If we’re all thinking the same things and using the same uninspired and unexamined language, then no one is thinking at all — and that’s dangerous. Recently I began listening to the world through a filter I was calling originality, but it took a bad turn: originality was hard to…

It’s not The COVID-19 New World Order, The Trumpian Epoch, or the Time of I-Thing— “Random” is the word of the decade for a reason. — The reckless, impassioned romanticism of Canadian rocker Neil Young’s line It’s better to burn out than fade away is irresistible to a certain type of person. The line appears in two versions of a song on the 1979 album RUST NEVER SLEEPS — itself a title for the ages, a…

There are 60+ words for snow at the poles. English has 200+ words for intoxication, and we’re getting close to that in describing mendacity — the art of lying. A rumination on truth, and a fitting farewell to our mendacious president, whose last mendacity has surely been his most audacious. — Theatrics and Hidden Truths ‘Ain’t nothin’ more powerful than the the odor of mendacity,’ Big Daddy drawls in Tennessee Williams’ Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, the word lingering in the still air that passes for an oxygen supply to the three desperate characters gathered in Big Daddy’s Mississippi plantation home on this 1950s…

‘Something Like The Truth’, Vol. 1 #2: The world is a strange and wondrous place, and here are small insights meant to capture some of its abstract mystery — to be followed up soon. — Some look out to the world and see themselves; others look inside to see the world. POLITICS IS WHAT’S LEFT AFTER EVERYTHING REAL IS STRIPPED AWAY.

Love, lust, sex, betrayal. Murder, greed. Money. Dreams of eternal Caribbean bliss. Denial. Sex. Harsh reality: bullets, handcuffs, the sound of a cell door slamming shut. Redemption. Revenge. Sex: raging, blinding passion. When the stakes are this high, how far will we go? These desperate couples give us a hint. — The Dirty Dozen of Mainstream Cinema Some of the best moments in film include a sizzling element of sexual tension that makes us alive with the fire of the characters.

If you want to live an extraordinary life, you need to recognize extraordinary people. Yet often in our distracted frenzy we let meaningful lessons and impactful people run right past us. — American boys have a tough time growing into manhood. With few coming-of-age rituals and a dizzying array of potential role models who demonstrate wide ranges of behavior, it is a challenge to figure out who to admire. Fathers, with challenges on their own journeys, at best form only part of…

In late 2020 when COVID restrictions were at their height, odd events were taking place in the world of professional boxing, complicating an already unstable landscape. — (written in spring 2021, updated summer 2022) VIRTUAL VISUALS Had you been watching pandemic boxing matches in makeshift rings set up in parking lots, shoved between the walls of two non-descript buildings with 20 people in attendance? Or in what looks like a spare conference room in a radio station’s under-utilized office…

2021 was a year of contradiction, struggle and an almost break-even mix of progress and regression. But what does it all mean? — With all the end-of-year lists out by December 31, I wanted a little more perspective, so I waited until we were midway into 2022. These 1st annual Quantum awards are primarily based on American culture, although much of the world experiences similar phenomena in this age of instantaneous communication. As…

It doesn’t get much better than a summer spent camping in our potential 51st state. Just watch out for the DIY marijuana farmers, avoid the meth lab trailers where aluminum foil covers the windows, and give wide space to the tree-spikers in the middle of the night. — IT WAS 2005, and I was to turn 50 that summer, and sometime in July took off on a road trip with my younger daughter, 8 year-old Jenna, who had just completed 2nd grade.