Disney World Disaster Looming Large  12-19-15
One would expect a large corporation to make most of the right moves. Usually The Walt Disney Company does. They are pretty successful. But this week, they announced one of the biggest bone-head moves of all time. I do not think it made the national news channels, but it made all of the local ones down here in Florida. 
Some moron at Disney Company thought it would be a great idea to ban handguns at Disney World, Universal Studios, etc. The neighboring TV crews hustled over during the announcement to film a bunch of rent-a-cops waddling around "wanding" people and poking through their handbags. 
Stupid, stupid, stupid on so many levels. 
First of all, there won't be enough rent-a-cops on busy days, so the lines will grow long---word will get around---and eventually it will have an adverse effect on business.
Second, I would NEVER enter a venue where large groups of unarmed, vulnerable people were milling about. Domestic terrorists are attracted to huge Weapons Free Zones like the Kardashians are to anything with a camera lens. These terrorists are hopping on every train, bus, car, and camel and rushing down to Orlando right now to begin doing some recon. In a week or so a hundred guys with dark scruffy beards will be milling about the fences looking for zones that the security cameras don't cover. 
A lot of people with legal, Florida issued pistol permits feel like I do. This will put an immediate dent in attendance as well. Florida is a "shall issue" state and has a relatively high percentage of properly vetted people going about their everyday business while carrying a loaded handgun. In spite of a population above 19 million, how often do you read about a mass shooting down here? Never. 
Do you still doubt me? 
France is one big weapons free zone...except for terrorists, of course. Nobody in that Paris theater shot back. 
No one at the San Bernardino Inland Regional Center had a gun...that's why 14 died.
And Sandy Hook Elementary...oh scratch that. That one is still to painful to even think about. 
Listen carefully, Disney Dimwits. I don't want to rely on Donald Duck to protect me or my loved ones. You just exposed 53,000 sitting ducks every day to a mass shooting by Achmed and his merry band. Until Friday, at least they had a chance.  
Stupid, stupid, stupid.   
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Has Art Van ever met Donald Trump?  10-28-15
I will not leave you in suspense. The answer is yes. An astute reader sent me many pics of Art and Donald together at one of his many golf courses. The pics were sent about 10 years ago. Art played tennis, but I don't think he was much of a golfer. Art's Mistress Du Jour, Summer, was in attendance as well. They all looked very happy together, although Art and Mr. Trump stretched out their Izod shirts pretty well and both could have lost a few pounds. Besides being billionaires, they had a lot of other things in common as well. Both were very "high energy" people, although while I can't speak for Donald, Art was not opposed to a nap now and then. Both admired attractive women, and were pretty good at finding them. But the similarity I now find most interesting is the conversation "fillers" that they both use to preface what they are about to say next. With Trump it is "HUGE" or "Fantastic" or "Really, really." Trump also says "Believe Me" an awful lot. Both of them say "Honestly" frequently, but  Art had his own unique ones. 
For instance: When Art used to analyze his relationship with his 39 year old mistress, he would start out with "But Mark, at the end of the day, she wouldn't be going out with me if I was the plumber." I heard a LOT of "At the end of the day" conversation starters. For the record, it might be mid-day or even early morning when I heard it. Another of his favorites was "I am truly, truly convinced" or "I truly, truly appreciate" or the most oft uttered one just before he was about to brag about his jet or his yacht or his penthouse of "You know, I am truly, truly blessed because most people....." When he was about to ask me a favor that he did not expect me to be compensated for he started out with "Mark, my good friend..." I suspect a lot of contractors were addressed in that fashion when Art felt he was owed some free work on his mansion or one of his children's homes. "Maaark, buddy," meant I was to be told something in confidence. Art had an entire set of colloquialisms to describe another businessman he admired. In those cases the word "respect" came up a lot. So did the words "built" and "hustle." He also used the word "fine" a great deal for these individuals. He had still another set to describe somebody he deemed lazy, and they cannot all be printed here. To return to the Home Page, click here.   

