Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

The Sales Gene and Why I Don’t Have It

I get it. Most of capitalism is driven by sales. Most sales are made by people selling things and ideas. The time-share thing here in Vegas. The guy on the street-corner with the spinning arrow sign trying to get you to come into the third-tier mobile phone store. The kid with the box of candy to raise money for his basketball team. All some variation on the theme of non-stop, unwavering sales.

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Don Hall, I Believe... Don Hall Don Hall, I Believe... Don Hall

I Believe… [Women Are Not Baby Farms, You JagStains]

…that one of many paradoxes presented in modern American society is the odd confluence of overpopulation run rampant, the decrease in financial aid and paid time off for young mothers, and the bizarre desire to force women to have babies they either don’t want or can’t care for. For fuck’s sake, get the priorities in line — if you want women to be baby farms at least pay them for it or get out of their business…

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Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

Both Rock AND Roll is Required

It is my armor. Against the ravages of time and heartache and failure and despair. Attitudinal armor. Protection from self-pity and feeling small in a world of wars for oil, politicians spouting horseshit non-stop and the constant drumbeat of the the Big Countdown Clock. A layer of badassness that fights back the feeling that, as I get older, I'm simply going to lose everything I ever held dear and everyone I ever loved because that's just the way it is. My Captain America shield. My Bat Cape. My resolve to never allow the World to beat me.

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Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

When Mice Roar and the Rest Assume They’re Lions

My senior advisor, Tom Restivo, pulled me aside one day and said “You know, most people in the school don’t support your causes. You know that right? It seems like you think that you’re constantly on the side of right but, even if you are, without the backing of a larger group of students, you’re never going to get algebra credit for the Math Team.”

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Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall Don Hall

The World Is Now Your Therapist, So Have a Cheeseburger

Have you seen the new Emo Burger King ad?

I do not love the idea that in an age where nuance, humor, and snark are taken so literally that the perpetual class of whiners will take this as yet another permission to unload their emotional trash on the streets for all to see. Yes, it’s important to avoid stuffing your bad feels down under the sofa like dogshit you can smell but can’t find, but there’s a reason therapy is usually done one-on-one in a private office.

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Kari Castor Kari Castor Kari Castor Kari Castor

Book Club Made Me Read It | The Changeling

And holy shit if this book had ended right there, I’d be writing a very different review right now. The vibrancy of their early relationship with each other, the slow creep of horror as things become more and more wrong in the Kagwa-Valentine household, the awful question of whether Emma might actually be right, the visceral brutality of the final scenes… It works. It’s good.

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Poetry Contributing Writer Poetry Contributing Writer

look there instead

look here, they say,
but no; i want to look there,
my focus firmly fixed upon things
not so crowd-gazed. 

look there with me —
glistening, intricate mosaics
painstakingly crafted
in the arches of the museum stairwell,
unnoticed in the upward or downward rush
to view the expected. 

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