Resolutions

I hope we are all better in 2020 than the shit people we all were in 2019. Happy New Year!

True Sacrifice

Dying is so easy and so final. If Jesus really wanted to redeem mankind with his suffering, he would have gotten a job at a bank, a college debt, a mortgage, and a couple of kids. He could have died for our sins nightly, a glass of bourbon in his hand and the late show on the television.

Customer Service

Getting my oil changed at one of those quick oil change places, and the older white guy in the car next to me starts yelling at a younger white mechanic. The older man asks to talk to the manager. A black guy about my age comes out—clearly either the general or shift manager—and starts talking to the angry customer. The customer says, ‘I asked to talk to the manager!’ The manager says, ‘I am the manager sir. Let me know how to help you.’ Then the customer says, ‘ I need to talk to the white man who pays you!’ and I saw all of the (white) mechanics’ eyes widen. I was hoping for a strong comeback from the manager, but he responded in a better way by being unfazed and professional, and moving things along. When the customer checked out, he almost seemed chastened as he paid for his service.

Hats

My grandfather loved hats. I grew up thinking men should wear hats. At my first job in the human services, I met an older man who always wore fly ass hats. One day I asked him, ‘how many hats should a man have?’. He laughed and said, ‘I’m a recovering addict. I used to buy crack, now I buy hats’. He didn’t give me a specific number of hats a man should have, but he taught me other things about being a man, and, PS, I’ve got a bunch of hats now.

Nitpicking

Maybe it’s a small point, but how can someone be both radical and ‘do-nothing’? Doesn’t ‘radical’ ultimately imply action? How can you be radical if you’re not doing anything? Also, LOL to the whole ‘radical left’ thing. If any kind of radical left was in power in the U.S., we wouldn’t be talking impeachment. We would be talking guillotines.

Joel Osteen

I guarantee you, every motherfucker trying to give inspirational speeches based on their own experiences and create memorable motivational quotes on Facebook has absolutely burned their own life completely to the ground, and their mom knows the truth.

I Go By Many Names...

Who is this man with a matching universe themed hat and hoodie, walking aggressively down my street, chugging passionately from a white Monster energy can and carrying a black grocery bag full of mysteries? I need to know his story. I don’t need to hear the soundtrack, because I’m sure it’s all Drowning Pool, Staind, and Korn, but his story...I actually probably don’t need to know it. I’m pretty sure I could write a better one.

Read Into This

‘So ridiculous. Greta must work on her Anger Management problem, then go to a good old fashioned movie with a friend! Chill Greta, Chill!’

Donald Trump has completely validated all of Sigmund Freud’s ideas. He may not specifically want to be Greta Thunberg, but he very much wants to be the youngest, prettiest, most noticed girl in the room. I feel bad for him, and I feel bad for the entire world, because we have to suffer the ramifications of this sad, hurt man’s neuroses.

I Am But A Man

When your kids are upset, and you improvise some philosophy and motivational talk (right out of your ass), and the evening is saved, and...maybe we all really learned something here?

Honor Among Thieves?

Apparently I left my wallet at a gas station I went to this morning. Someone turned it in to the proprietor and they found my business card and called my work phone to let me know they had it. I had 80 dollars in there, and when I picked the wallet up there was only 5 dollars left. I’m conflicted about how to feel about this. Obviously someone stole from me, but on some level, they decided not to totally clean me out, which counts as a certain kind of compassion.

Be An Extremist

I don’t understand people who don’t hold public office declaring themselves ‘moderates’. You’re not an elected official. You are free to advocate for your actual worldview in a completely undiluted way! You don’t have to compromise with opposing parties or write legislation you think will be able to muster enough votes to pass. Say what you really want. Organize to put pressure on elected officials to make it happen. Vote for officials you believe are most likely to represent your views. The compromise and moderation and vote counting happens within the government structure. If you start off with a watered down demand because you think it’s more pragmatic, by the time the elected get around to actualizing, it will already have lost all of its flavor. Be an extremist for what you believe. Centrism is weak. It’s affected by weak, vain bores who lack imagination and value the appearance of being sophisticated members of the intelligentsia above all else. Take your NPR tote bag and get out of here.

#Mood

Heads up to anyone who has to interact with me today, I appear to be in a really irritable mood. I’m trying to manage it, but to illustrate the depth of my condition, I just got profoundly annoyed by my windshield wipers, and aggressively hit the lever to turn them off in a way that if verbalized would translate into a really bitchy, ‘Could you fucking not?’

