I Believe...[The Safest Space]
...that the safest space of all, removed from micro aggressions and ideas that conflict with your belief system, is in your parents' basement with a padlock to keep your sister from snooping.
Is This What the Revenge of the Nerds Was Destined to Be?
It all amounts to a race to the bottom - seeking out insult, assigning blame for one's unhappiness on an oppressor, hoping for the sympathy of the crowd, and turning to the power of the mob to obliterate anyone who might lightly tread on the toes of what used to be self esteem.
The Opening Campfire: An (alternative) Introduction to "A Camp Story" – Author's Cut
My biggest concern, beyond not knowing anyone and just generally hating camp, was that I was going to spend a summer in the woods surrounded by swarms of big, disgusting, loud cicadas. It was 1990 and the 17-year cicadas had taken over Chicago. I had killed so many with such bloodlust that I convinced myself the winged beasts in Decatur had gotten word of me and were plotting their revenge for their brethren.
Dragging Dad, Kicking and Screaming into the Future [A Repost But Worth It...]
The mental picture (provided by my wife) is that the kids are taking dad to the future and want to get there now but can only move as fast as dad can move and he is slow and confused. Being a white man in his fifties, I guess I'm the dad in the metaphor and while I'm confused I'm also not about to cede the discussion to people still living like seven-year-old children and hoping their laundry gets done when mom comes down to the basement. A millennial who has never held a job or lived away from his or her parents doesn't get to lecture me on jack shit.
This is not a blanket condemnation of millennials, merely an old white guy's assertion that 98 percent of everyone under 25 hasn't lived enough actual life to know what the fuck he or she is bloviating about.
So, instead of lectures, let's ask some questions, cuz dad needs some clarification, or he's turning this station wagon around and heading home.
Notes from the Post-it Wall – Week of July 2, 2017
• Liberal rage confuses me. From day-to-day and outrage-to-outrage, I’m less and less sure about who is pissed at what and why. I’m thinking about joining the Klan. At least I know where they stand.
I Just Fixed Disney’s Pirates of the Caribbean Ride
If Disney wants to make up for any wrongdoings, it can stop making Prates of the Caribbean movies.
What the Fuck Are We Celebrating Again?
Today is the 241st anniversary of the beginning of the country called The United Stares of America.
I’m in Marion, Kansas (arguably ground zero for the horrifyingly Monster Shit Experiment known as “Trickle Down Economics” in my lifetime) with my family as we eat too much food, drink lousy store-bought beer and blow up shit designed and manufactured by the Chinese.
I take it for granted why we do this until we are doing this. On this day, my question, in between sips of Miller High Life and carelessly lighting fuses with a tiny blowtorch, is why? What exactly are we celebrating today?
I Believe... [Small Minds]
...that the quote that goes around that posits "Great minds discuss ideas. Average minds discuss events. Small minds discuss people."? Yeah, I believe that.
The Hard-Earned Lesson I Learned from Lydia, Molly, Ian and Hedy Weiss
I swear to Gawd and All That is Holy that this will be my last word on two specific issues: the public shaming I endured this time one year ago AND Hedly Weiss.
On Becoming That Guy at the Party: The Dilemma of Poor Johnny One Note
Imagine you’re at a dinner party. (And for those less inclined to go to anything as bougie as a dinner party, imagine a house party or a party that includes people drinking and eating and talking—you know, a fucking party…)
Notes from the Post-it Wall – Week of June 25, 2017
• Success is by design. And when it comes to design, some people have terrible taste.
Now Available: Troll to Learn™ for All Your Internet Needs
Let TROLL TO LEARN™ remind you:
Antagonistic language is your tool, but be smart: Let the Trollee utter the profanities first. Be prepared to see the dark side of the Trollee you only assumed might be there. It has many shapes.
Nothing is Sacred. Not Even You
That was the saying above the theater that WNEP occupied for a couple of years on the corner of Halsted and Belmont.
It meant a lot of things in those six words.
You are not not exempt, as an audience member, from being required to participate.
Nothing in the content within the walls (and minds of the creators) is sacrosanct. Nothing is out of bounds. All sacred cows will be skewered, roasted and eaten rare.
We are artists and we are not somehow the world's very precious tellers of truth. Likewise, your opinion of our work means only as much as we allow it.
It meant that YOU (and WE) are not special.
Who's Afraid of Hedy Weiss?
The artist makes art. The critic deconstructs that art so that people who don’t understand art can try to pretend to understand art. The artist and the critic are not on the same team. They are opposite sides of the same coin. And the opposite sides of the same coin can never see eye-to-eye.
I Believe... [Street Fests Are SOOOO White]
The Pristine City Clerk Worker
No one likes having to go to the Office of the Chicago City Clerk. Not even those who get paid for being there. The desk workers on the first floor in the City Clerk’s office are of the same ilk as DMV workers. They are always tired, annoyed, smarter—yet dumber—than you, wield a surprisingly unnatural amount of power and have a general disdain for a good majority of humanity. And who can blame them? They work for idiots and get dumped on by the citizens who elected those idiots all day long.
How Communist Did You Have to Be to Be, You Know, COMMUNIST?
You didn't have to be a communist, you didn't have to have friends who were communists. All you had to have was the whiff of possibility—you said something to someone, you complained about your job, you cheated on the wrong girlfriend—if the Committee decided you were a communist, the power of public opinion and the scrutiny of those self-righteous fear mongers using hyperbolic language to paint you as a communist, you were guilty of being a communist.
Slippery Slopes Always Go in the Same Direction
Some might see the cultural desires to censor uncomfortable speech as the end all, be all of the problem but the culture of victimhood—the one that provides more rewards societally in playing the aggrieved than not—is the beginning of so many slippery slopes. Most of these slopes we cascade down begin as a struggle to expand definitions. "Hate speech." "Harassment." "Rape Culture." "Privilege." The expansion of discriminated classes and marginalized groups—from women, to POC, to Obese People, to Demisexuals—is the perfect example of a well intentioned beginning that slips downward.
Cutting Off Your Nose
There are thousand ways to sell your idea in the marketplace of them.
Every NFP org out there (and there are a LOT of them) has the schtick to get you to part with a few of your dollars so they can continue to operate. Lots of causes know how to use Kickstarter and IndieGo. Public radio shills to you by reminding you three or four times a year how you listen to them and need to pony up a couple ducets to keep listening. Hell, even the multitudes of homeless are trying get a few ounces of silver and ask you as you pass the Starbucks for it with a hopeful but determined look.
The techniques range from
You Can't Live Without This Thing
You Can Assuage Your Guilt By Giving Money to This Thing
Without This Thing Society Will Collapse
TRUMP Hates This Thing So Pay Me For It!
And then there is this:
Notes from the Post–it Wall – Week of June 18, 2017
• If my approach to being a dog parent is any indication of how I’ll be as a parent to a human, I’m going to wake the kid up to snuggle with it and throw things at its face.
The second voice arrived on Thursday morning while Monte was attempting to make toast.