[BZ Note: First off, this website, bloviatingzeppelin.net, was taken down in error for over two months. I threw camshafts and birthed kittens thinking that 20 years of work had been flushed down the proverbial Crapper, Sir Thomas, 1 each. After serious assistance by Bushwack (you know who you are) and my site host, we were able to resurrect what I think may be the entire site -- as far as I can tell. With that in mind, let us continue.]
It's no surprise to anyone who has been reading my blog since its inception in 2004 -- or listening to my wireless radio show, since January of 2017 -- that I am not a young man by any stretch of the imagination, being in my 7th decade on the planet.
It's also no surprise that I retired from 41 years in law enforcement (closer to 42) in 2016 and, to keep myself off the streets and off heroin, I fortuitously ran into Sack Heads Shaun of the SHR Media Network -- who was kind enough to offer a radio show on the network.
What also requires mentioning is that, simultaneously, I was allowed to appear on Ken McClenton's TECN -- The Exceptional Conservative Network -- where he'd chat with me once a week, using his time, before I got my own show.
Which is why I invited him to be my guest on the final Berserk Bobcat Saloon Radio Show I did from Kalifornia. I owed Ken all of that and more. Those guys -- Shaun, Clint, and Ken -- those guys saved my life. Literally. Listen.
Since then, I have officially left the state of Kalifornia, and made a home in my new Free State, 980 miles away from Sacramento.
I have been blessed, that much is obvious. But it began to become clear to me that my maneuverings have all primarily led up to this. A new life in a northern free state, just 95 miles south of the Canadian border. Eh?
Three years ago, it was a state I hadn't considered in the slightest. But a state now sufficiently sought-after that some can't afford to live here at all because of housing prices. Of course, due to Biden, that too is changing.
We're about to encounter double digit inflation, double digit mortgage rates, all kinds of food and other supply chain shortages, a collapsing economy and, if altogether too many people get their way, US boots on the ground in Ukraine and a war with China over Taiwan. Fighting on two fronts when we can't even fulfill common military recruiting goals. And we don't have the equipment. And we're being led by traitors and those on the take from China. Yeah. That'll go well.
Yay Biden.
Mrs BZ and I looked many places, in many states. Because we had honeymooned there, we thought we'd love to live in Astoria, Oregon, right next to the Columbia River. Our perfect weather: cooler, rainy, and near the ocean. Until we started looking at the property taxes attached to homes that certainly didn't seem to deserve to have such weighty numbers involved. Holy crap. The property taxes were tremendous.
(The Astoria-Megler Bridge, connecting Astoria, Oregon to Megler, Washington.)
We went further north into Washington and that too looked attractive until we examined property taxes. In the intervening years between 2007 and now, of course, Oregon and Washington became populated by even more Kalifornia rejects who brought every bit of their insanity with them. Portland, Seattle, Everett? No fucking way was I going to live in Washington. Or Oregon. All the little Antifa fuckers with their lovely riots, in concert with the stupidity of Governors Inslee and Kotek, made me scratch those two Leftist shitholes right off my list. A great decision.
The stories I could tell in terms of trying to acquire a home. I was lucky. I purchased my "new" 2007 Free State house two years ago, in 2021. I saw the bubble. And I saw it bursting.
Since 2021, in a mere 9 months, my house had appreciated roughly $120,000. That didn't continue, of course. And it might be nothing but air equity now. But I did happen to lock in my rate at 2%. As of this writing, the US mortgage rate is about 7%. Yay me.
Just wait. People will be paying close to 10% in no time, just like I did for my first house in the early 1980s. A minimum of 20% down, a 12% APR, and a five year call on the note.
But for me, my new state is everything that Kalifornia isn't. Just as I tell those who prefer to mask up outside, in their cars, and inside public buildings: "You do you. I'll do me. As long as you don't tell me how to live my life."
I'll tell you a quick story about my new Free State, which says everything about it.
As Mrs BZ and I stayed in our first motel, the Staybridge Suites (very nice) in early 2021 to look around the areas for homes, we wore masks inside because the check-in counter had a sign saying masks were required. But I looked around and noticed no one else was wearing them. As we walked to the elevator with our bags, a guy came up beside us and said "you can take those stupid things off. No one wears them." We pitched them into the trash and never wore them again.