What Came First?

I can’t decide if hurt, sad men, incapable of insight, growth, and healing, created the (all fictional) characters of James Bond, John Wayne, and Frank Sinatra, or if those fictional characters created these real men. Definitely a chicken/egg situation.

Just Breath On Glass

There’s nobody in this room,
Not even me.
There are no birds in the sky,
And definitely no bird in that cage
I keep in the corner,
Always changing the newspaper
Always refilling the water
And the food dish.
There are no birds in the oil,
And none in my belly.
There is no one reading this,
And no one writing it.
There is just space.
There are just these two hypothetical points,
These two dots on an imaginary map.
The space contracts and expands.
Sometimes the string is tight,
And sometimes it’s loose.
But there’s no one pulling on it,
And when it goes slack,
It’s not because someone is tired,
Because there is no one.
Not here,
Nor anywhere else.

When They Still Have a Little Puppy in Them

My 8 year old just joyfully asked, ‘Hey Daddy? What’s a Muslim?’ and I giggled at the sweetness and out-of-nowhereness of the question and gave him a brief bullet point version of Islam. I love small moments like that.

Prohibited Activities

I’m guessing everything listed beneath skateboarding is meant to refer to things you can with a skateboard, but to me, this sign is telling us not to ride a skateboard, not to use your legs to momentarily propel yourself into the air, not to gnash your teeth or grind your pelvis against another person in a sexually provocative dance, and not to apply hot wax to your body in order to remove hair. At least not here.

Men and Cars (and Maybe My Childhood?)

I am not really a car guy. I remember the first time I actually wanted a car: it was in high school, and I saw a BMW Z3 in front of a pool hall one night. I asked my friends to hold up so I could check it out. ‘What’s the deal here?’, one friend asked. ‘ I want to have sex with this car’. I said.

Just now, for whatever reason, I pull up next to this Le Sabre, and I’m like, ‘I need this car’. I need a Freudian to help me translate this urge.

Your Next President. If You’re Good.

Famous Presidential Quotes

"Any man worth his salt will stick up for what he believes right, but it takes a slightly better man to acknowledge instantly and without reservation that he is in error." - Andrew Jackson

"Labor disgraces no man, but occasionally men disgrace labor." - Ulysses S. Grant

“It is hard to fail, but it is worse never to have tried to succeed. In this life, we get nothing save by effort." - Teddy Roosevelt

“Ask not what your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country.” - John F. Kennedy

“Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!” - Ronald Reagan

“I want nothing! I want nothing! I want no quid pro quo!” - Donald Trump

It Turns Out God is a Surrealist French Filmmaker From the 1940’s

What the actual fuck. After I watched this weird, tragicomic meltdown, it took me a minute to realize my mouth was still agape and my eyebrows were still raised to their limit. Signs and wonders, folks.

Freud Was Right About Everyrhing.

For real though, the world wouldn’t be in the condition it is if a handful of white men had known how to talk to their fathers. 

West Clermont Local Schools

(this post is re: my community, but probably indicative of practices across the country):

An administrator from West Clermont Local schools called me to inform me that my son would be given detention for being late to school 20 times this year (no later than 10 minutes), and I explained to him that this practice is discriminatory against different family types (a stay at home parent who lives a block from the school and has one kid will have a much easier time than a kid with two brothers who each go to different schools and live in different houses different distances from the school twice a week). The administrator seemed to accept this, and my son wasn't given detention, but this baseline is still discriminatory—and West Clermont Local for some reason doesn’t seem to allow public posts—so I’m posting this here on my page for other families who find this unnecessarily punitive practice unacceptable. Hopefully if enough of us speak up, they will stop punishing our children for not living in homes that fit their cookie-cutter expectations!

Spreading the Gospel

Years ago, I would blare bands like Hatebreed, Pantera, Down, Helmet, Eyehategod, and Goatwhore in the morning as I was getting the kids ready for school. They definitely didn’t find it as motivational as I did, but endured it. Finally this morning I had a breakthrough. I put on ‘Becoming’ by Pantera as I drove Eliot to work, and asked him to read the lyrics. He was like, ‘Oh, this is nice! I like this. Who is it?’

I can only imagine the way I felt at that moment was most analogous to a door to door evangelist who actually got someone to listen to them and invite them back next Saturday.

