Links to check out ABOUT Walter Witty and Facebook Groups

 

https://www.facebook.com/groups/241197233227589/

Check out https://Jonathan-Lowe.com/about

and https://vimeo.com/755970717 which is new too. 

 

THE UMPIRE HAS NO CLOTHES is due any day on audio, and exists updated as 2022 ebook. 

Please share, and comment.  Walter Witty is Mitty is me. Enjoy!  The Facebook Group for Walter is "The Sports Atheist." Humor and satire on all sports from the NFL Die-esies to the Golf and NBA religions.

EXTRA EX-TRA!

Does Joel Osteen have anything new to say on New Year's Day? Not really. The first rule of business is that if you have a good thing going, don't mess with success. And if you have a secret formula, zip the lip. Coke learned this lesson, and have so far prevented hackers (and consumers) from discovering the truth about their internal operations by doubling down on advertising promoting love and happiness. Just like Joel. But let us examine this more closely (since no one else will, while neither Rev. Coke---nor Coca-Cola itself---would dare respond to this post for fear of my posting their response and thereby gaining national attention by it...just as they ignored the books The Coke Machine and Citizen Coke.)
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The most popular sermons are short and repetitive, sprinkled with sugary anecdotes. Kinda like Joel's. You never want to say anything controversial which might limit your reach. Simple universal messages which sound inspirational and soothing can be amplified by including (and repeating endlessly) the idea that other people somewhere outside your giant stadium/church are somehow trying to prevent you from achieving your "goals," the implication being that they are aligned with Satan or evil or endless bad hair days. So too the temptation to go to another church or team is an implied sin. You should never actually say anything meaningful beyond "You can do it, " (or in the case of Nike: "Just do it.") In this way, by sticking to message ("You can be successful like me,") you will gain millions of loyal lemmings (fans), who (amazingly) will never stop to imagine what would happen if they tried to compete with Joel by buying a sports stadium and giving their own Sermon on the Mound. [Note: again, Sermon is not plural here since the message is always the same for Joel or Roger Goodell or your fav Congressman: WIN AT ALL COST. And so the result would be as it is with all competitive sports, (religion being the most bloody): banishment from the club or league or church roster.] By appealing to the primitive brainstem, your repetitive REPtilian brain booster sermon (like high fructose corn syrup) will activate the groupthink mob mentality of your fans, and exclude all rational individual thoughts, resulting in an ego "message massage" that will have them gleefully lining up to buy all your new books and sermons, filled with the testimonies (endorsements) of those whose stories are told inside (as reinforcement.) Looking around the huge sports facility, with the giant golden globe representing the biggest church conquering the Nationals and moving into the playoffs for world domination, every one of your thousands of accolytes will then be in awe of your gifts at rhetoric (not to mention your coaching skills!) To sum up, what is the simple sermon (ie. simple sugar/syrup) one must ladle (or ladel) over one's audience to achieve success? "Those who think outside the box or bun should be penalty shunned." (This is also BeelzeBob's motto in both the NFL and NBA Dioceses.)

τ∂tp(V,t)=−∂V[(μ(t)−V)p(V,t)]+σ2(t)2∂2Vp(V,t),

Our Kids Need More than Cell Phones

Am author of several new novels, and a book journalist with 30 years experience. Have some tips. Perdita Weeks is an audiobook narrator, not just star of the new Magnum PI Reboot. You should interview her about this. I am admin/creator of the Facebook group started in 2018, and first on FB, now with 7100 members, private. Author of "Robin Masters to Thomas Magnum," posing the best questions asked by the group, to (hopefully) be answered by her in an audiobook edition (it's only an ebook revised in 2022 from 2018 posting.) Have contacted her publisher, but no response yet. My new ebook now in preorder is "Post Office Confidential: A Memoir," inspired by Kitchen Confidential by Anthony Bourdain, since I have co-owned a seafood restaurant, worked in others, and traveled widely, often for magazines like Cruising World (see Lottery Island), and Porthole and Real People. Also worked in the US Postal Service in Tucson for 20 years, retiring early in 2009 to write more. Have published in 40 magazines, from Sky & Telescope to Costco Connection. My expertise is threefold: audiobooks, Chopin, and astronomy. This is all detailed in my upcoming memoir, due Jan. 1. Thank you!  https://Jonathan-Lowe.com  https://AudiobooksToday.blogspot.com 

https://www.amazon.com/Awakening-Storm-Jonathan-Lowe-ebook/dp/B075THR967 

LINK: 

https://youtu.be/ZFKG3Jr4z9E  

The Umpire Has No Clothes: Diary of a Sports Atheist

 

Going Going Gone to ebook as an update from the 2014 audiobook! Stay doomed!

