Good evening. It is I Gigi the parti poodle here to introduce this week’s blog. As you may remember from last week, Artemis and I were perched on the catnapper’s kitchen counter looking down at the long drop to the Pergo floor. I turned my head towards the left and saw the glass topped stove and two kitchen towels hanging down from the bar handle. If we worked our way from the sink to the stove, we could each grab one of the kitchen towels and lower ourselves to the floor.

Artemis considers my idea and nods. She is, however, concerned about the slipperiness of the glass top stove. I agree with her but can see no other optimal way down. Except of course to jump which frightens me and my delicate poodle paws. We begin inching our way down the tan granite counter paw by paw until we arrive at the glass stovetop. Artemis deftly sinks her claws into both sides of the first towel and lowers herself to the Pergo. Unfortunately, my claws are not as deft. I slip and slide on top of the stove as I try to get my bearings. I reach down…grab the towel…and flip! I am dangling in midair about to slip! I could break my nails this way! Artemis quickly pushes a kitchen floor map under me and…plop! I land. Artemis looks at me shakes her head and licks her paw.

We look around at our surroundings and head towards the living room. Much like the kitchen, it is cleaner and neater than we expected. The place has cream-colored wall to wall carpet, a comfortable cloth couch and chair, an old-fashioned desk, a fireplace and a potted tree. I was stunned. Apparently, the catnapper vacuums.

Not noticing anything nefarious in the living room, we trotted on to the foyer. There were two flights of stairs. One that headed up and one that led down. And when you are trying to figure out where a catnapper might be up to something nefarious, down is the more likely choice. However, just to make certain this was indeed the case, we ascended the stairs to check out the rooms on the second floor first. After Artemis and I trotted to the top step, we found there was a narrow linen closet in front of us, and a door to a room. To the right there was one door and to the left there were two doors. We pushed open the first door to the left to find it was a bathroom. We trotted inside and saw it had grey walls and white tile with white fixtures with a dark brown fancy tile bathtub.

Next, we looked in the room to our right. It was set up to be an office. The room was painted mint green and had a computer desk, an office chair, a docking station, a printer, a bookshelf and a couple of file cabinets. Next to the file cabinet there was a wooden chair. I told Artemus there may be a clue in the file cabinet. She agreed. She hopped up on the wooden chair and was just about to open the cabinet when we both heard a car pull up in the driveway. Until next week, I bid you adieu.

MY BOOKS

You can check out my books Chicane and all five installments of the Musicology book series Musicology: Volume One, Baby!, Musicology: Volume Two, Kid!, Musicology: Volume Three, Twist!, Musicology: Volume Four, Sweetie! and Musicology: The Epiquad on Amazon in Kindle and Paperback editions. You can also check out Musicology’s web site at www.musicologyrocks.com and vote for who you think will win Musicology!

STREAM OF THE WEEK: ALL THE EMPTY ROOMS (2025)-NETFLIX

Stanford University is one of the leaders if not the leader in studying mass shootings and the individuals that commit them. It’s important I point this out because there are some films out there, let’s call them Problem Films, movies and television shows that get awards and accolades which present skewed information, missing information, and/or swaths of false information. They play on emotion over logic because the creators have an agenda. Or as the kids say, these films are rage bait. And being a writer, I’ve run across enough emotional artists to know sometimes they’re idiots. Seriously stupid empathic dolts. They will refuse to do their research and instead follow their misguided arrogance, write with their heart and not their head, and deeply and profoundly annoy those of us who take the time to look up facts.

That said, this movie is not a Problem Film. This movie is superb in delivering not only its message but the reality of the situation. Yes, the movie is emotional, but it is not irrational. And it absolutely without question deserved its Oscar win this past Sunday. But before I get into this must-see short documentary let’s look at some facts from Stanford’s studies:

1. Stanford researchers were able to study 35 mass shooters and determine a diagnosis on 32. Of the 32 diagnosed 28 met the diagnostic criteria of at least one psychiatric disorder. The most common diagnosis was schizophrenia, which affected 18 of the patients. https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2022/04/investigating-psychiatric-illnesses-of-mass-shooters.html
2. Other diagnoses included bipolar 1 disorder; delusional disorder, personality disorder, substance use disorder and post-traumatic stress disorder.https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2022/04/investigating-psychiatric-illnesses-of-mass-shooters.html
3. The study also points out the following: “None of the assailants had received medication or other treatment before committing the crimes. Most had never been medically diagnosed using scientific criteria.” https://med.stanford.edu/news/insights/2022/04/investigating-psychiatric-illnesses-of-mass-shooters.html

You think maybe as a society we should make researching mental health a priority?  

Moving on: in addition, it turns out, shock of shocks, it’s a very bad idea to have guns in a house where children live. Especially if their parents or siblings have any of the mental health issues listed above. In fact, it’s just a lousy idea to have guns and kids in the same house even if said parents, siblings, etc. are sane. Here’s why:

1. In 2020, gun violence surpassed car accidents as the No. 1 killer of children in the United States. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/02/children-mass-shootings.html
2. Lo and behold, 59% of kids who died in mass shootings were at the hands of a family member. Over 22 million U.S. children live in a home with a gun. If a domestic disturbance arises in those homes, the risk of death dramatically increases. https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/02/children-mass-shootings.html
3. And most importantly, “…there may be opportunities to prevent incidents of domestic violence by removing firearms from homes where relationships between adults are deteriorating or mental health concerns are rising.” https://med.stanford.edu/news/all-news/2025/02/children-mass-shootings.html

The point is there are essentially two problems involved in most mass shootings. Not all but most: mental health and easy access to firearms. It’s both mixed together like bleach and ammonia. It’s getting rid of lax gun laws and addressingthe urgent need to better advance psychology and neuroscience. That’s the bottom line. Some television and movies will often have you believe it’s a myriad of other fallacies from a person’s cultural background to visiting dark web online web sites to witnessing narwhals shooting confetti and glitter out their asses that invoke mass shootings. Where does this asinine stupidity come from? And even more befuddling, why do viewers believe these inane lies? Because they’re too lazy to fact check information?  Because some filmmakers are too arrogant to get all the facts to make their film? Because a conglomerate of low-rent critics says said film is good? The last time I checked most critics and filmmakers weren’t scientists or professional researchers.

All that said, this is a profound short documentary about two very brave, and I do mean brave men, correspondent Steve Hartman and photographer Lou Bopp. Hartman originally was given the job of going to schools where a mass shooting had occurred and present an upside story on the occurrence. These absurd missions took their toll and after a while Mr. Hartman concluded since he had a soul, he would rather do something useful and profound instead. Along with photographer Bopp, they decided to document and photograph all the bedrooms of children who lost their lives in school shootings. Bopp has an interesting ritual he does which is take what he and his daughter call “the morning picture”. Every day he takes a picture of her in the morning right at the time she is about to leave for school and has done so for years. He does it because you never know what might happen on any given day.

At the time of the filming, Hartman and Bopp had been doing this for seven years, which is remarkable, and they had three bedrooms to go. Looking at one of these rooms is brutal enough. Imagine what kind of courage and compassion it took to do this project for seven years. Their hope is to present their work on air. Everyone should see this short. There is no excuse. It should be required viewing as well as the short If Anything Happens, I Love You which I had as one of my streams of the week last year.