Advocate of Balance

3rd December 2024

Dear Advocate of Balance,

It looks like you want to write a book on balance and are having some trouble understanding the nature of the work. Calling this a religion and the book you mean to write a Bible would imply that you are a prophet. Prophets right Bibles.

There are a few Bible adjacent materials like an industrial Bible meant to be the end all catch all book on whatever subject it is covering. There are religious works like Bible interpretations that are not written by prophets and often by non believers. However, if you are looking to write a bible and start a religion you have to be a prophet not just a man with a good idea.

If your goal here is to start a group that worships you and will do strange things thinking you’re a god or connected with god what you are looking to write is a Bible. If you just think you have the right idea on how to live life you’re thinking of a book on philosophy.

Further to that point, there are already religions and philosophies that teach balance as you would like to focus on. Zen would be the best example. I can also say that the biographers of Buddha would fall into this category.

I’ll first grant that I don’t think I’m the right man for the job you have open. I’d work on it so long as the money is green and paying me wouldn’t harm you or your family in anyway. However, I think you’re looking for someone with a Doctorate of Divinity or a PHD in Philosophy.

Best wishes,



Richard Leland Neal

Jolly Rubino

5^th June 2015

Dear Cassi,

As I move through the mess that is my home I am sometimes reminded of a ship called the Jolly Rubino. It was a cargo craft hauling chemicals when it caught fire and burnt. The ship was such a disaster that salvage crews refused the normal ‘no cure no pay’ and opted for a daily compensation for doing what they could to save the environment.

The ship burnt so hot that when crew tried to rescue it their boots melted. In the end they had to drain the ship of oil, and let it burn itself out. Then they offloaded the chemicals and blew the ship to hell. This left the hulk open to the elements and the waves would eventually break it apart. Nature would take it back.

Is this the future of the rotting hulk that is my home? Will one day bulldozers need to smash it to bits and leave nothing of the old structure? I don’t know, Cassi, but what I do know is that whatever is going to happen is a long way off and hard work is between me and that moment.

I have so much to do and so little time.

Keep yourself, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

A Man so Broken as I

6^th January 2017

Dear Cassi,

A nimbus appears around every light when I look through my left eye. This is my body’s way of saying that I haven’t had enough water to keep the toxins out of my blood. I haven’t strained myself enough to justify this problem, but it came up anyway.

Over the last few days I’ve been pushing the consumption of vegetables. Pickle has been picky about that and I spent the last half of the day cleaning out the crap in my work room. There was cat spore that had been left from the time of my last litter of kittens more than a year ago.

I used the broom to sweep up the old cat litter and the smell of urine filled the air. This is depression. This is the look of a man so broken as I, and a man looking to change things. I have my better days like this one when I clean things up, and my bad days where I can’t get out of bed.

I’m told the Japanese have a tradition of filling in cracks in broken things with gold because the history makes them more valuable. I’m not sure you can do that with my home or my life for that matter. Then again if history makes a thing more valuable than I am worth more than gold and so are you.

Stay golden, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Save the Ocean Promotion

20^th November 2018

My Dear Friends at (YouTube Channel),

I’ve been a subscriber for some time and was wondering how much it is to sponsor a video. I’m running a promotion on my channel where I pay for a pound of trash to be removed from the ocean for every thousand subscribers, and I just want to get the word out.

I figure that sponsoring a video on your channel would be a good idea, because a group of science minded folks would want to save the ocean and this is a way they can do that free of charge. This is one of those grass roots ideas that starts with one person but it’ stalling and needs a bit of a boost.

I review movies, and that would be off brand for you folks, but saving the environment shouldn’t be off brand for anyone worth watching on YouTube. Imagine what would happen if we started this as a trend? What if YouTube creators started looking to good causes to find success? What a wonderful thing that would be.

In any case, here is a link to the promotion:

Let me know,

Richard Leland Neal

Putrid in My Clothes

30^th November 2017

Dear Cassi,

I am putrid in my clothes not having washed for almost three days being hard at work in the drafting of comics and such. The nature of my garments is a disgrace as they are raggedy and stained with cat fur bristling from them. I have discarded my undergarments some hours ago as they had grown too saturated with the substances of the body.

The washer hums and so does the drier with the items scraped from the floor after the garage had been cleaned. I sort them finding in there long idle nature they had found detritus. Little bits of things fall to the concrete as I go. Long stained garments and towels, things you would revolt to touch, are a constant company to my work.

It has been longer than six hours since I took food, but still I feel no hunger in this less than an hour past midnight. I dine only when my hands become too shaky for the drafting table as I draw comics as I work on other things.

This is me in the odd twilight of being a man of employment and yet still surviving off an unemployment check. The company for whom I work has no hours for me, and in the low point I work every day as if I will never return to my labors. I work every day as if I will never get another job.

