The Inappropriate Hackery of the White House Correspondents’ Dinner
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner is more pathetic a work event than any kind of team-building game night or scavenger hunt even the most creative HR Director can think of. If they don’t want the roast, they shouldn’t hire a comedian to headline. Hire Jared Kushner instead. He won’t say anything mean. He won’t say anything at all. Unless there are Russians in the room. But that won’t offend anyone.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of April 22, 2018
• Never pity a fat man. Empathize with an obese one.
Hotboxing My Dad: A Weed Trip and the Future Failure of Illinois
I imagine it’s hard to find work when you look like you sleep on a bong-water bed. Maybe not. Maybe this guy could straighten up and look more straightedge and acceptable for any other job. But why bother? In Denver, he could put his vast and exceptional knowledge of cannabis to great use. And he could do it without all the judgement and assholery that comes from a culture which things looking like a pothead is a bad thing. This guy, this stoner behind the counter, was more helpful than any putz at any store you could visit in the Clybourn Corridor.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of April 15, 2018
• Former First Lady Barbara Bush is an inspiration when it comes to family. She stood by and supported her husband as he ramped up the War on Drugs and exacerbated systemic disadvantages toward people of color. And she was proud of her bumbling nitwit son as he committed heinous war crimes. If Barbara Bush can do that, then Katie should have no problem always having my back, and no matter what kind of human turd my son ends up becoming, I’ll always be proud of him. Thank you, Mrs. Bush, for being such a role model.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — It's All About Dogs!
• While my son is growing on me, I’d still trade him in for a puppy. Even a puppy can play fetch. My son sucks at fetch. And even though I understand it would require my wife to have fucked a canine, I was moronically hoping that she’d give birth to a puppy. But most of all, I wish that my son and Eddie could have shared some snuggles.
"Here's My Heart": Braid's 'Frame & Canvas' Turns 20
The songs were about being in a state of certain uncertainty. A place of transition with the balls to step up and have no fear of fucking it all up. The songs were about girls and friends and getting older and being younger and parents and longing and having and missing and distance and places and things and giving a shit and not giving a shit at all.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of April 1, 2018
• On the first of the month, I engage in that superstitions tradition of saying “rabbit, rabbit” when I first wake up, before I say anything else. When one does this, one is resigned to have good luck throughout that month. On Sunday, April 1, 2018, the first thing I said was not, “rabbit, rabbit.” I said, “Fuckinggoddammit, Harry! What is your fucking deal? I just changed you. You just ate. Is it gas? Do you have to fart? Jesus fucking Christ, calm down, please!” As a result, I’m gravely concerned over what my luck will be like this month.
New Study — American Darwinism and the Narrowing Survival of the Dumbest
The speed at which the human species is evolving has led to a splinter effect leading to the discovery of four new sub-species of Homo sapiens: Homo dumbassness, Homo exploitus, Homo regressiveleftist, and Homo balanceintelligence. These four sub-species are in a battle of of evolutionary might yet unseen, and it is apparent through careful consideration and historically-based common sense that only one will survive by proving its adaptability and fitness for survival in these modern times.
Don Hall 1966–2018 — An April Fool's Obit
Don Hall has died. He was 52 years old.
An April Fool's Commitment
April Fools’ Day is like my dad’s Christmas, his Super Bowl, his Cubs winning the World Series. "Face it. I’m the best prankster. I’ll go to the ends of the earth to make it the best. Next year I burn down the house."
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of March 25, 2018
• Easter was canceled. They found the body.
Illinois Democrats Just Reinforced Their Level of Idiocy
For a state with democrats who really hate President Donald Trump and their current GOP governor, Bruce Rauner, they sure did elect a democratic gubernatorial candidate a lot like them both. Illinois democrats elected J.B. Pritzker because Illinois democrats are idiots. This isn’t breaking news but it’s news worth reminding ourselves of because there’s a new twist to the idiocy.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of March 18, 2018
• Never mistake a lack of enthusiasm for a lack of care. Sometimes displaying enthusiasm is the same as walking into battle with your flak jacket in the Jeep and your shirt wide open.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of March 11, 2018
• If you respond to my LinkedIn post requesting the services of a proofreader and your website has a typo in the first sentence you will break my heart. You will also not get the job.
My Unborn Child is an Inconsiderate Little Jerk and I Can’t Wait to Get My Hands On Him
So, here we are. Waiting. Unsure of what to do. We keep doing all the things that can start and speed up labor like walking and massaging and having sex with spicy food. At this point, our lives are completely out of our hands and at the whims of the ungrateful terrorist holding my wife’s body and my need for a second scotch hostage.
It's Cool to Walk Out of School
Today's ENOUGH National School Walkout is set to be one our country's most historical, nuanced and, hopefully, most effective protests. It's always been the youth who are first to take to the streets but they've never been this young before.
Millennials Will Save Us All
American history repeats itself and repeats and repeats itself with only slight differences between the generations. The time in which Millennials live in and are defining, is unlike the others. With the architects of modern America — the Greatest Generation — fading away, and the destructors of the empire — the Baby Boomers — not far behind, now is the time for action and a great shift. It’ll be an ontological shift that we won’t notice until it has already occurred, and it will be the Millennials who will get us there.
Violent Video Games Might Have Saved My Town
To be clear, I never once —ever — considered hurting a real person or thing. What I wanted was a world where I was untouchable, where I could find solace in my own kind of Fortress of Solitude. In real life, we can’t ever really escape away from everything whenever we want, or even need. Grand Theft Auto III gave that to me. It let me play God. That violent video game provided me with the one thing I could never have otherwise — total control.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of March 4, 2018
• I like bookstores. I like local bookstores. I like Volumes Bookcafe in Wicker Park. But Volumes is the kind of bookstore Emily Giffen would write if she was describing a trendy, punk bookstore in the hipster part of town in one of her romantic chick lit novels. “There’s a coffee bar in the bookstore and the baristas have tattoos. Claire wondered how many of those tattoos were inspired by heartbreak. ‘Maybe,’ Claire thought, ‘I should get a tattoo.’”
Black Panther’s Missed Opportunities
Despite the incredible cinematography and thrilling action scenes and beautiful costume design and magnificent acting, I was disappointed that the film missed some storytelling opportunities. They seemed obvious to me, so I was surprised director Ryan Coogler, writers Coogler and Joe Robert Cole, and producer Kevin Feige didn’t seize them.
...that, as we age, good footwear is more important than a girlfriend.