The Evolution of a Misanthrope
Solitude, while a wellspring of creativity and introspection, is also a place of vulnerability and isolation. The crowd, a source of collective strength and unity, can equally be a crucible of conformity and chaos.
I Believe… [It’s the Economy, Stupid]
...that the emphasis on class and labor and muting of identity and social justice is the pivot required for the Left to win elections moving forward.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 18, 2024
Considering how the DNC disrupted and shut down so much of Chicago, I’m left with this realization: Democracy is the greatest obstacle to progress.
A Truly Chicago Moment
There is something amazing about an audience of that size watching a movie together.
While the Rest of You Slept
A prayer. Asking for the things I can no longer influence. Recognizing what I don’t and never will control.
I Believe…[Sell By Date]
...that like beer and cheese, a person’s ‘sell by’ date is a fiction, an illusion designed to prioritize the new over the seasoned, youth over experience.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 11, 2024
I don’t like bibliophiles. They’re right up there with vegans, Swifties, and born again Christians, and Disney Adults. Calm down. All of you. Your one-dimensional personality sucks.
A Rare Moment of Ease and Simplicity
Let me first tell you how much I hate running errands. It’s not due to laziness. Because I’m a guy who thrives off of immediate gratification.
Donald Duck or Donald Trump?
The electorate, in turn, becomes the park visitors, willingly suspending disbelief to partake in the spectacle.
Kinkster Pride—Elizabeth Borrows a Book from the Library
Young children do not care about and are not interested in the sex lives of adults.
I Believe…[Unsafe]
..that anyone not in a dark alley or the home of a known serial killer who claims the feel unsafe probably are best off becoming agoraphobic and staying inside.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of August 5, 2024
My favorite kind of art is Art of the Possible.
A Tumor in April
April and Ben met again years later. She was leaving an office building; he was boarding a train. They swooned and dated. But something was different.
I Believe…[Desperation]
...that the need to be liked (including the hormonally charged desire for ‘followers’) makes you the eighth grade boy at the middle school dance in line to impress the one girl who just got a training bra.
Notes from the Post-it Wall | Week of July 28, 2024
What makes it so hard to believe our kids are as old as they are is not because we don’t understand how calendars work. It’s because we get reminders from Time Hop and Facebook Memories, so it literally is just yesterday we saw them as infants. Social media fucks us in every hole in every way.
For the Love of Cheese
As far as I am concerned, cheese is perhaps God’s greatest creation with respect to water and fermentation. I, frankly, love cheese. If stranded on a desert island, I’d choose an endless supply of Brie over the tools to make fire or access to pornography. It is both my joy and debilitating weakness.
Drunk & Jaundiced
He showed up drunk. The stumbling, the slurring, the hitting on the bartender in a perverted, nonsensical way aside He looked good. His hair had thinned. His belly had grown. But there was a New Wave Confidence appeal to him.
What Do You See?
I Believe…[The Means is the Point]
...that anyone who espouses the idea that "the end justifies the means" has forgotten that this same philosophy was used to support everything from slavery to the Holocaust to the IMF practicing "shock doctrine" economic devastation. The "means" defines the character of the end, not the other way around.
THE MANAGEMENT COUNCIL
Once the merger is announced, I’ll resign and ask them to do the same. They won’t suspect the truth.
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.”