Reality Is Reality

Recently, I watched a documentary about a music video television station from the Boston area called V-66. The man behind this venture felt he could do a much better job than MTV and thanks to a lot of hard work and innovation, V-66 started to make a name for itself during the mid-1980s. Of course, it helped that V-66 was a free over-the-air station at a time when some communities in New England still lacked cable TV.

For all the buzz V-66 generated, it only lasted about a year and a half before being sold to the Home Shopping Network. The station's owner explained V-66 was losing money and if he wanted to avoid going into debt, he had to make the hard choice to pull the plug on his creation while there was still time. In his words, “Reality is reality.” While the station's demise was sad news for Boston area music video lovers, V-66's investors still made a tidy profit.

Sometimes in life you can have all the hope in the world but it doesn't get you very far when your good intentions smash right into the brick wall of reality. The words from V-66's owner echoed in my mind when I thought about my current situation as a Catholic single.

Reality: I just don't know where to go to meet other singles. Bars and nightclubs are actually terrible places for meeting people especially if you're shy and looking for someone who shares certain core values that mainstream society rejects.

Reality: The part of the country I live in tends to be very liberal politically and most residents have a local quirkiness that just turns me off.

Reality: I encounter a heck of a lot of elderly people in my travels but eligible women close to my own age are a rarity. Sometimes several months will pass before I even see someone that's attractive (and I'm not looking for a perfect 10 either).

Reality: Almost everyone my age carries a lot of baggage with them which means I won't likely find a significant other who is equally yoked.

Reality: Much younger women are off the table. There's too much of a generation gap and at my age, they remind me of the daughter I never had.

Reality: Online dating is a joke. It's very difficult to get to know someone when you're not talking to them face-to-face but the selection found on some dating websites leaves a lot to be desired.

Reality: Getting to know someone in real life takes a long time and unless the person is very open and honest, you'll never know how a relationship might turn out. There are plenty of miserable married people who say they'd be much happier if they were single and alone.

Reality: Even if I found a woman who shared the same values, goals and desires, it is personality that makes all the difference.  The people I get along with most in life actually have very different values and religious beliefs.

Reality: I'm getting too old for the married life I used to dream about. Is raising a family even possible when statics show very few men in my age bracket have kids? Would I even have the energy?

Reality: I've been alone for so long, someone entering my life would need to be very patient and understanding but when I look at most of my friends' relationships, there's only disharmony and resentment as they get older.

Reality: While I'm good at saving money and avoiding debt, I've only worked dead-end jobs. That's a big red flag for the vast majority of women. Unemployment is even worse and there are times when I've quit a job with nothing to fall back on.

Reality: Caregiving for my elderly mother continues to take an enormous toll. I can no longer up and go somewhere whenever I feel like it. Dating someone who lives far away is pretty much off the table and I have so very little free time to begin with.

Reality: I just don't seem to fit in anywhere. I'm too liberal for conservatives and too conservative for liberals. I'm not a cafeteria Catholic but don't fit in with trad Catholics either. While I enjoy certain hobbies, music, movies and TV shows, their fans just annoy me.

Reality: It's hard enough to make and keep friends so how am I supposed to find a wife? I've been burned by a lot of people I've cared about while other friends just quietly disappear.

Reality: There might be a great woman out there that I have a lot in common with but because she lives thousands of miles away in a place I've never heard of, there's no way we'll ever meet.

All these realities don't give me much hope that I'll ever find a wife or even a girlfriend and while a miracle could still happen, I think it's highly unlikely...and those are pretty bad odds.

Valentine's Day Reflections On Ten Years Later

This February marks the ten year anniversary of Long Lost Black Sheep. I created this blog out of frustration for the way the Catholic Church treated its singles who wanted to get married. After reading other blogs on the subject, I felt it was time to share my perspective knowing full well that what I had to say might not be embraced by many traditional Catholics since I refused to shy away from being critical of our clergy. They had neglected people like me for far too long and if singles weren't being given bad advice, they were treated as if they were invisible. I wanted to challenge our spiritual leaders to do better and help out whenever they could. After all, the future of the Catholic Church depended on it whether they realized it or not.

Over the past ten years, I did manage to meet with our regional bishop and spoke to him at great length about the subject. I also hand delivered a letter to Cardinal O'Malley but sadly, not much of anything ever came of it. The bishop recommended I join a Catholic dating website, and the Cardinal sent me a form letter that failed to address anything I talked about.

