What the?! Seriously? You did what? What in the name of all that is holy made you think that was a good idea? I say these things a lot to my children. Why did you do that to your brother? Put that down! Of course you can’t! No! Those, too. Often, “no” is the word [...]
So in the last three days, I've seen three GoFundMe projects that have caught my eye. The first was for the family of a three year old boy who died in a horrific accident on New Year's eve. The second was for a dear friend and former radio guy whose family has fallen on some [...]
Saturday. December 26, 2015. My phone rang; it was my friend Bobby, with whom I share office space. Oh no, I thought as I answered. "Hey Bobby, what's going on?" "Dude, you need to get down to the office and salvage what you can. The water is rising. Fast." St. Louis, Missouri was in the [...]
It was 11 p.m. (ish) and I couldn't sleep. My wife had drifted off almost an hour prior, and I longed to join her in slumberland. Maybe it was the "to-do" list racing through my head of the last minute gifts, or wrapping up in important video edit, or the seemingly endless state of suck [...]
There are so many things that tell us that we are doomed as people. Hate. Disease. Despair. Mass shootings. Safe spaces. Cancer. Racism from all races. Everybody playing "Gotcha!" "Gotcha!" is one that gets to me a lot, because it typifies despair paired with an utter lack of genial discourse. It's nothing but a game [...]
Halloween may be my favorite holiday. I mean, I love all holidays, but Halloween is the first biggie of the holiday season...my favorite time of year. I remember the first time I ever went trick-or-treating. We had just moved to Chicago from Ireland a few months prior, and I was having a little problem getting [...]
I hate kale. I really want to like it. I know it's a super-food. I know there's the equivalent of four thousand times the recommended daily allowance of vitamin D, iron, and rust. And I've tried to fancy it up by cooking it in butter and lemon and sea salt and a hint of Parmesan [...]
Taylor Swift came to town. As catchy as I find one of her songs (see: Blank Space), I'm a 43-year-old dad with two boys; Ms. Swift is really not in my wheelhouse, though I do hear she's very, very nice. However, she is wildly popular with most of the girls in my sons' classes at [...]
"Sixteen hundred!" Two Saturdays ago, Victor "Bud" Clever found himself at a charity event bidding on a black Labrador. As the the auctioneer barked for more money, Victor...forgetting that he was the one who was now the holder of the leading bid...shouted, "Two thousand!" The auctioneer double-taked the man in the Hunter S. Thompson hat [...]
I'm a big believer that cancer intensifies everything, and almost overnight. A journey in treatment is a microcosm of a life, but instead of taking eighty years, it can happen in as little as eighteen weeks. You love harder, hurt more painfully, fall more rapidly, grow more quickly, and pull off the stupidest of the [...]