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Hello to everybody out there in the civilized world, and to those of you in New Jersey as well.  Welcome to The Skinner Zone, my own undeniably original contribution to Cyberspace.  The content of The Skinner Zone will either be the greatest source of enlightenment to the world since The Beatles broke up, or the biggest load of rubbish to be foisted upon the unsuspecting masses since the official 9/11 Commission Report, depending upon your viewpoint.

My name is Frank P. Skinner.  As you might have observed, The Skinner Zone is named after me.  This is only logical, after all, as one could hardly expect me to name my blog after some schmoe picked at random from the Tuba City, Arizona, telephone directory.

Name calling aside, the reason I established this website is to provide the world with the benefit of my commentary and insight on various topics that are of interest to me.  The first of these is music.  From the time that I took piano lessons as a kid, I have always loved music.  My mother used to tell me that when I was a very young child, I would sit under the piano and watch Liberace perform on the Boob Tube, totally enraptured and not making a sound.  Later on, as a nine year old kid, I would discover Rock and Roll for the first time when I heard The Beatles singing "I Want to Hold Your Hand" and "I Saw Her Standing There," the first two songs on their American debut album, Meet the Beatles.  Since the Fab Four are still, after more than half a century, the greatest cultural phenomenon to arise in the entire history of the world, you will eventually read more about them right here in The Skinner Zone than you would ever think you wanted to know.

I am also a big Science Fiction fan.  When I was a kid, I read every such book they had at my local public library.  I was, and am, particularly fond of the works of BACH (Bradbury, Asimov, Clarke, and Heinlein).  These four brilliant writers kept me spellbound throughout my formative years, while all of the other normal kids were out wasting their time on such trivial pursuits as baseball and football.  Today, my interest in science fiction has grown to include movies and television shows, many of which will be commented upon herein.  Needless to say, I don't waste my precious television viewing time on boring stuff like idiotic reality shows, cookie-cutter cop shows, and moronic shitcoms.  Instead, I waste my precious television viewing time on vital and interesting programs like Star Trek, Doctor Who, Fringe, Continuum, Stargate SG-1, Andromeda, Farscape, The Outer Limits, The X-Files, The Twilight Zone, and all of the various shows that are derived from the DC and Marvel universes.

I first became aware of the outside political world when I was eight years old, during the Cuba Missile Crisis in October, 1962.  I lived on Mountain Home Air Force Base in Idaho at the time; thus, when I went to school every day, my fellow pupils and I had to practice going into the underground bomb shelter.  This continued for the duration of the crisis.  My mother got to the commissary too late to get any decent food; the only thing left on the shelves was Spam, and she grabbed all of it that she could.  Of course, the crisis was resolved forthwith, and things returned to normalcy.  However, we were stuck with cases and cases of Spam, which we had to continually eat until it was all gone.  Let it be known to all and sundry that I will never, ever forgive Nikita Khrushchev and Fidel Castro for triggering the Crisis, which resulted in my having to choke down that crap, for God only remembers how long, until it was all used up.  This is yet another example of the pain and suffering caused by International Godless Communism!  This became my introduction to the world of international power politics.

A year later, I was hit squarely in the face with a dose of domestic power politics when my president, John F. Kennedy, was assassinated.  To a nine year old kid sitting in his classroom in the fourth grade, it was mind-numbingly shocking that anybody would want to kill the President of the United States.  I would later discover that the events that took place in Dealey Plaza in downtown Dallas, Texas, on November 22, 1963, were much more complex than has been portrayed in the lamestream media.  When one considers that the same person cannot possibly be on the second floor of the Book Depository getting a Coke from the Coke machine at virtually the same moment that he was supposedly pulling the trigger on Jack Kennedy from the sixth floor, it becomes obvious that Lee Harvey Oswald was, to use his own term, "just a patsy."

Yet another year later, I observed my mother campaigning for Barry Goldwater in his 1964 presidential race against Lyndon Johnson.  The one episode that sticks out in my mind was the day our family went into town for its annual Air Force Appreciation Day celebration.  She gave me a helium balloon with an "In Your Heart Your Know He's Right, Vote for Barry Goldwater" bumper sticker affixed to its exterior surface.  It wasn't too long before a Lyndon Johnson apparatchik popped my balloon with a pin. I was so traumatized by this display of blatant political partisanship that I've been distrustful of the Democratic Party ever since.

These episodes from my childhood in Idaho served to set the stage for my lifelong interest in politics and current events.  In addition, there was a strict rule in our home - at 6:00 every evening, the television would be tuned to the Boise (later, Sacramento) affiliate of the NBC Television Network for the evening news.  Every weeknight, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley would deliver that day’s news of America and the world.  I would sit watching in awed fascination as they told stories of the latest goings-on concerning various current events, international intrigues, and domestic political controversies. 