I also used this blog to chronicle many of my personal experiences growing up in the Catholic faith. I especially wanted to highlight some of the different parishes I belonged to and share stories about my days in Catholic school. I figured capturing these moments in time from long ago might provide valuable lessons but unfortunately, this aspect of the blog has fallen by the wayside over the years.

Interestingly, the most popular entry on this blog by far is the one about disgraced former Bishop Fenwick chaplain Fr. Jim Nyhan. A Google search about this ex-priest usually leads most people right to this website. All of the other content on Long Lost Black Sheep doesn't have anywhere near the numbers as that particular blog entry.

Lastly, if there were any subjects that had nothing to do with Catholicism or being single, I'd still blog about them just to get my observations out there. Over the past ten years, many of those other Catholic singles blogs have disappeared but Long Lost Black Sheep soldiers on even if it's become an increasing struggle to find the necessary free time to write. Working the night shift for many years has ruined my sleep patterns and the demands of caregiving for my elderly mother grows with each passing year.

I know I can be judgmental and divisive at times but I hope there are readers out there who get something useful out of this site. Most blog entries generate no feedback whatsoever. Every once in a great while someone will post a thoughtful comment but more often than not I hear from the “peanut gallery” who make snarky remarks or ask intrusive questions. Keep in mind, I moderate all comments and if someone crosses a line, their words never see the light of day.

Over these past ten years, I followed the bishop's advice and joined a Catholic dating website but the experience was not that great and a portion of this blog highlights some of the drama. Long Lost Black Sheep would never have been popular on the now defunct CatholicMatch forum but to my surprise, a couple of my biggest critics grudgingly agreed with me that the Church needed to do more for it's younger singles who seek marriage.

During my time on CatholicMatch, I only dated one woman for a few months and what began as a wonderfully hopeful experience ended very abruptly. It's left me confused, wary and highly doubtful that I'll ever find anyone to be in a relationship with.

This Valentine's Day, I pondered all the words of encouragement people have given me over the years. “God will answer your prayers.” “You'll eventually find someone.” “There's someone for everyone so it's only a matter of time.” Such sentiments seem very hollow right now even if they were well-intentioned.

So much time has been lost that my dream of falling in love and getting married feels all but dead. If only there had been some kind of help for Catholic singles when I was in my 20s or 30s or 40s.  If only the people I talked to about being single had actually taken me seriously.

A New Liberal Mascot

Each weekday, a Boston-area college radio station that I regularly listen to pauses their musical programming for an hour to air the syndicated show Democracy Now! What's labeled as underground journalism or alternative news free from corporate influence is actually nothing more than far-left propaganda. Host Amy Goodman (whose gravelly voice is unbearable) pushes a liberal agenda by not only selecting topics and guests that further her favorite causes, she manipulates the very language of her reporting so that it's biased against conservatives.

While talk show host Rush Limbaugh clearly stated his political leanings, Amy Goodman pretends to be nothing more than an objective investigative journalist just doing her job to uncover the truth. Like a coward, she often lets her guests make some of the more inflammatory statements that push her agenda while she simply nods in agreement.

Ironically, Amy Goodman's disdain for what I'd call western capitalist values regularly places her in the same camp as those who would like nothing more than to destroy many of the freedoms she supposedly fights for. Her early reports on America's involvement in the Ukraine War had her siding with Vladimir Putin because how dare the west try to secretly influence a former Soviet republic.

Of course, the biggest target of Democracy Now! in recent years has been Israel. Amy Goodman's sympathy for oppressed people is so strong, that she allies herself with those who embrace radical Islam. In her warped left-wing mind, white western people must be wrong and brown people from exotic lands must be correct. She disproportionately criticizes free western nations like Israel and the United States because she can. There's not as much zeal when it comes to highlighting the atrocities of oppressive dictatorships or intolerant Muslim fanatics, however.

Amy Goodman also links the rhetoric of President Donald Trump to an increase in hate crimes. Of course, she talks with various “experts” on the subject to hammer that point home but would the shoe fit if it were on the other foot?