When I graduated from college, I was a very confused person. They told me that since I was educated in the Humanities now, I had 'the broad picture of life.' The theory was that, amid all those practical, near-sighted automatons who'd opted to attend technical school, I alone possessed 'sufficient vision' to define the true parameters of man's social, moral, and ecological condition. And I can still recall vividly the commencement ceremonies when the dean waxed eloquent on the great challenges which faced us as we went out into the world with our parchments and our purple cardboard hats. It was the same night they found Edgar Fishbein, a credit-laden senior, curled up in his dorm closet with one thumb in his mouth and a blue Bullwinkle blanket wrapped tightly around his neck.
      Understandably even more distressed by the prospect of the competitive unknown, I soon became sullen, morose, and saddened to learn that my Alma Mater had betrayed me by not telling us about the injustice which allowed someone who could recite Shakespeare, Byron, and Yeats to lose out to some YUTZ who happened to know his way around certain bathroom plumbing fixtures. Here was I, able to grasp the really juicy essentials of stellar fusion, transactional analysis, and gastro-intestinal malfunction, reduced to trudging the city in search of beer cans, taking in laundry, and investing my hard-earned assets in a diversified portfolio of lottery tickets and food coupons. Would I MAKE it? I wondered anxiously. Would I be forced to take up residence in a dumpster and start eating refried beans?  Would the student loan officers from my Alma Mater attend my funeral and hold a pocket mirror to my nose? In the throes of my disillusionment, it all seemed highly probable.
      Luckily, that was when I got lost while searching for a restroom at the US Tennis Open. Evoking some bizarre set of circumstances, then, I was immediately mistaken for a tennis player due to my resemblance to a man ranked 97th on the ATP computer. Evidently the man hadn't shown and was presumed withdrawn. The official I addressed in the hallway as "Bud--hey Bud!" responded before I could complete my question by laughing and wringing my hand. The upshot is that he ushered me into this room where the pros were sitting around sipping Gatorade and discussing their investments. Now, not only did I have a job, but one or two friends as well.
      I wouldn't say it was sheer LUCK which enabled me to reach the second round. Even though my opponent made more unforced errors than GM has commercials, I WAS pretty high on adrenalin. For instance, we were already three games into the match before I realized the warmups were over. And then some of my service returns had this knack for hitting the tape and rolling over on his side like a prophetic yo-yo too. Toward the end there'd be sparks spurting up all over the forecourt as he tried to scoop the dead balls back.  The topper, though, was when I mis-hit match point into a lob which caught the back of the baseline and placed my luckless opponent within slapping radius of our resigning chair umpire.
      Back in the locker room afterward, I was accosted by several autograph-seekers of the racket-manufacturing ilk. They wanted to know why I'd changed playing hands in mid-career, and if this meant I'd be changing rackets too. Muttering something under my breath about a new go-for-broke strategy, I managed to con several commentators into spouting one-liners about my revolutionary style eventually "doing to Samprus what McEnroe's serve-and-volley had done to Borg." This was particularly satisfying in that before then I wouldn't have been able to get a passing shot past a ball machine.
      Here was poetic justice at last, I reasoned. Too bad the outcome of my second round established the record as being the only love MATCH in history when I was ousted by the 98th seed--a defrocked ex-priest who nonetheless kneeled in supplication before serving four consecutive aces. I think it was at the 6--0, 5--0 point that I also began to suspect that my opponent had the psychological edge, much like Freud had over Skinner.  When the linesmen and ballgirls began heckling me, I was sure of it.  Regretfully, there'd been little time for me to brush up on the paperback I'd found in my locker room, INTERMEDIATE TENNIS: RELIEF FOR THE FRUSTRATED BEGINNER. Now I'd either have to fill out an application as a bagboy at the nearest Piggly Wiggly, or try entering the Papua New Guinea Open, hoping I'd get into the finals because no one else knew how to get there. Since I had no money for plane fare, I decided on the former.
      It wasn't long before I began to realize that although being a jack-of-all-trades has its perks (one can always brag about being a 'master-of-none'), I was somehow missing out on obtaining fulfilling employment and its subsequent burnout, and that if only I'd majored in Engineering or International Trade, I wouldn't be sitting around evenings watching TMZ with Pan Pizza on my breath, but I'd be talking private condos in Big Sur, and maybe going on monthly junkets to the Caymans to launder my petty cash.
      To make a long story short, I eventually began attending night school, taking Entrepreneurial Stratagems, and before long I was feeling much better about my future. That is, until several dishwashers told me about another course at the school titled Poetic Devices And Their Application In Government And Industry. The course instructor was Dr. Percy Snodgrass, former curriculum director at my Alma Mater.  