President Obama can stop these Mass Shootings if he wants 10-3-15
Another mass shooting. This time at a community college in Oregon. The pundits are starting to call President Obama the Mourner in Chief. How embarrassing. We are looking for leadership, but all we are getting from our "leader" is weepy sympathy. 
His advisers should be the best and the brightest. Apparently they are not. Not if a Private Investigator in Sarasota Florida has to solve this problem for him. Not if all he can do is attempt to advert the blame away from himself and towards Congress. All I ask in return is that you forward this post to a couple of people. That will be your way of voting for my solution. 
My solution is simple. With our leader's assistance it could begin within days...not after years of negotiation and hand-wringing. We could all keep our guns, but these mass shootings would soon become just an unpleasant memory. With my solution, we would not have to spend a dime in taxpayer money. Everything is already in place.
How did a Detroit-born muscle head devise such an ingenious solution? Actually, Anderson Cooper of CNN got me started right after Sandy Hook. Michael Moore (whom I do not particularly care for) helped it along with his documentary about firearms: Bowling for Columbine. I fleshed it out with some very obvious ideas that a certain presidents staff should have thought of long ago. 
Here goes. Please do not kick yourself for not thinking of this. I have certain special insights that you lack.
The U.S. is never going to be lacking in nutjobs. And the 45% of the populace with guns are not going to give them up. And trying to stop them from buying more is only going to piss them off and get whomever suggests they can't kicked out of office. And we have all seen what happens when the ever increasing supply of nutjobs comes across guns from the ever increasing supply of those. We can't stop it. We are too busy deposing dictators so that terrorists can take over their regimes. We don't have any money left over to identify and warehouse the nutjobs. The nutjobs will find guns and they will shoot up anyplace that is labeled as a "weapons free" zone. And arming a bunch of untrained school teachers and college students will help as a deterrent but won't solve the problem very fast. 
Here goes: Anderson Cooper and the crew at CNN realized something right after the Sandy Hook school shootings. What was it? Simple. Nutjobs watch television too. Thus at the beginning of their non-stop reporting spree, Anderson announced that they were not going to show the nutjobs photograph or use his name. And for a while they did not. But all of the other TV stations could not wait to do so. And soon 
CNN quietly caved and began to show the nutjobs face in a photo that looked like Mom had bred with a special needs extra-terrestrial. CNN attempted to take the high road and were in fact on the right path, but fell victim to the need for ratings and the Almighty advertising dollar. The other stations did not even attempt to take the high road. They showed that god-forsaken pic again and again and blurted out it's name as soon as they knew it. Soon CNN was broadcasting it's name as well. And everybody gave it a title. Instead of calling it what it was--a nutjob...a freak of DNA replication...or the term I prefer....a coward, they used the word "gunman" and "shooter." No, No, No! The word gunman has connotations of a bad ass who lived in the wild west, and fought other gunmen who were at least armed. I also take great issue with the word "man" in the title. None of these freakshows, from Malvo to the latest Oregon piece of sewage, was a man! No man shoots unarmed men, women, and children as they run or fall. Too make matters worse, on occasion I heard newscasters use the term "Mr." in front of coward's surname. 
The word shooter does not work for me either. It implies that something or someone needed shooting, (like with a sniper and his target in a war) and that is never the case. The word shooter glamorizes cowards actions, and gives nutjob something to aspire to and to associate himself with as he "prepares."
President Obama has issued 900 executive orders thus far. You don't believe me do you? Click here. I read a great deal of them. It would take 900 posts to address them so I will not. None of the orders I read address these cowards and nutjobs! A total failure of "leadership."
It's time for some executive orders that do. And since the "administrations" cadre of yes men and sycophants are too stupid or gutless to do so, I will hold them by their soft little white bureaucrat hands while I tell them what to do. 
Obama controls the FCC. Stop arguing. When it comes right down to it, he does. This week he needs to issue an executive order wherein any TV station, national or local, that show the latest coward's pic or likeness is taken off the air for exactly one month. We all have DVR's...there will be plenty of proof. And of course any and all TV stations that use coward's given name suffer the same consequence. Immediately. The same with all radio stations of course. One month. Off the air. No advertising dollars. They can all appeal if they want to, and the government can use my tax dollars to advertise the proceedings as they take place. I would like to hear their lawyer's "reasons" for publicizing these nutjobs. "For the public good" will simply not fly. I dropped out of law school many moons ago, but I guarantee I can get a favorable decision out of any judge or jury on this matter. How about radio stations, you may ask? Same thing....FCC license, 1 month suspension. Newspapers? A little bit tougher. Fortunately, nutjobs don't read newspapers, but a visit from the FBI (the largest agents they have, please, and if it's in Florida, I am not exactly tiny and would like to tag along) to the editors office to have a chat about "fomenting domestic terrorism" would be a good start. Then give me immunity from prosecution, and I will take care of the rest. Now the money that we are starting to save in cleaning up after a weekly massacre can be spent on the best hackers money can buy. Allow them the unfettered ability to go after any internet site that mentions any previous nutjob by name or by deed. Charge the owners with the same thing---fomenting domestic terrorism. Why does a Sarasota Private Investigator and Law School Dropout have to come up with these solutions? I have some thoughts on that.  To be continued... To return to the home page click here.  
       