I draft my comics as if my livelihood depends on them. I draft hard and long, but as always I am behind in my work. With some it is a matter of months with another it is more than a year of work waiting for my hand to lift a pen.

The long hours are hard on my body and my gut lives in me as some parasite digging into me and causing pain in my back. My body groans as I rise, but I can only sit so long before my blood demands motion.   I know I need water as the skin of my cheeks is cracked beneath my unshaven beard, but again I will soon need to force myself to eat.

For the whole of my life I have struggled with depression and this is only another battle in that long war. I fear I will fight until my dying breath, but what else can I do.

Live strong, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

A Letter to Logan Paul

2^nd January 2018

Dear Mr. Logan Paul,

I’ve just seen your apology on the news and this topic hits close to me given that two members of my immediate family have attempted to take their own lives. I have suffered with depression for a lifetime and have a good deal of experience with mental illness.

Let me say firstly that I understand. There is a certain spectacle to what you saw in Aokigahara forest of Japan and even Aristotle wrote of the seeing of dead bodies in his poetics. It may have seemed right to you to share so unique an experience with the world and not all of us understand the solemnity involved.  

With that, may I point out that the common person is not good with forgiveness and apologies rarely hit as close to home as offences. People lash out, they lash out because of the pain of their memories, and because they need someone to focus that pain on. The depressed often feel helpless and sometimes even the act of destroying one’s own self is an act of taking control.

Where does this leave you? Well, sir, you can turn this negative moment into awareness. More appropriately, you should find a way to help people with depression. Look at the story of YouTuber Boogie2988 who became profitable after being discovered by Ray William Johnson. Boogie was depressed and disabled until Ray gave him economic freedom.

You can do that, Logan, you can help people.  I know you tried by including a help line in your video, but I mean make it personal. What I think you should do is find ten people who suffer from depression and make their lives better. Include them in a blog or find a way to better their situation.

As a YouTuber and a Blogger I know a person like yourself can change the life of a man like me with a few clicks of a mouse. You may have made a mistake but you can still do the right thing and people will love you for it.

Go find someone to help,

Richard Leland Neal

Force of Arms

4^th July 2016

Dear Cassi,

The fireworks have come and gone but still a few rise into the burnt sky were the stars are blackened into to darkness by the actions of the human animal.  I still struggle with depression and the hunt for a job and the dark night has proven cover for a few drinks to sooth my angry mind.

As I look into that broken sky I remember a story I read once of a tyrant from space who brought a fleet of ships to earth and rained death on all the world. The story was called ‘Force of Arms’ and there are times I figure that this would be the only way to get a few things done in my life.

Sadly, I have no fleet of ships and no force to bring down. I have my drawings and photographs, which I bring to bear with blogs and videos. I keep thinking that if I work hard enough I’ll get somewhere but that doesn’t look like the case.

In the end of the story the fleet of ships were destroyed and the tyrant died. Is that my future, to die and be forgotten?

Sometimes I just don’t know,

Richard Leland Neal

Unknown Number of Minutes

Just a Short Letter

I found this letter in a pile of paperwork I had in a box and felt the need to publish it so the world could see. This fellow was my closest friend for eighteen years before returning from the army and making my life hell until I couldn't stand him any longer. Even in this letter he refers to me as "Rick" refusing to get my name right.

He evidently told his mother that we were no longer friends, because I wouldn't let him call me Rick. That's a good enough reason for me. 

Can Use the Walk

13^th November 2014

Dear Cassi,

       

It has been something of a tradition with Pickle to reward those who drive him about with food, and as his best friend is now occupied in some academic manner he has turned to my services.

       

He picks the restaurant and often the food. I feel this is proper as he is paying and I never complain of his choices, but today I swayed things some in the form of a long walk.

       

It turned out that he wanted to eat at ‘In n’ Out’ burger and, in the time of doing so, find himself a sport strap for his sunglasses. I took to parking at the sporting goods store some half mile from the eatery and insisted we walk.

This proved to be a poor idea because eating and long walks are not often good bed fellows. The feeling of a large burger in you makes the body feel slow. Keeping my lunch down wasn’t easy but that is the price you pay for good health I guess.

Find time for things, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Yule and his Pickle

14^th October 2014

Dear Cassi,

       

Pickles dropped more than one bomb of words on me yesterday. In addition to telling me that his steeling was revenge he said that he would move out and into a home with his father in at very least a year from now.

       

In my time here I believe I have never come up with a name for the old man so let me call him Yule. ‘Yule Tide’ is the old name for Christmas in the pagan world and so Yule fits a man with a long white beard and fat belly.

       

Pickles and his father Yule are to move to Chino when Yule’s lawsuit against the state finally resolves and he has the money to buy another home. They would then spend the rest of Yule’s life not far from Pony Girl. Pickles would then be servant to his ailing father.