WALTER WITTY PROFILE

Birthplace: Minneapolis ("I can't remember.")
Real Name: A secret. ("ESPN has a fatwa out on me.")
Height/Weight: 6'4" 210 pounds. The second figure fluctuates, depending on how much food porn is seen.
I.Q.: Unknown. ("I'm afraid to be tested, it might go off the charts on either end, depending on whether Bobbi is working her voodoo magic on me or not.")
Fav Foods: See food. ("Oh, and duck liver pâté. I hope to get on Cupcake Wars and win with that ingredient, then open a chain of cupcake kiosks in upscale malls so I can say things like 'before you leave...' to people just trying to walk past.")
Fav Drink: Green tea with lemon. ("If I drink anything else it's because I'm lonely, which is often since I've shaved my beard, for some reason. If I'm suicidal I drink Coke or Pepsi.")
Fav Music/TV/Games: Various. ("Pretty much anything Bobbi plays. She still has full control of all remotes and joysticks. I did close my eyes whenever the Kardashians came on, which is when I mumbled, like Kurtz in Heart of Darkness, 'the horror...the horror...'")
Religion: Sports Atheist. ("God exists, just not on the boob tube.")
Least Fav Sport: Cage Fighting. ("It's like dog fighting, only with human beings animated by their primitive canine brain stems. Makes me wish I was an alien being from another dying planet.")
Bugaboos: Televangelists, talk radio, ("and people who use phrases like, 'to all intents and purposes.'")
Fav Item of Clothing: Masks for costume parties. ("Bobbi has designed many for me, in case I'm attacked by other revelers dressed as ESPN cage fighters. Other times I don't wear bulletproof wigs or disguises so as not to call attention to myself. Or to do interviews about my book. Lately, though, I've become paranoid about cameras following me outside the studio, and into shopping malls. You know what they say: you're not paranoid if someone is actually targeting you for a tackle concussion.")

Crappy Birthday to you,
you should wear a muumuu.
Crappy Birthday, jeer (fill in the blank),
Crappy Birthday to you...

SO HELP ME GOLF by Rick Reilly

 

S

So Help Me Golf by Rick Reilly

 

 

 

HAVE YOU HEARD IT? LEAVE COMMENTS HERE as REVIEW, AND AT THE FACEBOOK GROUP THE SPORTS ATHEIST...

Interview with Jay Bonansinga

 

Robert Kirkman HERE.  Jay Bonansinga HERE.  Interview with Jay HERE. 

The Walking Dead, Search and Destroy:

Robert Kirkman's The Walking Dead: Search and Destroy! The latest in Jay Bonansinga's New York Times best-selling series! 

What could possibly go wrong? 

For one brief moment, it seems Lilly and her plague-weary band of survivors might just engineer a better tomorrow. Banding together with other small town settlements, they begin a massive project to refurbish the railroad between Woodbury and Atlanta. The safer travel will begin a new post-apocalyptic era of trade, progress, and democracy. Little do they know, however, that trouble is brewing back home.

My own new audiobook CAT ON A COLD TIN ROOF: Between a Rockford and a Hard Place (Stories) in all genres HERE.
 

Truck Driver Doubles as Author and Audiobook Narrator

 

His name is Geoff Sturtevant and he drives a truck. This article interview is from Land Line magazine. I used to review audiobooks for Land Line back when Cracker Barrel stores carried them. You could pick up a title at one store and return it to another. Nowadays people just download to their phones. (Yup, been doing this for 25 years.) Worked for the postal service as a clerk (in Tucson) in the back where they didn't care what you listened to (although I did drive a postal van for a while.) Most guys listened to sports, but I heard 2000 audiobooks, and wrote Postmarked for Death. Anyway, Geoff drives a truck and listens on the road. Writes too. He just finished narrating my book of stories Cat on a Cold Tin Roof, which comes out October 2022. All genres. If you want to check it out go to Flexfiction.com now and in October. Cheers, and let me know if anyone lives in Greenville SC.  @thesportsatheist @burjreview

 Review of Lottery Island HERE.