  

Should I move back to Detroit? Art Van probably misses me. 9-24-15

I just read a rather upbeat article about how white people are moving back to Detroit. Click here to read the article. I certainly hope these are well-armed white people. 
It is no secret that I was born in Detroit. My parents had the common sense to move to the suburbs when I was only 7, thus my education was quite good. Of course I returned to Detroit often to work or live. I worked for Borman Security at Farmer Jacks, where people cut the bottoms out of 50 pound dog food bags, dumped the dog food behind the remaining bags, and filled the empty bags up with seafood and steaks. I moved back to Detroit for a year to share a house with some buddies about 30 seconds after I turned 18 (my father and I did not see eye to eye at that time). The second car repair facility that I owned was in Detroit. So was my third. I lived for quite some time in a second story flat behind my used car lot. I had the distinct pleasure of repossessing 150 of my cars from Detroit deadbeats after their loans went sour. In later years as a Private Investigator, many of my cases led to Detroit when my clients were too wise to go there and I was not.  
The point is...I know Detroit. And I would NEVER move back there!! If one is to read the above article carefully, some urban pioneers are moving back for the $20,000 domicile "loan" they are not required to pay back. Some are moving back to be close to their jobs downtown (and because driving on many of the freeways from the suburbs is like navigating the roads in a third world country). I would not move back for 20 or even 200 thousand a year! How about 2 million per annum, you may ask? Yes, but only if it included 7 months of vacation time in Florida every year. 
If one were to read the above article and do the math, one would conclude that about 4,000 white people were moving into Detroit every year. This would be a goodly amount if the name of the town were say....Mayberry. But it is not. You might want to sit down for this one....Detroit (not the suburbs, just Detroit proper) is an area of 143 square miles! That means this city in the most segregated area in the U.S. is filling up every year with 28 shiny new white residents per square mile. But wait. It's not filling up at all. The population declines by at least 10,000 per year. They are still dying of natural causes or moving as soon as they can afford a Uhaul truck. Or getting murdered. At the rate of 333 per year. 
The Motor City's huge auto plants have mostly moved to Mexico, and the only steady jobs for Detroit High School graduates are cleaning the hotels and the 3 casinos that suck the life out of any remaining pensioners.
Even my ol' buddy Art Van, one of the most business savvy shysters in Michigan, groups his many stores in a semi-circle around Detroit itself. And even though he is white, I don't think he will be relocating to the city anytime soon. To return to the home page, click here. To visit Classic Health Institute, click here.      
    