\m/

Birds of a Feather

Her: you should go.

Me: no thanks. Too many white people. I don’t feel comfortable in that kind of environment.

Her: but you’re white.

Me: tell me about it.

The Glow of a First Time Voter

To be honest, I wasn’t planning on voting today. There were only a handful of local candidates on the Clermont County ballot, none of which I knew or really cared anything about. My 18 year old, however, was stoked about his first opportunity to vote, and was up and ready at 4:30 am to make sure we both got to the polls and were first in line. He’s a good citizen already, and I thank him for keeping me on point. I look forward to voting for him someday.

Always Share Your Enthusiasms!

Question: is this driver telling me to ‘run a dick’ as a creative variant on ‘suck a dick/go fuck yourself’, or is it more of a helpful recommendation, like, ‘You know buddy, I never thought I’d be the kind of guy to get into running dicks, but I tried it on vacation a few years ago, and it’s actually really great. Me and the fellas actually run dicks every Saturday now. Very relaxing. I think you’d enjoy it’.

Respect Where It Is Due

God is a total bastard, but dude can paint.

Idiots, Working Happily in the Fields for the Boss

I have never experienced the kind of primal revulsion that I’ve experienced when seeing those disgusting, vile, pop-up trump merchandise tents that show up periodically in gas station parking lots in Clermont County, where I live. It’s never been more difficult to resist the urge to pull my car over and yell at, punch, or spit on these gross, smirking swine, selling swag for their fascistic clown overlord. It makes me angry on a level I can’t find words for. Maybe it’s because these smirking assholes are the marks in Trump’s long presidential con, and they seem to absolutely revel in their own complete debasement. Maybe it’s because they set up their shops so close to my own house. I don’t know. 

Savoring Mr. Facebook’s Discomfort

Ayanna Pressley’s expression in this screenshot is so gratifying. She knows she’s owning Mark, and she knows the owning has just begun...and she is clearly savoring the entire experience. It’s a beautiful thing.

Honey, Baby, Sugar, Doll, Sweetheart

I just went into Speedway to buy gas and a pack of cigarettes, and the nice older lady at the register called me honey, sweetheart, doll, and baby within the space of no more than two minutes. This characteristic of ladies who work at gas stations—even sometimes younger ones—has always fascinated me, and I think someone needs to publish a research paper on the subject.

Next To Godliness

I just want to let everyone know I just cleaned the devil out of my kitchen. It was like an exorcism. It’s immaculate. If Mary and Joseph showed up at my front door, I wouldn’t hesitate to deliver baby Jesus on my kitchen floor. It’s clean, Y’all.

Taking Out a Business Loan Doesn’t Make You a Hero

Yes! A living wage is the cost of business. There are no politicians lobbying for me because I can’t afford to buy the means of production and associated things needed to start a business. A living wage, decent healthcare, the ability to organize...these things are the price of admission. ‘Wah, I cant run my business if I can’t exploit my workers!’ Tough shit, buddy. Business owners—especially small business owners—don’t deserve the prestige they receive in our society. They’re fine, but they’re people too.

Prayer

Prayer

Dear God,

Please know

I don’t blame you

Because your just like me

An animal

And we do what animals do

We fight

We fuck

We kill

We look for food

And someone always must pay

When we get in a certain mood

So I praise you

Just like

You should praise me

In my glory

Rising erect

And nude

Aroused for all to see

Dear Animals,

Can’t you see

The God that’s in you?

You’re not limited

To the systems

That telegraph the rules

We rage

We burn

We behead

Through the paper, we peruse

And someone must always explain

Why we’re not in the news.

So I praise you

Just like

You should praise me

In my glory

Rising erect

And nude

Aroused for all to see

See my horns

See my horns

Watch me dance

See my horns

My glowing eyes

Watch me dance

So I praise you

Just like

You should praise me

In my glory

Rising erect

And nude

Aroused for all to see

Cars

It should be illegal for actual humans to drive the same kind of cars cops drive. When I clock a cop driving behind me, and register, ‘Oh, that’s not a cop! That’s some soccer mom on her way back home, after probably sleeping with her Pilates instructor’, that’s real trauma for me. You owe me money, Karen.