SAHARA by Clive Cussler (Movie and Audiobooks)

 

All of the Clive Cussler novels are on audio. Many are set in the summer on the ocean. Clive Cussler, of course, was the New York Times bestselling author of five bestselling series, including Dirk Pitt, NUMA Files, Oregon Files, Isaac Bell, and Sam and Remi Fargo series. Many of his novels have made the #1 spot of New York Times bestsellers. A movie starring Matthew McConaugh and Penelope Cruz was SAHARA, which had a budget of $130 Million and only grossed $119 Million. Director was Breck Eisner, in 2005. The book dates from 1992. Cussler hated the film, and sued over it (and won.) I liked the film. It's very high concept, and the acting and action sequences never let up. IMDB gives it 6 out of 10 stars. i'll give it 8.  His life nearly parallels that of his hero, Dirk Pitt. Whether searching for lost aircraft or leading expeditions to find famous shipwrecks, he and his NUMA crew of volunteers (yes, NUMA actually exists) have discovered more than sixty lost ships of historic significance, including the long-lost Confederate submarine, Hunley, which was raised in 2000 with much press publicity. Another significant date is when Clive endorsed my own novel “Postmarked for Death” in small press hardcover, which now has a 2019 production on Audible/iTunes. The search for a legendary automobile threatens the careers and lives of husband-and-wife team Sam and Remi Fargo in this thrilling adventure in Clive Cussler’s bestselling series. In 1906, a groundbreaking Rolls-Royce prototype known as the Gray Ghost vanishes from the streets of Manchester, England, and it is only the lucky intervention of an American detective named Isaac Bell that prevents it from being lost forever. Not even he can save the good name of Marcus Peyton, however, the man wrongly blamed for the theft, and more than a hundred years later, it is his grandson who turns to Sam and Remi Fargo to help prove his grandfather’s innocence. But there is even more at stake than any of them know. For the car has vanished again, and in it is an object so rare that it has the capacity to change lives. Men with everything to gain and a great deal to lose have a desperate plan to find it–and if anybody gets in their way? They have a plan for that, too. Narrated by Scott Brick, whom I interviewed at this site, and met at the Audie awards. Scott is the busiest voice actor in the business, and winner of multiple awards. Co-author of The Gray Ghost is Robin Burcell, who spent nearly three decades working in California law enforcement as a police officer, detective, hostage negotiator, and FBI-trained forensic artist. She is the author of ten novels.

In another #CliveCussler title, TYPHOON FURY, (an editor's pick at Amazon, click on link) Juan Cabrillo is hired to search for a collection of paintings worth half a billion dollars. The crew of the Oregon soon find themselves in much deeper waters. The vicious leader of a Filipino insurgency is not only using them to finance his attacks, he has stumbled upon one of the most lethal secrets of World War II: a Japanese-developed drug, designed, but never used, to turn soldiers into super-warriors. To stop him, the Oregon must not only take on the rebel commander, but a South African mercenary intent on getting his own hands on the drug, a massive swarm of torpedo drones targeting the U.S. Navy, an approaching megastorm—and, just possibly, a war that could envelop the entire Asian continent. Much fun. Co-writer Boyd Morrison is author of THE VAULT and THE ARK, plus co-author of other Cussler titles such as SHADOW TYRANTS, THE EMPEROR’S REVENGE, and PIRANHA. He is also an actor and engineer who started his career working on the NASA space station project. After earning a PhD in engineering from Virginia Tech, he used his training to develop US patents for various companies as well as manage video game testing for the Xbox division of Microsoft. He lives in Seattle.

Detective Isaac Bell is featured in THE GANGSTER, a 2016 thrilling novel set in 1906 in New York City. The Italian crime group known as the Black Hand is on a spree: kidnapping, extortion, arson. Bell and the Van Dorn agency are hired to form a special “Black Hand Squad,” but the gangsters appear to be everywhere—so much so that Bell begins to wonder if there are imitators, criminals using the name for the terror effect. And then the murders begin, each one of a man more powerful than the last, and as Bell discovers, to his dismay, the ultimate target may be the most powerful man of all. This is an unusual subject and time period for Cussler and co-author Justin Scott, well read (as usual) by Scott Brick. Co-author Justin Scott is author of the Ben Abbott mystery series, and also writes under the pen name Paul Garrison. His Cussler co-authored titles are THE WRECKER, THE BOOTLEGGER, THE STRIKER, THE THIEF, THE SPY, THE RACE, THE CUTTHROAT, and THE ASSASSIN. Whew! Roll all of them together, and you could win any Banana Republic election. Owner of a fleet of classic cars, Clive divided his time between Colorado and Arizona. Among his other books are RAISE THE TITANIC, GHOST SHIP, NIGHTHAWK, SACRED STONE, DEVIL’S GATE, and THE ROMANOV RANSOM…some written alone, some with his son Dirk, too.  Questions? Leave comments below about the movie and Cussler audiobooks. To read my interview with Cussler go HERE.  #TheSportsAtheist is on Facebook groups. Join the discussion there too!