       

As for me, Pickles says I would be left alone. I would be left to live out my life in the decaying home of my mother. The enormity of this lie is such that it looms overhead like a mountain.

       

If it pleases them they’d force me to sell, and I guess that would be the best deal I could get. Regardless, the forces of darkness have gathered and they march on my stronghold. I have time but when I close my eyes and listen I can hear them marching in the darkness.

Three hundred and sixty four days, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Healthy Privacy Invader

This is a letter form a health coach from one of those companies that tries to lessen medical coasts by making their employees healthier. It was a load of bull if you ask me.

13th January 2015

Hi Richard,

I wanted to let you know that I really enjoyed talking with you today. Thanks for taking time out to speak to me so we could identify goals that you are wanting to work towards.

I want to remind you that successful participation with (healthy privacy invader) includes tracking your goals at least 75 percent of the time, meeting your goals at least 50 percent of the time and being in contact with me on a regular basis. Meeting these requirements ensures that you will receive the incentive offered by your employer.

If you have any questions or concerns as you get started with (healthy privacy invader) these next few days and weeks, please don"t hesitate to give me a call or to send an email through the Core Messaging Center. I can be reached at (Phone). My toll-free number is (Phone).

You will find the Core Messaging either from the Message Center link to the left, or the Yellow box on your Quick View main page. You can send me a message through this internal email system by simply replying to any message I have previously sent you.

My office hours are Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday and Friday from 6 am to 12 pm your time. If you are ever unable to reach me you are welcome to speak with a support coach who can help you complete your regular contact requirement or address any questions you might have. Simply press “0” during my voicemail message and our Customer Service department will be happy to assist you.

I am confident that we will work well together! I look forward to hearing from you again the week of February 9th.

Thanks again. I hope that you have a great week!

The Nightmare that was this Day

Ire before her injury in 2014

12^th March 2015

Dear Cassi,

       

How can I describe the nightmare that was this day? It started with so normal a thing. I went to the car dealer to finally have my window wiper replaced and as I was coming home got a call from Pickle telling me that Ire was bleeding. The gray kitten had mucus coming out of her eye the day before, not much mind but enough for me to keep watch, and I hoped Pickle was mistaken.

       

He wasn’t, blood was dripping from my little cat’s right eye in two strands leaving little red disks on the floor. My little silver gray girl was weak and miserable from pain. I got her into the cat crate, and called the vet, who said they would take me right away, and so, that minute, I was in the car and making a drive that felt so much longer then it had the last time I went down that way. The attendant took one look at Ire and got her into the back to see the veterinarian who at once gave her morphine for the pain.

       

They told me that the prognosis was not good, and that Ire would probably need the eye removed. They said I needed to take her to a specialist and so sent me to the closest one to the clinic.

       

Finding this place was a nightmare in and of itself, because they never gave me the suite letter to find the eye clinic in that little block of shops. The map said 1301 S Beach. I got it into my head that the eye vet was in suite S, but there was no such suite. I paced that little strip mall twice before someone saw me and gave me directions. Even then the eye specialist was hard to find.

       

I felt better walking through the door and finally seeing a veterinarian. I’ll tell you the story of what happened there another day, but my troubles were far from over.

Keep your head about you, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Lend Me Not

9^th June 2015

Dear Cassi,

I think I’ve told you of the fellow Turtle Nose called Mr. Potato Head, and now that I think of it it’s just easier to call this fellow Spud. In middle school Spud had been my longest standing friend. I’d known him at least from second grade on making it then six years by the end of middle school.

I had known a few folks longer but had little relation with them. It did take me a few years to remember this fellow’s name, but then I had little ability to remember names and faces back then. My life was a burning blur of pain with little substance.

Now Spud was an irresponsible fellow who was always borrowing money. Then one day I told him no. It had been little more than a dollar a day, or something there about, but when it came clear that he would just never pay me back I was done lending. He was furious.

He insulted me, he heckled me, he complained to his friends. It made no difference to me as I was sick of him owing and never paying. We figured some time that by my freshman year in high school the fellow owed me about two thousand dollars. He never paid and frankly never stopped asking for something.

I think he was the first of the dead beats I had to remove from my life. I haven’t spoken to this fellow in fifteen years. Well, good riddance.

Take out the trash, little sister,

        

Richard Leland Neal

Private Person’s Arrest

24^th October 2013

Dear Cassi,

Today I made my first private person’s arrest. It’s a funny thing about that, you see, I made this arrest on duty as a security officer when the person was clearly guilty of trespassing.  The police knew that my company would never press charges, but the person in this case had laid hand on me.

