The Gods Must Be Crazy
First, thanks for the comments on my previous posts. I obviously read them but didn't think that I absolutely HAD to add anything.
Right now I don't have much time to go online and I am really missing doing my rounds visiting you all. I try to catch up as much as I can but it's not easy when you've got more than sixty favorites as you can see from my Compatriots' Blogroll.
My blogroll started off with only six blogs last year and was originally called "Reciprocal Links." It was easy to read everybody everyday. Since then my reciprocal links have grown to 69 blogs which is a full-time job to read and comment on - but I've already got a full-time job which I need to put a roof over my head and chicken wire over my chickens' heads.
The only thing that I wanted to add to your comments is that, like some of you, I've sometimes thought that the only way that we will get rid of the commies in America is by another civil war and, like many of you, I've had doubts that we can actually do anything about it. But I know that there is a practical solution: the power of speech - not only on our blogs but in real life.
I don't remember what year the movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy," came to the USA. I went to see it because it was a movie by South Africa's most famous director, Jamie Uys, who was the pioneer of movie-making in South Africa. I loved it and told everyone about it. It must have been after 1982 because I started working at a big hospital in San Francisco that year. There were 3,000 employees in the hospital and I knew most of them by sight and probably knew half of them by name. I told all of them about it because the movie had been so enjoyable. Everyone came back to thank me for telling them about the movie.
The movie had originally been booked for a two week run at a small "art" theater. It was the only theater in the USA to book it. Just as it was about to be replaced by some other "art" movie (probably some horrible French commie movie about angst and adultery where you hope all the characters kill themselves before they destroy other peoples' lives with their neuroses and Godless despair) the run was extended for another week, then another and another till it ended up running in San Francisco for 13 months, the longest that any movie had ever run before. By that time it was showing in LA and NY too.
Now, maybe I'm imagining things but I figured that my big mouth had something to do with it. Just say I told the 300 people whom I knew really well at the hospital. They liked and trusted me and went to see it. Maybe they told another 300 people and so it went until nearly everyone I knew had seen it. I could not believe that a hokey little, not very well made, movie from South Africa could be so successful. And, let's face it - it's was not a very good movie - which I found out when I saw it again.
Maybe I'm nuts - but I used what I learned from "The Gods Must Be Crazy" to make my restaurant in San Francisco so famous that it was all over the internet and tourists from Europe and Japan used to come to it. How? Chas made a brilliant website for it and I told everyone I met about it. When I went shopping, I told the cashier in a loud but friendly voice so that everyone in line heard. Then I handed out cards to everyone and promised them a free glass of wine.
When I took the dogs for a walk at Fort Funston or Stern Grove (along with the hundereds of other dog owners - San Francisco has the biggest ratio of dogs per person in the world - well it is the city of San Francis) I would tell everyone I met about my restaurant and give them a card - and promise them a free glass of wine. I never bothered to waste money on advertising - I was my own walking billboard.
And I did the same thing when I came here. Put it this way - I've always known lots of people. I moved here in December and by May I already knew 50 people well enough to invite them to my birthday party six months later in May. I inherited that from my parents. They both also could strike up conversations with total strangers and end up inviting them home for dinner. Our house was always full of other people and other peoples' kids. Now my RV park is full and has a waiting list.
Maybe we can't promise everyone a glass of free wine - certainly not on blogs - but we can yak. We can spread our ideas. We can spread our hope and faith in the great American experiment. Not everyone is articulate. Some people need to be prodded a bit and we can all do with some help putting our thoughts into the spoken or written word.
I just thank God that we have the First Amendment (and the Second to give it teeth) because I grew up in a police state where you could go to prison for saying certain things - I know because I did.
Everyone knows that, if you want to keep faith, you need to keep holy company. That doesn't only apply to faith in the goodness of God but faith in our great American Revolution. Spread the word. Tell everyone the good news. America can bring freedom and joy to everyone who wants it. We can keep our dream of individual sovereignty and personal freedom alive.
Just keep yakking. The pen may be mightier than the sword but the spoken word - a heart to heart, soul to soul conversation - is even mightier than the pen.
The American Revolution is my religion and I will always keep faith in the hope and potential for happiness which our Founders left to us as our inheritance. I keep my faith by keeping the holy company of those who also believe in our glorious revolution.