In May of last year, Yaron Lishinsky and Sarah Milgrim were killed outside the Capital Jewish Museum in Washinton D.C. by a gunman who shouted, “Free, free Palestine!” upon being arrested. The young Jewish couple had just left an event that was focused on building a coalition to support Gazans. Clearly, this was a hate crime and all the rhetoric the left had spewed against Israel played a part in their deaths but would Amy Goodman take any sort of responsibility for this shooting? Of course not. Democracy Now! featured a Jewish guest who briefly offered condolences but then proceeded to blame the shootings on Israel's treatment of the Palestinians. Several comments on left-wing websites were more blunt saying Yaron and Sarah got what they deserved and more “Zionists” needed to die.

Right after this shooting, I thought a new liberal mascot could be “Not Me” from the comic strip Family Circus. When the parents in that comic accused their children of mischief-making, the little ones denied it by saying, “Not me!” and an invisible phantom by that name was drawn as the cause of all the trouble. My idea seemed to gain even more relevance with the fatal shooting of Charlie Kirk.

I never heard of Charlie Kirk before September 10^th of 2025 but news of his murder really bothered me. Firstly, it was surprising to see the large audiences he attracted on college campuses because I had long written off academia as being too liberal. Here was a man who often spoke of moral values that sometimes aligned with the Catholic Church's most controversial teachings and he was actually changing hearts and minds. Secondly, the shooting was all about silencing a voice that liberals didn't agree with. How the left reacted to the death of Charlie Kirk was very telling.

In the immediate aftermath, everyone seemed shocked and saddened but very quickly, the left's ugly side would be revealed. Some mockingly asked, “Charlie Kirk who?” With the identity of the shooter still unknown, more than a few liberals took joy in posting comments and memes that said conservatives were now sweating because the shooter might be white. Then they began to cherry-pick Charlie Kirk's comments to paint him as a white supremacist, anti-woman and anti-gay. No doubt some of these statements were taken out of context and this prompted gay YouTube personality Amir Odom to create a video that debunked the biggest lies told about Charlie Kirk. In fact, Amir credits meeting the conservative speaker for inspiring him to launch his own YouTube channel. I wasn't sure what to believe since I was unfamiliar with Charlie Kirk's views, but it became clear that many on the left abandoned decorum in order to celebrate this man's death. Since he was killed while talking about gun violence, they called it poetic justice. A few people on YouTube were so disgusted by the celebration of Charlie Kirk's death, they pledged to give up being liberal.

Some on the left engaged in “what-about-isms” by noting the right's lack of sympathy for the June 14, 2025 shootings of Melissa and Mark Hortman and John and Yvette Hoffman. I think a big reason for this disparity was the fact that Charlie Kirk was nationally known and his murder was captured on video in front of a large crowd but if we are to engage in what-about-isms, what about Yaron Lishinsky and Sarah Milgrim? Their deaths were quickly forgotten by the media because it didn't fit a certain narrative.

As a clearer picture of Charlie Kirk's shooter started to emerge, the left continued to twist the facts. They claimed since Tyler Robinson was raised in a pro-Trump household and even dressed up as Trump for Halloween once, he must be an extreme right-winger. They gleefully asserted Charlie Kirk was killed by "one of his own" and that it was an inside job even though children routinely rebel against their parents' moral beliefs.

Soon they concocted a cockamamie theory that Tyler Robinson was a far-right “groyper” who followed the teachings of Neo-nazi Nick Fuentes. Amy Goodman loves to criticize many of Trump's statements by prefacing his quotes with the words, “Without proof, Donald Trump said...” In the case of the Charlie Kirk shooting, this so-called underground journalist stated, “Some have speculated that Tyler Robinson was a groyper.” We should rename her show Hypocrisy Now! for having such double standards about things not proven.

This outlandish groyper theory was starting to fall apart as more information emerged about the shooter but that didn't stop late night talk show host Jimmy Kimmel from promoting it during one of his anti-Trump monologues. With the prompting of the FCC, he was suspended by the ABC Network. Liberals saw this as a freedom of speech issue with many feeling Jimmy Kimmel did nothing wrong. The talk show host returned to the airwaves a few days later to cry crocodile tears without ever acknowledging how inappropriate his groyper remarks were. Some liberals even accused conservatives of behaving like the “snowflakes” the right often criticized. In other words, “It's okay for the left to be overly sensitive and employ cancel culture tactics but how dare the right stoop to our level.”

Society seems more fractured than ever because two incredibly large groups of people hold dear very different values but in my experience, liberals tend to think they're so much more enlightened than conservatives. When complaining about this divisiveness, they refuse to look in the mirror and consider that maybe, just maybe they're part of the problem too. “Not me!”