As an adult, I added history into the mix, becoming an avid reader of the Story of Our Country and How We Got Into the Mess That We Elected Donald J. Trump to Fix.  As time passed, I read fewer and fewer science fiction novels and more and more books concerning contemporary politics and American history.  At some point in time, I realized that they are so closely related that they could be considered to be the same thing.  After all, yesterday's politics are today's history; today's politics, in turn, will become tomorrow's history.

I take great pride in being politically incorrect.  Over the last few decades, the Left in America has put together a network of institutions that it considers to be sacrosanct, and which cannot be criticized by anyone who does not want to run the risk of being characterized as a wingnut or labeled as racist, sexist, homophobic, Islamophobic, or any other “ist” or “phobe” that the bureaucratic blobs who run our institutions dream up because they have too much time on their hands.  These “sacred cows” consist of such as the Welfare State, the education bureaucracy, the United Nations, Democratic politicians, Big Media, Hollyweird, and, most recently, the illegal immigrant community and its supporters. These institutions (and others) are just sitting out there, big, fat bloated targets that are waiting for someone like Donald Trump to come along and put them in their place.  Puncturing such sacred cows and hearing the resulting squealing of outraged protest is one of the more satisfying experiences in life, at least to someone like me who is not part of the American Establishment or the Deep State.

As far as history is concerned, I am a total revisionist.  I utterly reject the Establishment propaganda that was spoon-fed to me in the public schools that I attended as a kid.  I've come to see that almost all of the presidents that lamestream historians like Doris Kearns Goodwin refer to as "great" were the ones who dragged our country into war, raised our taxes to confiscatory levels, or otherwise restricted our liberties in the name of "protecting our freedom,"  "saving the world for democracy," or some other similar piece of idealistic bullshit.  Conversely, many of the ones they consider to be failures were the ones who kept their heads down, did their jobs, and left the American people to their own devices.  In the course of this blog, I will be examining each of our presidents and judging them not by how much they made America "great," but by how much they kept its people free.

I won't beat around the Bush (George W., Jeb!, or otherwise). - I freely admit that I voted for Donald Trump for President in the November 2016 general election.  There is no way in Hell that I would ever vote for Hillary Clinton (or any other member of the Clinton family, for that matter, with the possible exception of Socks the Cat).  I do not apologize for any anxiety that this causes to those on the Left who whine about how the evil Republicans cheated us out of an extension of Barack Obama's failed abomination of a presidency.  I also do not apologize to the militant feminists, led by Madonna, who march down the street wearing their pink pussy hats and bloviating about blowing up the White House because "sexism prevented the election of the first woman president."

There are no "safe spaces" in The Skinner Zone, nor are there any crayons and coloring books or puppies and kittens to cuddle.  Please do not look for any sympathy from me – I managed to endure eight years of Barack Obama as president, eight years of George W. Bush (who really should have been a Democrat) before him, eight years of Bill Clinton before him, and four years of George H. W. Bush (who also should have been a Democrat) before him, for a total of twenty-eight years of failed presidencies; I managed to make it through by living my life as normal and not throwing a massive conniption fit every time an election did not go my way.  For the first time since Ronald Reagan was in the White House, the United States has a president in Donald J. Trump that I can actually respect and admire.  No, he isn’t perfect – there have been some disappointments during his first year in office.  However, I believe that he loves this country and has its best interests at heart.  In any case, he’s done more good for America in one year than the “Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse” previously mentioned did in twenty-eight.

Contrary to what you might think, I do have a day job.  I am a self-employed CPA, who specializes in preparing income tax returns for my clients.  If you would like to have me help you with your taxes, please visit my professional website, frankpskinnercpa.com, where you can find out more about my services and what I can do for you in this area.  In a nutshell, I provide tax preparation for clients in all parts of the United States.  I am also able to prepare Canadian income tax returns for clients who live in any province except Québec. 

The Skinner Zone contains several portals, each of which leads to a different area of interest.  First up, there is ROCK AND ROLL.  Music is a big part of my life, as I mentioned previously.  This section of my website contains articles about the different decades of rock music’s existence, as well as ones about different artists that I consider to be great.

I am very choosy when it comes to the music I listen to.  I’ve become disdainful of the crap that passes for music these days.  Accordingly, you will find lots of write-ups of great artists of the 1950s, ‘60s, ‘70s,and ‘80s.  Great artists since then are few and far between, and this section of my website will reflect that.