       

It started with the common event of someone coming to the front door of the building and looking like they needed help. As the intercom system is out I could do little, but let him in to communicate but as he was shirtless and rather grubby I thought he had been in a fight and needed help. When I open the door he said he needed the police and I said I would call them. He then asked to use the restroom, and I said I couldn’t let him in. Management had made a stink about that lately and they felt mercy took second seat to safety. I can’t argue the point.

As is often the case he got agitated and, feeling entitled, started screaming. This happens. When you deal with the client population that I deal with things like this are just par for the course. I’m not sure if this man was just crazy or if he wanted to spend the night in a jail cell. Jail cells are more comfortable than the street and he needed a bath so bad that getting locked up wouldn’t have been as bad as his smell. 

He reached over the partition and smacked me on the chest prodding me do let him in, and I said if he did not leave he would be arrested.  We argued verbally until the police came and cuffed him.

It was a hell of a thing to watch, he said he called them, they told him to tell it to the judge and then asked if I wanted to make an arrest. I said yes and the Officer took paperwork out of her shirt and filled it out. I signed it and they took him away.

Keep yourself, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Writing Letters - Liz Carpenter

The Happy Valkyrie Book

This is another Book review for a book that was being considered for publication. I didn’t care much for it, but I tried to be nice about that.
Some Time in 2014

Valkyrie Book

Okay, I’ve read up to chapter three (page 45) of (Valkyrie Book) and I can honestly say this book is well out of the range of things I should be reviewing. So I’m not going to give it a star rating and you should take into account that this isn’t the kind of book I’d read.

That said, the world is clear and accessible. I get what’s going on. The grammar puts me off some. There are a good deal of sentences starting with ‘but’ or ending with ‘it’, and after having it grilled into me not to do such things it bothers me. Still, this is a stylistic choice on the part of the author, and she can do what she wants.

In the space of the first three chapters everything comes very easy for the main character, and I think that’s how these stories tend to go. I’m reminded of the documentary “The Secret” when reading this storyline.

If I were to make any suggestions I would say to give the audience a reason to care about the main character. I mean, she isn’t in peril, her father wants her back but isn’t that intent on getting her, she’s living with some fellow who appears to be nice enough.

I could also go into a few logistical things like ‘how did she walk around with a sword with no one noticing,’ ‘why not just bump off a drug dealer for money,’ and ‘why didn’t she take a bag when she left home,’? but again I’m not sure any of that would be important.

All in all, you want to read a story about a girl having a good time this is for you. If that isn’t your bag then this isn’t for you.

Lost File

26^th October 2014

Dear Cassi,

         

The strangest thing happened. I lost a letter file. I opened my computer and found it missing but no amount of searching revealed wherever I put the old file and so I’ve lost about two months worth of letters I never sent. Ah well, how many times do I need to tell you that I’ve been struggling with keeping the dishes clean?

         

For that matter, how much of my life’s records have been lost to my injuries of this year or simply my depression? This new development brings me not even one year closer to being caught up. In fact, I remain no less than nineteen months behind in the mailing of my letters. To put that into perspective, if I cleared one month worth of letters every week when I am done with what I have now I’d rack up another four months backlog.

         

To be clear, I did have my faced blooded some and have lost three pets then gained two more in the last year. Every battle feels hard fought and every day feels too short for work and too long in problems.

         

I keep trying to burn through my long held reserves only to fine the fuel wet and the matches old. So the piles of long held nonsense loom like hills on a long walk home. Well, here I have my walking stick in hand and on my back a heavy pack.

Walk on, little sister,

Richard Leland Neal

Evils of Life

15^th January 2012

Dear Cassi,

Another week has passed and grad school, work, and being sick come together as a pill a snake would have trouble getting down. I have little idea what to do with myself. It’s nothing new that I feel as if there simply isn’t enough time, but now the hard coughing and runny nose are getting the better of me.

   

As it has always been with me, and most folks I think, I wish I could just turn the world off and take stalk. If I had six weeks of nothing to do I would just piss it all away so turning the world off wouldn’t help. That’s what happened during my unemployment. I spent my time reacquainting with TV shows and movies I had missed.    

   

If you think I’m mad at myself your right. I let depression and despair get the better of me and now look. I’m truly no better off than I was a month ago. I will say that I’m better off than I was six months ago, and last year round this time I could hardly get out of bed.

   

Okay, so I just feel bad, and it’s honestly no big deal. I still should have all three of my comics posting instead of just one. Then I guess I’m putting too many steps in the way of getting them squared. I’m trying to seek out the spelling errors and replace the text when I have to, but I need to get all those old comics up on the new sites.

   

Sometimes, Cassi, I feel like the only real link to who I am and who I was is that old comic site that I need to ask that fair-weather friend, Eric, to take down. That old comic site is like some beacon of hope to the evils that once dominated my life.

Stay safe, Cassi,

Richard Leland Neal

Fiat Justitia - John Quincy Adams