The Lack of Hope Is the Disease
Oh, yeah? Another mass shooting? How terribly desensitized we’re becoming to this trend.
Real Life Ghost Stories: The Bodies Beneath Lincoln Park
The tour group walks through the rolling grass of Lincoln Park. The sun is too low to be seen through the jagged skyline of Chicago architecture. The sky is fading quickly into a sleepy black. As the people move forward, they are all too aware that beneath their feet lay long-forgotten bodies.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of September 2, 2018
The greatest threat to the LGBTQ community is not Donald Trump or the Republicans or the Alt Right. It’s gender reveal parties.
Rib Of Twilight
He wanted to know if I had anything that belonged to her, or what kind of things did she leave behind? And that gave me pause, because I’d never thought of her, or her case, that way before.
Then the question for me got caught between that place where you consider what you might leave behind and what is left to you, which is kind of all the same thing. Like a big merry-go-round of belongings all changing hands from life to life.
American Shithole #24 — A Love Letter to the UK, Revisited
I penned this genuine, heartfelt love letter to the United Kingdom in the summer of 2016, quite possibly hours after the news of the Brexit vote broke. America followed suit a few months later, by instructing the world to "hold my beer."
Your Life, Your Music
"If you don't live it, it won't come out your horn."
— Charlie Parker
The converse to this Parker quote is that if it comes out your horn, it’s because you lived it.
I’ve been thinking a lot about bias these days. Looking into my own biases and parsing out where, exactly, the playing of my horn is exposing those dark areas of things I cannot get behind no matter how many strident, angry voices tell me to.
What comes out of my horn for some time in recent history is predicated by my experience, thus the quote.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting – Citizens to Elect Rahm Emanuel – Now What?
We just put it in the bank until we’re ready to roll out negative Trump TV ads. Which is tricky, because we see them as negative, but his base applauds them.
The Graceful Failure of Mayor Rahm Emanuel
But what’s he really going to do? I imagine that he’ll spend the next three to eight months furiously beating his knob to a pulp jerking it to footage from the 1968 Democratic National Convention riots in Grant Park. You know, back when Chicago was a city he could get behind. One where the police policed. Maybe he’ll spend his days eating Arby’s sandwiches hoping to find a finger in his food. His finger.
I Hate You Because I Love You
Living with you is constant emotional pain.
I can't tell if you're passive-aggressive or stupid or both.
I Believe… [The Popular Kids Were Assholes]
…that our adoration and covetousness for fame is absolutely no different than the quest to be popular in high school. And the popular kids in high school were mostly assholes.
Labor Day Celebrates a Long Gone Dignity
Robber Barons are back in control, the banks are so predatory that it’s hard to believe that bankers aren’t equipped with shark teeth hiding behind their benign smiles, the gig economy is now being trumpeted as somehow new and distinct from the age-old practice of sharecropping, and I’m quite certain that no one who actually works in the labor sector has ever worn fucking white pants anywhere.
Noble X - Episode 10: Captains
In his mind, he has decided that they are his Captains to help with his mission. That together they will accomplish incredible things.
Anatomy Of A Bad Haircut
I’m not just telling you about his hair to feel superior. There, but for the grace of God and the lack of an intelligent and stylish woman in my life, go I. I’m no GQ model myself by the way. I don’t even have all my testicles. I promise I’m not punching down.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of August 26, 2018
John McCain was a genius. And he was loyal to his party. So much so that he died the same day as the Jacksonville shooting so we’d talk about his death instead of gun control. Genius.
Required Watching: “Bobby Fischer Against The World” (2011)
We have a very specific vision of anyone when we hear people referred to as a “genius,” and that tends to be some version of the Manipulative Bastard. This is the archetype of the naturally gifted omni-observant wonder who scans a crime scene for clues to fight evil, and because of it, be a huge dick to everyone. We love this jerkass character for all it’s perfect-answering wish fulfillment, snappy comebacks, and the assumed amount of social credit it takes to be a douche.
American Shithole #23 — Burn in Hell, Motherfucker (Adios, John McCain)
“You’ve been off the grid for two months after collapsing from stress; are you really going to come back now and revisit a languishing column, just to trash a dead war hero?”
It seems so, yes.
The Victory of Medusa: Correcting the Record
Legend carries falsehoods of my death. Lore was written by the gods, and therefore was written by alcohol-soaked ink and sex-crazed confusion.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting – Trump’s Biggly Funeral Plans
Then take my body and put me behind the wheel of a golf cart strapped to a rocket ship and have the Space Force blast me to the stars.
How Progress Wins: Recalling the Bedrock Narrative
Optimism is the belief that all problems are solvable.
I Believe... [Repentance is Like Shitting in One Hand and Wishing in the Other]
...that human actions are no more evil than a hurricane’s. We assign evil to problems as if repentance will solve them. Contrition is no more helpful to fixing society than looking at the floodwaters and winds and falling to your knees to pray and blame someone/something for them.
Misrepresenting intention/ And donning it as/Passion, I’m reactive—