J.D.’s Columns

The Movie Business Northwestern Montana After a summer of laying in the grass beside good trout streams, the fun tickets ran dry in Browning, Montana. I had connections in California, made a few phone calls, and came up with a job as a location scout for a group who wanted to shoot yet another mountain man movie. Two hundred and fifty bucks a week, plus expenses. Big money in those days. I had no idea what a location scout did, but I did know the mountains where the film was to be shot. At the appointed time of the first meeting with my new employer, a black Lincoln town car pulled up in front the Timber! Cafe, in Augusta. Out of the driver's side climbed a pudgy white male human, clad in beaded elk fringe leggings over Gucci shoes. Around his neck was sixteen troy ounces of chain with a golden goat dick dangling from it. I should've run out the back door of the Timber!. Instead, I hurried onto the sidewalk to prevent this Californian from being eaten by log truck drivers. My t...

Ponderings           At the age of 84, I am certifiably old in the game of life,   but not quite ready to cash in my chips. It has been an interesting process. When I was 21, I was certain that I would have a handle on the changes by the time I was thirty. What I didn’t know was that the changes come faster than one can accommodate or adjust to them. Thus, as an old fart, I have lingering questions.      For instance, who or what am I to believe now that lying has been institutionalized by the government at all levels? Will Artificial Intelligence, which mines cyberworld for its information, eventually learn to lie to us? “Gee. AI, how is the security of our power grid?” “Oh, just wonderful, JD.  It is the most secure power system ever developed by humans.”      So, I have sluiced my memory box to reclaim chunks of knowledge that were given to me over the years by folks who had no reason or inclina...