Jenni Thurston 10/22/20 Jenni Thurston 10/22/20

The House on Deer Creek Road: Part 2

He told me he was worried about the old guy inside the house. I felt my stomach start to harden as I told him I was the only one who lived there. “Ma’am, I don’t want to alarm you,” he said. “But there’s someone inside. I can see him moving around through the window. Tall, thin, hard of hearing? He was walking sort of hunched over.”

Joe Janes 10/21/20 Joe Janes 10/21/20

The Minutes of Our Last Meeting - Hammer Time! with Hammer T. Dick

We are obligated by law to use “air quotes” around “news”.

Don Hall 10/20/20 Don Hall 10/20/20

Clean Your Room

You gingerly reach over to your smartphone to see what time it is and the shock splashes across your instantly awake mind: four years? You’ve been asleep for four fucking YEARS?

Don Hall 10/19/20 Don Hall 10/19/20

I Believe… [Skipping Halloween?]

I believe… that maybe we can skip Halloween this year given that the entire year has already been a bath of horror?

Jenni Thurston 10/19/20 Jenni Thurston 10/19/20

The House on Deer Creek Road: Part 1

It was the best and the worst three days of my life. It was the best because I felt like a good mother for the first time. It was the best because I was falling in love for the first time. It was the worst because, well, you know why. That’s why you’re here. To know the worst of it.

Don Hall 10/18/20 Don Hall 10/18/20

If Yogi Bear Were God, I’d Have This Thing Wrapped Up

Like Scientology, the Branch Davidians, the Aetherius Society,the Gentle Wind Project, and the Reformed Druids of North America, it seems so many are looking for answers in cults so cults are born on the flimsiest of reasons with nonexistent means to verify their connection to truth.

David Himmel 10/16/20 David Himmel 10/16/20

Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of October 11, 2020

Most of the drunks I’ve come to know are really fun and funny people. I miss carousing with and observing with their kind. It’s not COVID’s fault—it’s the fault of age, responsibility, and domestication. The silver lining is that my two-year-old son often acts and talks like a drunkard, which quenches my thirst for being among fun lunatics with bad habits.

Don Hall 10/15/20 Don Hall 10/15/20

Paving That Well-Intentioned Road (or Make Sure You Have Plenty of Milk)

Decades later, I comprehend my anger in a way that I was too close to before. My well intentioned sharing was transactional. I gave the guy a bagel and wanted in return gratitude and a sense of my own virtue.

Joe Janes 10/14/20 Joe Janes 10/14/20

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.

Don Hall 10/14/20 Don Hall 10/14/20

"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.

Don Hall 10/13/20 Don Hall 10/13/20

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.

Don Hall 10/12/20 Don Hall 10/12/20

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.

Don Hall 10/11/20 Don Hall 10/11/20

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.

Don Hall 10/10/20 Don Hall 10/10/20

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.

David Himmel 10/9/20 David Himmel 10/9/20

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.

David Himmel 10/9/20 David Himmel 10/9/20

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.

Don Hall 10/8/20 Don Hall 10/8/20

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.

Joe Janes 10/7/20 Joe Janes 10/7/20

The Minutes of Our Last Meeting | A Eulogy for Donald Trump

On his tomb stone is inscribed, “This is Obama’s fault.”

Elizabeth Harper 10/6/20 Elizabeth Harper 10/6/20

Smelling of Sex, of Summer, of Love

Don Hall 10/5/20 Don Hall 10/5/20

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?