Adjustments to Walk-a-Thon Schedule

For those familiar with my campaign, I have been planning a walk across the United States raising awareness about the entertainment industry and how unaffordable entertainment has become.  The walk is supposed to start in October in Atlantic City and end in April in San Diego.  However; with the meeting of Independent Presidential Candidates slated from November 14 to 21, I had to make some adjutments to the route.  The adjusted map will be posted sometime within the next two weeks.

• I am still leaving from Atlantic City on Saturday October 10.
• Instead of walking all the way to San Diego directly, I will walk to Pittsburgh’s airport.  I plan on making it to the airport in time to fly out on the 14th of November.
• I will fly back to Pittsburgh on the 21st and continue my trip from there.
• I am now scheduled to arrive in San Diego on April 17, which is after Opening Day for the San Diego Padres.  I will be unable to throw out the first ball on opening day.

I am still looking for places to stop along the route.  e-mail me if you want me to speak to your group about affordable entertainment.

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Awareness Campaigns and Why I Don’t Like Them

I have issues with “awareness” campaigns.  The issue isn’t that the causes aren’t important, but that they are too important to only allow a week or a month dedicated to the issue.

Take AIDS Awareness Month for example.  December is usually AIDS Awareness Month.  I think that AIDS requires our attention year-round.  Just because it is not AIDS Awareness Month doesn’t mean that you can’t get AIDS from unprotected sex or from sharing needles.  Grandma Oudda has taken AIDS awareness to the next level.  She will never share her knitting needles again because she doesn’t want to spread or contract AIDS.

April is National Autism Awareness Month.  I am afflicted with a form of autism known as Asperger’s Syndrome.  Awareness doesn’t mean that I get to pack away my symptoms for the year every May 1.  The symptoms are around in May, June, July, and every other month – not just April.

July is National Hemochromatosis Month (Whatever that is.)  Hemochromatosis is an overload of iron in a person’s body.  The only reason why I am mentioning this is because it is July and I know not everybody is going to give heed to what I am writing.

This is why I have never (and will never) set a month aside for Affordable Entertainment Awareness.  Entertainment is expensive every month, not just July, April, or December.  If there is an issue close to your heart, then you should know that awareness has to be a 365-day project and not just something that needs only one month’s attention.

Publicity Problems

It was 8:55AM and I was just about ready to walk from Schaanwald to Vaduz.  There was no media:  No television, no radio, no newspapers, nobody from the media.  There weren’t any people except for a young man named Rolf.  He was wearing a green military jacket, a green military t-shirt, and faded and shredded blue jeans.  He had a bone to pick with me.  He was wondering why I was doing this walk-a-thon for Affordable Entertainment Awareness and not for allowing the good people of Liechtenstein tovote for the leader of the free world.

I explained to Rolf that my original intent was for what he wanted when I planned this trip.  However, a lady named Claudia from nearby Planken (in Liechtenstein, all the cities are nearby.  It is the Delaware of Europe.) had been following my blog for a while and she seemed irate about the cost of entertainment.  She did not seem overly concerned about being unable to vote for the leader of the free world.  So I decided to go with the Affordability Awareness campaign.

Rolf and I headed off to Vaduz.  He had handwritten a sign in German for me to carry.  The sign he had me carry said,

“Nur eine dumme Person Kampagne in Liechtenstein, um Präsident der Vereinigten Staaten.” 

He told me that it said, “It takes a special person to campaign in a country he doesn’t live in.”  I found out later it meant something different.

Rolf was filming the walk-a-thon on his camcorder while I was holding the sign.  He got plenty of closeups of just me and the sign.  People were honking their horns as they drove by.  It seemed like Claudia was wrong and Liechtensteiners wanted to vote for the leader of the free world. 

At about 2:00, I arrived in downtown Vaduz.  When the people in the streets of Vaduz saw the sign I was carrying, they started laughing.  I was puzzled that people in the rest of the country seemed to applaud my effort while they laughed at me here.

A supporter who spoke both German and English told me that the sign actually meant, “Only an idiot would campaign in Liechtenstein for the President of the United States.”  At first I was mad at Rolf, but I soon realized he was just misguided.  While it is true I am running for the President of the United States, I feel it is important that people in the free world should be able to vote for the leader of the free world.   It just happens that the leader of the free world is always American.

Walk-a-Thon Canceled

I was going to walk across the country starting this weekend to raise awareness for affordable entertainment.  I have run into a couple of problems along the way:

• The weather:  While I know it is cold in the winter, this is my first winter north of the Mason-Dixon Line in a few years.  I had forgotten how COLD it gets up here.  I could only imagine how much colder it would be if we weren’t warming the planet by using air-conditioners.
• The planning:  Google says the trip should take 37 days and 14 hours.  That is assuming I am going to walk non-stop between the moment I start and the moment I arrive in San Diego.  I haven’t walked in my sleep in years.
• The path chosen has the fewest supporters.  I have created a revised map to include visiting supporters.
• With all the revisions and walking only 8 hours a day, it would take me 183 days to complete the walk.

The additional days would be a drain on my budget.  With the 7-day plan, I had enough money to stay at a hotel every night.  Under the current plan, I would have to crash at my supporters’ trailers.  I cannot impose myself like that.

I will find a way to make this work.  America must find out about the ills of the CineMafia.  This is my life mission.

Walk-a-Thon for Entertainment Affordability Awareness

View Walking Map

It will be a week-long event as I will walk across the country in January,  Further details will be announced over the next two weeks.