Joe Zada convicted!  9-3-15 

Remember Joe Zada the Grosse Pointe Michigan and Wellington and Palm Beach Florida Ponzi scammer? You should...this little piece of sewage was one of the bigger ones. I wrote about him several times over the years on this blog. My primary purpose, of course, was to get his name out as often as possible to warn other potential victims. Now my primary purpose is to gloat! After one of my postings, I received an email from a VERY offended crook. He asked me where the evidence was. He tried to point out there was no investigation pending. He asked why he had not been indicted yet if any of these allegations were true. I did not even bother to answer him. I already had good intel that the Feds were methodically gathering evidence and witness testimony. The ax was beginning to fall. 
What was he convicted of today? 15 counts of mail fraud and one count of bank fraud. Is he in jail? Yes, upon the rendering of the guilty verdict he was immediately remanded to jail to await sentencing to a Federal Penitentiary in November. 
Why did the inevitable take so long? More importantly, where did the 298 million dollars that he stole go? I would like to begin by answering the second question first. A big chunk went to livin' large! Mansions, yachts, sponsoring horse shows, Escalades, private jets, European vacations, lavish parties (which were really nothing more than lures to fish in new victims) and let's not forget about the endless nightly parade of male prostitutes. 
Another gigantic chunk was spent on attorneys. He paid millions to the ones he couldn't stiff out of their fees--although there were plenty of those too. Whenever some nouveau pauper would grow tired of waiting to get their retirement account back and file suit, his attorney of the month would fight tooth and nail, using every delay tactic in the book. 
Yet another large portion of the money he stole was earmarked for the express purpose of stealing more money.
In typical Ponzi fashion, he would pay back some of the victims money to them, declaring a significant part of it to be interest!  Much more to come. To return to the home page, click here.     To visit Classic Health Institute click here.    

Art Van and Hillary Clinton    8-7-15

It has now been 12 years since I was last employed for Art Van as his bodyguard/driver/boat captain/personal trainer. The most recent picture I saw of my ol' buddy Art does not reveal any of the bulging biceps that we were never able to achieve. For the record, I have never been employed by Hillary Clinton, nor would I accept any form of employment by her if asked. 
I read excerpts of a book by a Secret Service agent that did in fact work for her. It did not make her agents employment sound like a pleasant experience. It sounds like she resented their presence, and often treated them like "the help" when she demanded they schlep her suitcases around on trips. 
Working for Art was actually very tolerable much of the time. I drove brand new Mercedes or BMW's, nice yachts, and flew on a corporate jet (although I would rather not have.) 
I'm sure that somebody like Hillary receives death threats on a daily basis, but Art only received one that I know of...which is part of the reason my services were retained.
And actually, Art received more than just a threat that day. One of his employees brought a gun to his estate and lowered the American flag down from the pole in the back yard. He intended to wrap Art and his wife's bodies in them for transport in a delivery van that was often parked at the estate. While the employee was preparing Art and Mary Ann's burial shroud, his wife called and warned them. The employee had remembered to cut the phone lines, but Art was pretty good with a cell phone. Art called the cops and they dashed to the mansion's safe room, locking themselves in. The cops arrived within seconds and chased down the mischievous employee before he got away.
As Art's bodyguard, would I have taken a bullet for him? Don't be ridiculous! And before you ask, I would certainly NOT take a bullet for Hillary either. 
Unlike Hillary and her Secret Service agents, the relationship I had with Art was very friendly. He told stories. I listened and often laughed. He often talked about his employees and his offspring. I listened and remembered every word of what he said. If we were traveling, I grabbed suitcases out of the trunk eagerly and with gusto. The suitcases were well constructed and expensive. Should another nutcase began shooting at us I might have used one (and its contents) as a partial shield to slow down a bullet until I could pull my own weapon.
Art does not venture to corporate headquarters at all anymore. At 85 years old he is much thinner (and thus presents less of a target!) His 40 year old girlfriend looks like she is propping him up in some of the public photos. I cannot be sure, but I thought I saw the corner of a Depends sticking up out of her purse in one such photo. I hope she is not incontinent....uh.....never mind. To return to the Home Page click here.  To visit Classic Health Institute click here.   