Loose Papers

This morning on the way to school, Eliot gifted me with some unfortunately accurate self awareness. All of the car windows were down, the radio was up and we were singing along to the music when suddenly some important papers I forgot were loose in the back seat began flying all over the car dangerously close to the windows. We began frantically grabbing at them so they didn’t get away. He said, ‘This moment is the best description of you’, and then added that he used to think this kind of thing happened to people all the time, but he eventually realized, no, this situation—at the frequency he has experienced it—is very particular to me. I was proud of how clever and astute his observation was, but the truth of it made me grimace.

Parenting Advice

We waste so much of our lives coming to terms with the fact that the gods our parents worshipped have never existed, and accepting how subjective and—ultimately—Freudian their values and world views are. There would be no need to waste so much time in our children’s lives, and create so much neuroses, if we only had the humility to admit how full of shit we are, how damaged we are, and how we have only come to these conclusions as means to personally survive, and to grace our children with our blessings to seek their own world views and coping mechanisms, liberating them from the impulse to reconcile our damage and survival techniques with their own.

Get High

Witnessing a stranger’s moment of joy just because you happened to be in the right place at the right time is one of the best natural highs available on the market.

Barbarism is a Subjective Concept

It’s always strange to me when self-described moderates (always white, middle to upper class) history enthusiasts act like Robespierre cutting the heads off of the ruling class was somehow barbaric. When compared to the death by a thousand cuts execution the ruling classes across the world commit against working people, the guillotine was a mercy.

Some Advice Can Be Ignored

I had a supervisor once who told me ‘walk through the doors that will open’. and he was a total fucking tool. The last door I saw him walk through was the back door, with his head beneath his shoulders. If there’s not a door to where you need to go, make a door. Don’t settle for less than you are worth!

How Can We Give it to You When You Don’t Even Give It To Yourself?

No one who deserves respect has to demand respect.

Advocacy Check-List

My Handy-Dandy Client Advocacy Checklist:

I’ve been doing this work for over a decade, and I have come up with a fairly simple formula for client advocacy. It’s only got a few steps, and I have been undeniably good at this work, so if you’re in the same field, it might be worth taking note of. I usually envision each roadblock to providing individual clients with what they need in terms of a destination along a long, windy, mountain road I have to get to, obscured by an enormous boulder. I will get to the destination, it’s only a matter of how.

1. Will the boulder remove itself so I can pass?

2. Can I talk to or negotiate with the boulder in a certain way that would enable it to remove itself so I can pass?

3. Is there some larger boulder—preferably one my boulder is beholden to in some sense—who will remove the boulder from my path, or is there some other unrelated boulder that can help clear my path if I appeal to it in the right way?

4. Can I remove the boulder myself?

5. Can I go around the boulder?

That’s it. Any good advocate will understand that the path will be cleared, and they will utilize whatever tools are available to them to clear the path. You will reach your destination. The only question is how.

That is advocacy.

The Cold Water Fountain

I went to Brantner Elementary, and so did all of my sons. I just randomly said to my youngest, ‘don’t you love the water fountain in your school with super cold water?’ And he mentioned the one next to the library at Brantner, which is exactly the one I was thinking about when I made my comment. There is no better bonding than a shared experience.

Beyond Pizza

I just noticed that Cicis has the motto ‘beyond pizza’ next to the name of their restaurant on the marquee. Has this already been the case? Either way, my first thought when I saw It today was ‘I bet they also sell assault weapons now’. 

Hurt People

Another example of parental miscommunication: for years, I have told the boys that ‘hurt people hurt people’, whenever the subject of general cruelty or bullying or just basic nasty human behavior would come up. They have always understood my underlying message about how unaddressed trauma can lead a person to traumatize others, but today my 8 year old made it clear to me that—although he has understood and internalized that message (he feels bad for the president, that he’s lived so long and is still hurting people)—he has always understood ‘hurt people hurt people’ to be a kind of mantra that damaged people repeat in their minds as they go about their lives, as in, ‘I must hurt people!’, rather than what that saying actually means, which is that people who have hurts they won’t or can’t address will often hurt other people. I saw the lightbulb go off over his head when I explained it. We say things, and we assume those things are understood in the way we meant them, but it is critical to appreciate how different each person’s context is.

Smoke

I smoke my lungs

And I smoke my mind

I smoke my soul

And wonder what God will find

In the ashes of my body

Maybe just little bones

Will he find my spark

And the thing that called me home?

And I 

I smoke to you

I cloud my mind

Man is just an animal

A pain in my side

Why do I care for this beast

If it lives or if it dies?

Why does it torment me so

When in the night it cries?

