The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | Reasons Not To Go To Your Small-Town High School Reunion
You have a conflict on that date. A moral conflict.
"A Valley of Light and Shadow" | Las Vegas Writes Book Launch
This year, it seems Dana and I can be considered Las Vegans in at least some sense as we are featured in this year’s anthology. No live book launch—COVID sits in wait for those community gatherings like the Mask of the Red Death of Poe’s imagination—but there is a digital launch coming up this Thursday, October 22 at 7 p.m. PDT and you, oh readers of the Ape, are invited.
Our Cultural Institutions Must Die
Ethan Hawke and John Cusack are playing grandfathers now.
Madonna acts like the new stereotypical Karen.
Ferris Bueller is now a representation of white male privilege.
I Believe… [Yelp Gets Woke…Finally]
I believe… that, in light of Yelp’s new racist business category, I guess now was a bad time for me to open my new “Racism Bistro & Culturally Appropriated Taco Stand.” At least, Brian Sweeney will be a regular. In other news, the state of Alabama bans Yelp.
Uncertainty of Purpose in 2020 Las Vegas
The world at this point has been in pandemic for 205 days with 215,000 Americans dead from the virus. This is over 1,000 COVID deaths per day. This is just slightly worse than if two fully-loaded 747’s crashed into the sea or a mountain every day for 205 days.
The Cost of Entertainment in the Streaming World
I finger-banged a girl I met in the lobby during my first (partial) viewing of The Empire Strikes Back and stayed for the next showing because I missed all that “I am your father” stuff.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 4, 2020
Mike Pence is a virgin. I know he has kids—it doesn’t matter. Mike Pence is a virgin.
Zip, Zop, ZAP! Turn The Second City into a Laser Tag Arena
This Year of Our Lord, 2020, has revealed quite a few things about us. The recurring theme is that it’s high time our greatest institutions must die. The mighty must fall. So, as someone who interned at The Second City, went through several training programs, produced plays for its stages, here’s what I suggest happen to that theater: Turn it into a laser tag facility. Call it Zip, Zop, ZAP!
You may argue that now is not the time to open a new business, what with the pandemic and all. But laser tag is the perfect pandemic business.
Those of Us Who Reject Loneliness
It turns out that we Americans are really lonely. One would think that a natural conclusion to aging with its concomitant loss of capacity and the dying off of those whom we knew would be some semblance of loneliness, but it seems improbably true that the young are experiencing loneliness like never before.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | A Eulogy for Donald Trump
On his tomb stone is inscribed, “This is Obama’s fault.”
Smelling of Sex, of Summer, of Love
I Believe… [That I Don’t Believe Him]
I believe… that Trump’s modus operandi is distraction and his COVID diagnosis is a distraction from the fallout from his abysmal debate performance, his dwindling campaign cash, and his refusal to condemn white supremacist groups. I haven’t believed anything he’s said in four years, why start now?
When Distrust is Normalized
Like hope, trust is fragile and amazingly powerful. With it, relationships can grow, employers can instill loyalty, societies can progress in genuinely positive ways. Without it, we all become ineffective solo efforts without enough juice to move past the naval gaze or the frozen burrito wrapper that has been sitting on the coffee table since June.
Misanthropic Tendencies and My Desire for Less Noise
Wait. Everyone at some point becomes Trump online. Everyone.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of September 27, 2020
An adherence to the Myth of American Exceptionalism is a comfort from hardships and bad day, and that which we cannot control. It is religion. It is a baby blanket. It is our emotional support animal. Its most fervent supporters and believers are our nation’s biggest babies.
Encountering the Unicorn and Being Baffled By It
My mouth, known internationally as an unfiltered spew of whatever is in my head, wants to pop off with “WHAT?! Are you fucking STUPID? Trump is a menace. A monster! How can you, a young black man, POSSIBLY BE AGAINST BLACK LIVES MATTERING?”
It’s Time to Stop Caring About Our Country and Start Caring About Ourselves
A nation is never greater than the sum of its parts. Thinking so is, and has been, our well-followed roadmap to destruction. Because we make up the nation. We, as a collective of units, are the nation. It is not us.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | QAnon Post-Debate Info Drop
President Trump wants us to know he really is smart.
The Coming Civil War Ain’t Coming
We are the righteous and the fools. We are those who dream of better and, like Ripley, cannot be fucked with because we can operate a giant robot forklift. We are the Ghostbusters, the Three Amigos, and The Expendables (minus Chuck Norris).
I Believe… [Lazy Gangsters]
I believe… that people pining on for the Old Vegas can’t be too horrified at random gun violence. Today’s gangsters are just too lazy to dig that hole in the desert.
The first chapter of an in-progress novel.
“The voice began on a Tuesday morning while Monte Walsh was standing in his kitchen, holding an unopened package of bacon over the garbage can.”