Here's what I wanted from a Free State and, in fact, here's what we got:
People who speak English. No constant gunfire in the neighborhood. No sirens and helicopters and pursuits and loud helo announcements in the middle of the night. No drunk drivers hitting power poles and killing the electricity. No drunk, retarded, mental, drugged, genetic mutants living in tents or under tarps or buttressed by shopping carts around my neighborhood. No mental misfits in the middle of the road. No burned out cars sitting on axles in the 'hood. No speed bumps or speed tables all over because assholes run sideshows every night.
No parking lots where you have to carefully examine your surroundings before you exit the car. No having to run the gauntlet of drunk and drugged bums demanding money before you enter a business, or when you want to pump gas because, for a while, you're a "captive audience."
No listening to or watching all the surrounding homes, as rentals, host parolees, probationers, and as renters start up and rev their Harley motorcycles literally at 3 AM because they're drunk, their license is suspended, and their motorcycle will be impounded if they're stopped.
No listening to the cross-the-street neighbor play 3 AM Mexican rap at 120 db. No listening to his asshole friends bringing their thump trucks and thump cars to his house to jar the fillings out of your teeth while you try to sleep, and you have to get up at 4 AM for work, like I had to.
No having to worry about getting shot as you approach your bank or ATM.
No sweating through consistent 120-degree summers, the loss of power, or PG&E killing your cabin's power through a PSPS thereby destroying your microwave, refrigerator, TV, DVD player, coffee maker -- and they refused to pay for their damage.
No more PG&E setting summer wildfires from faulty and ancient equipment, deficient infrastructure, going bankrupt, getting covered by Newsom and his asshole friends, while they simultaneously murdered close to 100 people by frying them into the pugilist position.
No more brown skies, falling ashes, choking air, as thousands of acres of ignored forests go up flames hundreds of feet high. Every. Fucking. Summer. A state where, when you go into its mountainous areas, an actual aware person points and says only one word: "fuel."
No more brown yards. Brown skies. Brown plants. Brownouts. Brown fields. Brown businesses.
No more constant noise. No more constant chaos. No more rude assholes cutting you off, giving you the finger in traffic, pointing guns at you (happened), staring at you like you're a fresh piece of meat because you're old and white. Though heeled.
No more Sacramento riots, Antifa or BLM blocking freeways or major surface streets. (Antifa came to a town not terribly far from where I live; they were greeted by citizens openly carrying loaded AR-15s and other rifles. This is how every Antifa invasion should be met. With over a thousand armed American citizens.)
No more "bring your own bags" to the market. No more gas pumps that don't work. No more "no straws." No more "no ketchup packets." No more "no tinted car windows." All the cop car windows are tinted as hell, themselves. No more "have to wear a helmet on your bicycle or motorcycle."
No more gas pumps stopping before your tank is filled, because they won't go past $100.
All the people in my Free State speak English.
The state has paper ballots, and requires you to show a valid state ID and recite your address in order to vote. Every. Damned. Time. I've voted twice now. They were consistent. Every. Damned. Time.
No living in fear of having your local stores shut down because professional theft rings loot them with regularity and impunity. No more watching cars driven on freeways trying to PIT each other because of road rage. Yes, I've seen that in Kalifornia. Many times.
No more fear of defending myself, my family, or my residence because my Free State is not only a "Castle Doctrine" state, but a "Stand Your Ground" state. I can purchase a suppressor. I can buy just about any firearm I want. No background checks on ammunition or waiting for ammunition. It's right there, on shelves. In the open. Where normal Americans can pick it up and buy it.
When I was looking at homes, most of them had gun safes and many had reloading benches. One sign in a restaurant asked that you be judicious with your rounds when shooting at robbers.
It's a Constitutional Carry state, which means it's permitless carry. You can open carry if you wish, and I've seen a few younger men do it, but I'm not an advocate of open carry. At all. It's bad advertising. You lose the advantage of surprise.
That said, the forces of evil are no less here than anywhere else. The capital of my Free State is becoming a bastion of Leftist forces because, naturally, it's the most densely populated and, naturally, it's where Leftists landed when they fled their own piece of shit states that they could no longer tolerate or afford.