I am smoke and you

Are a solid thing

Can I encompass you

Can you breathe me in?

Is love just a tumor?

A cancer that can hide

All of the emptiness

That God has left inside?

I smoke my body

Like a salmon on the grill

Will anyone mourn me?

Taste me, I know they will!

What is the flavor

I’m glad that God has died

I’m glad I twisted that knife

When I kissed him last night

I smoke my lungs

And I smoke my mind

I’m surprised he didn’t kill me

After what I said and I

But here I am alive

A living blasphemy

And your body tastes like honey

And I welcome the bees that sting

My lips

My tender parts

My imagination

My bleeding heart

My bleeding bowels

My swollen ass

I’ll sink down into hell

Where at least I know they dance!

Our Most Accurate Biographers

It is both intimidating and humbling to realize the we are the first historical figure our children will do a deep analysis and study of. They will fully understand our worldview, our ethics, our politics...our entire overall philosophy of life, but also be able to balance what we say we believe with what our actions—and their experience of those actions—reveal about what we actually believe. Our children are the foremost scholars of our lives and works, and although they may not write their findings in an actual book, how we interacted with their world is imprinted on every page of their lives. 

Affirmation

You are beautiful, important, and unique, and I’m glad you exist. Yes, that includes you, you giant fucking asshole.

On Bosses

For reasons, I was barely able to sleep last night, and my supervisor totally didn’t sweat me taking a half day because of it. As someone who has worked in warehouses, factories, and restaurants as long as I’ve worked in the human services, I can say definitively, social workers are much more understanding and trauma informed that foremen and shift managers. I can’t even imagine the abuse I would receive for attempting to take a self-care day in those other environments. The bottom line is that I am grateful to work for and with people who both understand and care about people.

Pizza

Every time I’m at a lunch meeting that orders pizzas, and someone brings the pizzas into the room, the only thought I have as the meeting goes on past the time of the pizzas’ arrival is ‘this is yet another minute that I am not eating that freshly delivered hot pizza, and I am full of resentment’.

I Dreamed That I Died

I dreamed that I died last night

It wasn’t so bad

Surrounded by my all my loves;

My sons, my girl, my brother and sister

My mom and my dad

I dreamed that I died

Which will someday come to pass

But I am present today again

No one will ever say

‘He dreamed that he lived’

You’ve got to grind and hustle

Move in the direction of your fear

You’ve got to call us up your palms

And drip sweat from your hat

And you’ve got to love and share

And live by a code

And as long as you give to those you love

You will never be alone

I dreamed I died last night

But now I am born again

And when I am just a memory

Let be a memory of helping hands

Of integrity, and belief

In the potential of man

I dreamed that I died and someday I will

But for now living

Is the business at hand.

We Are Commodified

Capitalism has a parasitic relationship with our identity, both personal and as members of however many groups we belong to. The goal of capitalism is to commodify each individual and group, extract as much labor and capital from each individual member of the non-ruling class as possible, and use the divisions created between each non-ruling class (proletariat) individual and group by the system itself to create division whenever the ruling class is threatened by popular challenge or uprising. To capitalism, we are not people or communities. We are brands with stock market values that can be weaponized against one another whenever the rulers feel threatened.

Give Me a Pulitzer

Living my best life, sitting in my car in a Wal-Mart parking lot after 9pm, listening to a teenage couple yell at each other at the top of their lungs, accusing each other of god-knows-what, slamming their car doors over and over again (how many doors can they have?), and demanding their lighter back. The girl just screamed, ‘What did I do Bradley? What did I do?!’. This is journalism.

Literary Names

I just read that in 2013 alone, 67 little girls were named Daenerys by their parents, and 241 little girls were named Khaleesi. That’s pretty rough. Folks, please wait until the story is over to decide to bestow the name of a character on your child. The only worse literary name I can think of giving your kid would be to name them Lolita, because you heard the title and thought it sounded pretty, but you never read the book.

Edgy Comedians

It’s so weird to me that so many rich, white, heterosexual male comedians still try to interpret the public reaction/disinterest in their stale homophobic/racist/sexist/generally bigoted jokes as a sign that they’re edgy and somehow speaking truth to power. The lack of insight is astounding. No dude, I’m not saying you suck because you exposed some weakness in my ideology or existence, I’m saying you suck because you are boring and not funny.