I am also a big movie buff.  I have quite an extensive collection of DVDs and Blu-Rays, and even a few VHS tapes that are still kicking around.  The HOLLYWEIRD portal leads to reviews of some of my favorite movies.  I like a lot of different types of movies, but am mostly a fan of science fiction, horror, and cult classics – B Movies Rule!  I do not really care for most of the big overblown, special-effects-laden bombs that are cranked out by the powers-that-sexually-harass-women in Hollyweird – you know, the type of films that routinely get nominated for Oscars.

SPOILER ALERT: These are not typical movie reviews in that too much is not given away.  I have written these articles under the assumption that you have already seen the movies in question.  Please keep this in mind when perusing this section of my site.

Closely related to movies is the institution of television.  The sector of my website labeled A VAST WASTELAND has been established to discuss the best that the Boob Tube has to offer.  The name of this portal is taken from a May 9, 1961 speech delivered by Newton N. Minow, who had just been named chairman of the Federal Communications Commission by President Kennedy, in which he characterized television as “a vast wasteland.”

Over the years, television programming has varied considerably in terms of quality.  Some shows have been incredibly great, while others are just plain boring.  Unfortunately, it seems like the less desirable ones keep going season after season, while the ones that are fresh and original, and which capture my interest, get cancelled after as little as a single season, or even a few episodes.  As is the case with rock and roll, I am quite choosy, and the selection of shows that I profile here will reflect this.

Please note that this portal is still under construction.  I hope to have something to put there in the near future.

In most of the sectors of The Skinner Zone, I take a light-hearted, humorous, and/or satirical approach to the topics I discuss.  RANTS & RAVES is the exception to this.  Behind this portal, you will find serious commentary about topics of public interest that I care to comment upon.  I have decided not to merely re-write what every other conservative commentator from Sean Hannity to Michael Reagan has to say.  For one thing, such commentators are down-the-line conservatives; by way of contrast, I tend to be more libertarian.  I will be looking to bring a more liberty-oriented and antiwar perspective to the issues I discuss.  Sometimes, this will coincide with what the conservatives have to say, and sometimes it will not.  Whatever I say, however, will be a reflection of how I feel about the topic at hand.

This section will also contain articles of historical figures and events.  In fact, such pieces will probably end up dominating this sector.  I plan to eventually do an article about each American president, and will be analyzing each of the wars that the United States has managed to get itself into.

Please note that this portal is also still under construction.  I expect to have it up and running later this year.

God certainly knew what He was doing when He created babes.  As a North American red-blooded heterosexual male, I am proud to say that I admire them at any and all times.  I know that in this day and age, it is politically incorrect to notice that babes are sexy.  However, even the Left cannot re-define human nature.  Physical attraction between men and women is a biological fact of life that no amount of psychological conditioning or feminist or religious dogma will ever be able to negate.

A "babe," by definition, is: "Any woman who is attractive, good-natured, and interesting."  The good news is that babes may be found everywhere - in movies and on television shows, as news anchors (why do you think they call it Fox News?), and out and about on the streets of Vancouver and other cities and towns of lesser quality.  There is no shortage of babes in the world, and they are all out there just waiting to be admired and schmoozed with.  I have to say, Mitt Romney had the wrong idea keeping his babes in a binder instead of allowing them to roam freely about the world.  Had he not done so, he might have defeated Barack Obama in 2012.

I created the HEAVENLY BODIES portal in The Skinner Zone as a way of acknowledging and paying tribute to some of the incredible babes who have come into my life.  Each page in this area is dedicated to a particular lady who has touched my life; I am quite fond of each and every one who is portrayed herein.

When I first moved to Vancouver in 1981, I joined the British Columbia Science Fiction Association (BCSFA).  One of the other members, a fellow American ex-pat by the name of Al Betz, wrote a column for BCSFAzine, the club’s monthly newsletter.  Calling himself Mr. Science, he answered questions posed by members of the club that were of a scientific nature.  His answers were humorous, and provided great entertainment for his readers.

I’ve had a lot of fun putting the FAQ portal together.  Taking inspiration from Al, I use this section to pose questions, which I then provide humorous and semi-serious answers for.  While Mr. Science dealt exclusively with scientific queries (it was a Science Fiction club, after all), The Skinner Zone deals with topics are wide-ranging – as well as scientific questions, my FAQs  include queries about music, television, movies, history, politics, and other topics that I feel motivated to deal with at any given time.  There is no logical order in which these Q & A’s appear; they are thrown together at random.

So here you have it – The Skinner Zone in a nutshell.  If you read through it, I am confident that you will find something you like.  You may also find something  that you dislike – that’s life!  One thing I hope is that you don’t find it boring.

Enjoy!

P.S. I also really like cats.  The damn things are just so cute and cuddly that I cannot resist picking them up and petting them.