Unlike myself, however, they brought all their Leftist shithole philosophies and thoughts with them. And are pushing those selfsame philosophies equally as hard. You know. Just like Mexicans and other illegal invaders fleeing their own shitholes and trying to warp this nation into precisely the same thing from which they fled.
There are, of course, limitations to my new Free State. It's popular. So contractors and mechanics and blue collar workers -- hell, workers of any stripe -- are not overflowing. Therefore they're hard to find. So I've been a bit hamstrung trying to build the broadcast studio in my new home, because of the electrical draw required. I need a new circuit solely devoted to my studio. And finding available electricians to complete this work is, well, a tad difficult.
Like, for months difficult. Almost a year difficult.
And, naturally, because I am a Techno Luddite, my former guru and technical wizard, Sack Heads Shaun, is no longer available. Not just to reassemble the studio, but to upgrade it to some really nice video.
One positive note: instead of relying like I did on Frontier Communications -- one of absolute worst providers on the planet, and famous for blocking communications -- I now have access to fiber optic cable and much, much better internet speeds.
I'm crossing my fingers and hoping that all will be fixed, repaired, and upgraded by late March or some time in April of 2023 -- almost precisely a year from my last broadcast.
Why? How?
Because, with luck, I'm importing my good friend and internet colleague ALLEN THOMAS to the area, who has indicated he'll come from Kalifornia to help me out. He is every bit the Techo Wizard that I am not, and will help me not only set up, but create some great video for the show as well.
My problem now, besides getting a separate circuit for the studio, is branding. Sack Heads Shaun has nothing to do with SHR any more, and neither does Sack Heads Clint. Both are back in Kalifornia attending to their jobs and their lives, as well they should be. But because Shaun has all the usernames and passwords to all the digital programs needed to make SHR run, and a number of them he can't remember, I find myself in a quandry:
Do I try to keep SHR cobbled together, and try to retain Spreaker, Chatroll, Ionos, the dedicated SHR Media page, the video host whose name I can't even remember any more, and all the other assorted programs utilized -- do I try to keep them all assembled together in kind of a haphazard form and plug digital leaks when they occur? In trying to keep the SHR name going?
I mean, I already threw a lot of money at this original artwork for SHR.
Or do I break free and start another new network entirely? NFSR? Northern Free State Radio? FSRN? Free State Radio Network? BZN? The BZ Network?
In many ways it would be much simpler to just create something entirely new.
But that grates in my craw, because I ideally want to try to keep the old, creaky, leaky SHR ship on the high seas, patch some leaks, and maybe drop in a newer, more powerful, 390,000 shp engine.
Even if I keep the SHR name and branding, I'll have to re-do all the intros, outros, promos and the like, because I'm no longer broadcasting behind enemy lines in occupied Kalifornia.
My biggest roadblock is starting all over again. At one point, according to analytics Jeremy Hanson unearthed, I had up to 300,000 listeners/viewers per show. And I'd worked hard from 2017 to March of 2022 to get them, doing two, two-hour shows a week.
At one point I was #18 in the top 75 Late Night Talk Show Podcasts You Must Follow In 2021.
So this time, I'll be starting from scratch. Again. I'll have to try to acquire an audience all over again, because the largest show-killer is inconsistency or, in my case, the show being gone completely.
Because I insist on going live, and I'd like both audio and video involved, I've decided I will never go back to YouTube or Facebook video. I refuse to even give them the remotest chance to censor me, strike me, or remove me wholesale.
My video feeds will likely be either on Rumble, or Bitchute. I haven't yet decided.
One thing I do know is this: there will NEVER be a pay wall between myself and the listener. I will never charge a subscription or listener fee.
If I'd been doing all of this, selling two homes, buying another house, moving 950+ miles away, dealing with the gurp attached to same -- in my 40s or 50s -- things would certainly be more of a breeze.
However, I'd like to provide a BZ public service announcement in the form of an important safety tip: don't try this shit in your 70s, kids. It kinda sucks. But that's how bad I had to get away from Kalifornia, in order to find a modicum of peace.
And now you know the "rest of the story."
So that's all the news that's fit to print, to date.
More to come.
BZ
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