#billmaher #billburr #joerogan #nickdepaolo #rickygervais #dennismiller

Marketing Advice

Pro tip for the folks who pay protesters to stand outside of the Planned Parenthood downtown lethargically holding signs: institute a requirement for sign swirling and quirky dancing. That is a popular marketing move, and one of your employees might even get on Ellen!

Game of Thrones Predictions

Considering the medieval setting of Game of Thrones, shouldn’t somebody have gotten really bad diarrhea at least once by now? Everyone is wondering who will die next, but outside of Tywin Lannister, I haven’t seen one character on the toilet, or even complain of a stomach ache. I’d like to see one character interrupt the action at least once because they need to make an emergency bathroom visit. Tormund would be a good choice. Nobody eats right on that show, but you know Tormund doesn’t. I would like the last episode to begin as a huge battle set up from Tormund’s POV, but just as the action starts, his stomach gurgles, he makes a sour face, beads of sweat begin forming on his forehead, and the camera follows him as he runs off into the woods. The scene stays with him as he finds an old run-down outhouse, and it’s just him violently shitting for an entire hour with battle noises raging outside. At the very end he steps out exhausted but relieved, the battle sounds have ended, and a wounded soldier stumbles into his line of sight, says ‘Sansa Stark sits on the Iron Throne’, and then dies. ‘Don’t Stop Believing’ starts playing. Fade to back.

Bad Parenting

Our current president is a terrible father. All public evidence points to this. For me, this is a bottom line, make-or-break deal, especially when evaluating a person’s eligibility for leadership. If your record re: your relations with your own progeny amounts to creating and reinforcing trauma, how can I support you as a leader?

Diet & Exercise

Has anyone else thought about how bad Donald Trump’s genitals must smell whenever they hear or read about his gross diet? Also, you know this guy hasn’t had a solid bowel movement in a decade. This understanding goes a long way to explain the constant scowl on his wife’s face.

Capitalism Hurt Your Heroes

Listening to a soul-dead wife of a republican politician selling a book on the radio talking about how her single mother, who worked three jobs and died way too young, inspired her to commit to accepting a life of drudgery and toil and a life overall full of calluses and unaddressed trauma, makes me think about how many times I’ve encountered this meme. Yes, it is heroic that your mother/father/whatever fully committed themselves to taking care of their family, but it doesn’t address the utter depravity of our capitalist culture that required them to make this sacrifice in the first place  . And, actually, how good of a parent can you be—what kind of holistic parenting can you provide—if you are forced to grind your body into paste just to keep you and your families alive? There is a stark difference between surviving and being alive, and this mythologizing of the hard-working parent only serves to continue and empower the system that kept your parent from fulfilling their full calling. Yes, maybe they paid the rent and fed your mouth. But they modeled a kind of sheep-like obedience to their societal overlords that greatly infringed upon their ability to feed your soul. So yes, love your parent who did all they could for you, but don’t transfer your love for them to a lionization of the system that prevented your souls from fully connecting, and definitely do not take this parental sacrifice as a blueprint for how a whole human being should live.

Halloween Costume

My son and I just came up with an awesome family costume theme: we all dress like plague doctors and walk slowly from house to house. We don’t even have bags for candy; when we walk up to each door we don’t say anything, just slowly raise an arm and point at the person passing out candy for an uncomfortable amount of time, then slowly lower our arms and walk to the next house.

ADL’s

Social Work Magic: when you see a client’s mind blown as you shop with them, and explain how spaghetti can be so much more than a jar of Ragu plopped onto a pile of boiled pasta, for around the same price. Life isn’t just about staying alive. Flavor is a definite factor!

Wisdom From Unexpected Places

“Cut out all of my dialogue, all of my lines, and have other characters talk about you. Which, by the way, is not bad advice on living in general” - Sylvester Stallone, explaining to Howard Stern how he made the script for Rambo work. Truth.

Boys Will Be Boys

PSA to anyone raising sons: Make sure your kids understand that ‘boys will be boys’ logic was literally used to defend Brett Kavanaugh’s attempted rape when he was in college, as well as Brock Turner’s rape while he was also in college. Maybe boys will be boys, but that is never an excuse not to be a decent human being.

Easy= Hard When It’s Time to Pay the Bill

The path of least resistance is always the most costly and regrettable in the long run.

Re: Adversity

It is so gratifying to be kind to folks who hate you. Your initial response to aggression is to be aggressive back, but to respond with kindness and understanding offers a much longer term reward. Not as instantly gratifying as a violent response would offer, but so much stronger, and so much deeper. Turn the other cheek.