My obsession with Laser Therapy is not new  6-29-15

Five years ago, my rapidly aging dog was getting up very slowly and limping badly. Sasha was a 93 pound Samoyed...which is essentially a Siberian sled dog. Samoyeds are recognized by the American Kennel Club and often place very high at national events. They are considered a working class dog. In Siberia they pull stuff and herd reindeer and with their soft, odorless fur climb into bed with their owners on bitterly cold nights. When it is "only" zero outside, just one dog hops in. At 20 below, two dogs go on warming duty. At 40 below or thereabouts, three dogs are necessary. Have you ever heard of the rock group Three Dog Night? Of course you have. Well this is the breed of dog they meant!
Sasha was not allowed in my bed in Michigan. I do not become chilled easily and had a hot woman on stand-by in case the furnace went out. In Sarasota, I still keep the hot woman around but only for other nefarious purposes. 
By now I'm sure that you have looked up Samoyeds and have seen that their weight averages about 70 pounds. How is it that Sasha weighed 93 pounds at the vet? She was only an inch or so taller than average. First of all, this breed does not need to eat very much to stay alive. They have a weird metabolism that serves them well on the Iditarod. They can sleep all day long in a snow bank on about a cup of dog food per day. In Florida, Sasha's caloric needs were minimal. But she LOVED people food! AND she was an expert in the as-yet-unrecognized AKC mooching category. I am not saying we fed her Hungry Man TV dinners along with her dog food...but when she was alive we did not have anywhere near the leftovers to refrigerate that we do now. 
One would think that a dog that prefers sleeping in a snowbank all day would never develop tendonitis or become arthritic in Florida, but eventually Sasha did.
A wise pet loving client referred me to a veterinarian with a cold therapy laser. The treatment on the worst two limbs took seven minutes. The vet charged me $30. Sasha limped in and practically trotted out! I was dumbfounded but giddy with delight. A month later, the other two limbs were causing problems. We returned to the same vet and received another seven minutes. But this time the receptionist asked me for $60! I was dumbfounded yet again but for different reasons. I asked to see the vet again and she rather condescendingly explained that Sasha was a large dog and cost more. I asked if we could measure the circumference of Sasha's knee and ankle and those of the beagle in the waiting room, but the vet declined. When I am being screwed over by someone I hire, it is my nature to fire them and do it myself. So that is exactly what I did. I imported a beautiful laser from Europe, watched dozens of videos, and treated my dog the next time she needed it.
I had a chronically sore elbow from lifting very heavy weights in middle age. I watched a dozen more videos and treated it. The soreness was much better the next day, and completely gone in two more! The same thing happened when I treated a sore shoulder that I had dislocated 20 years ago...only this time it took TWO treatments to take care of it. Now I am lifting weights that should be FAR too heavy for a man rapidly approaching 60.
Sherri was a 45 year old lady who worked out at my studio. She was very pleasant and it was with great sadness that she told me she was going to have to stop attending and quit her computer job due to carpal tunnel syndrome and the awful pain in both wrists. I watched still more videos and read a treatise written by a therapy laser engineer that he submitted to Harvard for review. After some cajoling, Sherri let me treat one of her wrists with my laser. Two days later, she came back to the gym, BEGGING me to treat the other one!  She kept her job and her workouts intact with no surgery and did not miss a single day of work!
Many videos and courses and certifications later, I am now a Cold Laser Therapy Specialist who has performed over a thousand treatments successfully. I have changed the lives of many people and kept my own physique in fine tune. This is the link to my new Cold Laser Therapy site. To return to the home page of marksteelbooks.com click here.