected to building a body that provides me with independence until whenever I take my last breath.

Some of these positions are hard. I have to adjust and focus on not falling in some of them.

But I am good with that. I don’t fear hard work and know that practice makes everything easier,

Amor Animi Arbitrio Sumitur, Non Ponitur

I can’t remember when I came across the phrase Amor animi arbitrio sumitur, non ponitur but I remember thinking the translation made sense: “We choose to love, we do not choose to cease loving“.

We don’t get to make as many choices in life as we want to. There are always things, people, reasons and obstacles that impede or prevent us from doing as we wish.

That doesn’t mean we have no free will nor ability to choose our path. On the contrary we have lots of ability to make choices.

But some of those choices are highly dependent upon the work we do to create the environment in which we can do some of what we wish to do.

And though it is cliche, it is true to say how we respond to the things that happen is almost always within our power.

So that is what I am doing, charting a plan and mapping out a course.

That is part of why I am playing around with Substack. Maybe I’ll make this my new online home and say goodbye the old one.

Or maybe I’ll connect them both in some way or another, not all decisions have to be made instantly.

Sometimes you can take a beat and breathe. It is part of the hero’s journey.

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Beginnings are hard

It’s almost 11 AM in DFW and after weeks or maybe months of indecision I have pulled the proverbial trigger on yet another writing platform.

Writing isn’t new for me nor is blogging and it is possible some of you know me from my Wordpress blog and are currently or have been subscribers there.

The “JW blog” has been live under my self hosted URL for 14 years now but I have been publishing posts in the online world on various platforms since around 2002 or 2003.

Though if you want to be more specific I have been writing on message boards and various online haunts since 1990 something.

I can’t say if this will become the new center of my online writing world or if I will keep the wordpress site as my hub. It’s too early for me to make the determination, depends on how things go.

1. Why this, why now

If you haven’t started your own Substack I am taking their first post outline seriously and answering/addressing questions on their template.

It makes me laugh because I am not someone who needs a ton of guidance on how to start these things or one who follows directions. I don’t wear a sweater because someone else is cold.

I like the clean format that Substack provides. This minimalist design is appealing to me. The writing editor is easy and the reader is set up so that it’s simple for readers.

If you told me I had more than 100,000 posts online I wouldn’t be surprised. Writing is like breathing for me, it is part of how I make sense of the world.

It is part of how I relieve stress and a place where I flesh out thoughts and feelings. If you haven’t tried writing down what you really think and feel about some things you might be surprised at what comes out.

That clarity is important to me. I usually know how I feel about various issues, people, and places but sometimes life is complex. Sometimes it’s useful to put it on ‘paper’ and read your thoughts back to you.

Writers Write

There was a time when my goal was to build a readership that was big enough for to me to monetize things. It was really important to me in my early forties when I was in between full time gigs and was doing lots of freelance work.

It’s part of why I tried out multiple platforms because I thought it might help elevate a guy who was a dad blogger who also wrote fiction, commented on politics and various life events.

The results were a mixed bag of some paid opportunities and occasional bouts of shaking my head at the success of others who I thought were mediocre writers.

One of the joys of writing is how subjective it is. What is loved by some is hated by others.

The Mark Twain quote below is a favorite of mine, not because I have any particular feeling about Jane Austen but because it is a perfect illustration of the subjectivity I mentioned.

3. What Have You Written- Archives

A friend asked if I was going to populate this Substack with the archives of my past posts from the Joshua Wilner blog.

The answer is I haven’t made a decision yet. If the Substack takes off I’ll likely move everything over and focus on building this up but that remains to be seen.

For the moment we’ll start with some links to past posts and see where that leads.

As promised here is a sampling of some of my writing:

1. The Advantage Of Being Part of Generation X

2. Some Styles Are Eternal- Long Live The ’80s

3. The Germophobe

4. It’s Almost Time To Say Goodbye

5. Jericho

6. Endless Blue Skies

7. I Fought The Angel Of Death

8. A Partial Tale of Two Liars

9. When Destiny Meets Dumb Luck

10. Welcome To The Digital Graveyard

4. What Comes Next?

It wouldn’t make sense to write this one post and do nothing afterwards.

There will be some regular updates while I watch and evaluate how things go and or grow here.

I operate out of a combination of facts, logic and instinct. That Emerson quote below has always rung true to me and I don’t expect anything to change now.

If you read Two Dealers In Grapevine you might wonder if I got frustrated and gave up on searching for a new car.

The answer is not only did I not give up I found a dealer who was willing to work with me and I came home with a new vehicle this past Tuesday.

I love it and am very happy I pushed through the nonsense to make it happen.

But we’ll save that tale for a different time because it is noon on July 4th and this guy has to get out and stand in some sunlight prior to heading to the gym.

Be safe and I’ll see you around.

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