In addendum, a quote from James Baldwin that I believe is complementary to this notion:

"You cannot lynch me and keep me in ghettos without becoming something monstrous yourselves. And furthermore, you give me a terrifying advantage: you never had to look at me; I had to look at you. I know more about you than you know about me. Not everything that is faced can be changed, but nothing can be changed until it is faced." 

The Real Metric of Success

One thing I have learned in this life: degrees, accolades, and awards pale in comparison to what you believe in, how much you believe in it, and how you articulate that intensity of belief.

Scene from a Play #1

17 year old runaway runs into his football coach at the airport just as he is about to get onto a plane to a new city to start over:

Kid: Coach? How did you find me?

Coach: I read this (holds up kid’s journal). It fell out of your backpack during our last practice. I was going to give it back without reading it, but then I heard you had run away. I read it thinking maybe I’d find a clue.

Kid: it’s been so hard. Growing up it’s just been me and mom, and she’s got enough burdens...

Coach: you’re not a burden. Let me tell you, the stuff in this journal (holds it up again reverently), it’s inspiring. You capture everything so uniquely. You’re an artist. And that last entry where you decided to run away, when that thing happened at the party...you know you could have called me. I would have come for you.

Kid: nobody ever comes for me.

Coach: (puts hand on kid’s shoulder, his eyes well up) I would of come for you. I came for you tonight, didn’t I? (The kid embraces the coach)

Kid: you did! You came for me.

Coach: You know where else I came?

Kid: where else?

Coach: in your mother. 17 years ago tonight.

Kid: wait...dad?

Coach: that’s right, son. I am your father. And I have a feeling things are about to change around this place!

The End

Stats

When I was 8, I would always practice my signature for when I became a famous baseball player. I also used to write out the stats on the back of my imaginary baseball card. There would always be a slump somewhere in there, and I would get traded to some other team (usually the Baltimore Orioles). But I would come back, and it would be glorious, and I would return to the Reds.

Shoo-gar!

My 8 year old son is a super good reader, and normally he would pronounce the word ‘sugar’ in the conventional way, but last night I bought him a little bag of Swad—candy coated fennel—from Jungle Jim’s, and he liked it so much he decided to add it to a drink he had concocted this morning. I asked him what was in the drink, and he mentioned it contained ‘Shoo-gar coated fennel’. I laughed and told him that was the fanciest way I’ve ever heard someone pronounce ‘sugar’. The bag says ‘Sugar coated fennel’, and my guess is that Swad seemed exotic to him, so he must have guessed all of the ingredients were pronounced in an exotic way.

Left vs. Liberal

Liberalism is a luxury ideology bought and paid for by the left. Remember Jack Nicholson's character from 'A Few Good Men': "You want me on that wall!"

Speaking the Truth

I don't think we talk about the things we really believe. We tend to take those things as givens, and just leave them alone. The things we talk about are things we are trying to sell to others and ourselves. It's that kernel of insecurity that leads us to articulate our ideas. We hope that others will buy it so that we might fully buy it, and we hope that if we say it well enough we'll genuinely buy it too. Every prophet, intellectual, preacher, and professor is speaking out of need. They are trying to believe something in the hope that it will make them fully real. A fully actualized person would probably rarely speak at all.

True Greatness

"The errors of great men are more fruitful than the truths of little men." - Nietzsche

In our capitalism-ridden culture, we tend to mistake greatness with economic viability. In truth, many of the greatest among us are impoverished, and most of the leeches of society are living off of inheritance and privilege. Greatness is of the spirit. Little people are cultural sheep, content to live by the dictates of their societies and religions. They are conventional. They are boring. Great people transcend their cultural setting and historical moment in their spirit. Spirit is everything. Rockefeller, JP Morgan, Henry Ford... They weren't great men. They were savages with spears acting on their basest animal instincts. Their progeny are even less great. The great person is most often not one known by history, but probably someone you know personally. They probably frustrate and confuse the sheep amongst us. They will definitely make the sheep uncomfortable, and they should: Wolves always make sheep uncomfortable.

UDF

Langston: hey daddy...
Me: yes?
Langston: I know what UDF means.
Me: What does it mean?
Langston: Unattended Dairy Farmers.

Imagine all of the unattended dairy farmers out there, no adults in sight, milking whatever they want.