Right now I don't have much time to go online and I am really missing doing my rounds visiting you all. I try to catch up as much as I can but it's not easy when you've got more than sixty favorites as you can see from my Compatriots' Blogroll.
My blogroll started off with only six blogs last year and was originally called "Reciprocal Links." It was easy to read everybody everyday. Since then my reciprocal links have grown to 69 blogs which is a full-time job to read and comment on - but I've already got a full-time job which I need to put a roof over my head and chicken wire over my chickens' heads.
The only thing that I wanted to add to your comments is that, like some of you, I've sometimes thought that the only way that we will get rid of the commies in America is by another civil war and, like many of you, I've had doubts that we can actually do anything about it. But I know that there is a practical solution: the power of speech - not only on our blogs but in real life.
I don't remember what year the movie, "The Gods Must Be Crazy," came to the USA. I went to see it because it was a movie by South Africa's most famous director, Jamie Uys, who was the pioneer of movie-making in South Africa. I loved it and told everyone about it. It must have been after 1982 because I started working at a big hospital in San Francisco that year. There were 3,000 employees in the hospital and I knew most of them by sight and probably knew half of them by name. I told all of them about it because the movie had been so enjoyable. Everyone came back to thank me for telling them about the movie.
The movie had originally been booked for a two week run at a small "art" theater. It was the only theater in the USA to book it. Just as it was about to be replaced by some other "art" movie (probably some horrible French commie movie about angst and adultery where you hope all the characters kill themselves before they destroy other peoples' lives with their neuroses and Godless despair) the run was extended for another week, then another and another till it ended up running in San Francisco for 13 months, the longest that any movie had ever run before. By that time it was showing in LA and NY too.
Now, maybe I'm imagining things but I figured that my big mouth had something to do with it. Just say I told the 300 people whom I knew really well at the hospital. They liked and trusted me and went to see it. Maybe they told another 300 people and so it went until nearly everyone I knew had seen it. I could not believe that a hokey little, not very well made, movie from South Africa could be so successful. And, let's face it - it's was not a very good movie - which I found out when I saw it again.
Maybe I'm nuts - but I used what I learned from "The Gods Must Be Crazy" to make my restaurant in San Francisco so famous that it was all over the internet and tourists from Europe and Japan used to come to it. How? Chas made a brilliant website for it and I told everyone I met about it. When I went shopping, I told the cashier in a loud but friendly voice so that everyone in line heard. Then I handed out cards to everyone and promised them a free glass of wine.
When I took the dogs for a walk at Fort Funston or Stern Grove (along with the hundereds of other dog owners - San Francisco has the biggest ratio of dogs per person in the world - well it is the city of San Francis) I would tell everyone I met about my restaurant and give them a card - and promise them a free glass of wine. I never bothered to waste money on advertising - I was my own walking billboard.
And I did the same thing when I came here. Put it this way - I've always known lots of people. I moved here in December and by May I already knew 50 people well enough to invite them to my birthday party six months later in May. I inherited that from my parents. They both also could strike up conversations with total strangers and end up inviting them home for dinner. Our house was always full of other people and other peoples' kids. Now my RV park is full and has a waiting list.
Maybe we can't promise everyone a glass of free wine - certainly not on blogs - but we can yak. We can spread our ideas. We can spread our hope and faith in the great American experiment. Not everyone is articulate. Some people need to be prodded a bit and we can all do with some help putting our thoughts into the spoken or written word.
I just thank God that we have the First Amendment (and the Second to give it teeth) because I grew up in a police state where you could go to prison for saying certain things - I know because I did.
Everyone knows that, if you want to keep faith, you need to keep holy company. That doesn't only apply to faith in the goodness of God but faith in our great American Revolution. Spread the word. Tell everyone the good news. America can bring freedom and joy to everyone who wants it. We can keep our dream of individual sovereignty and personal freedom alive.
Just keep yakking. The pen may be mightier than the sword but the spoken word - a heart to heart, soul to soul conversation - is even mightier than the pen.
The American Revolution is my religion and I will always keep faith in the hope and potential for happiness which our Founders left to us as our inheritance. I keep my faith by keeping the holy company of those who also believe in our glorious revolution.
posted by Joubert at 9:54 PM
The Alliance
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