Letting Go of Sports Trauma Likely Makes Room for More Sports Trauma

We throw around accusations of compartmentalization all the time now, mostly to point out people are likely doing it to: (a.) survive the remaining seven weeks of winter around these parts (despite various Really Good-Looking Chief Meteorologists claiming it’s spring) (b.) come to terms with the fact that Russell Wilson is no longer a part […]

Beware of Physics and Esprit de Corps

The original conversation went something like this: Lieutenant: “He said he never makes mistakes, they’re just misunderstandings.” Chief: “What were you doing in the sewage pit in the first place?” Lieutenant: “We’re repurposing it as a site for hose testing.” Chief: “The county is on board with this?” Lieutenant: “Yes, it’s just sitting there collecting […]

Don Johnson May Be the Key to Bringing Jai Alai Back to Life

The opening sequence to the ‘80s narcotics interdiction/buddy crime-noir drama Miami Vice featured some incredible guitar riffs, sweet bongo drum reverberations, flashy splashy neon-bathed images of Miami that made us want to hang out at South Beach, and certainly what must be the world record for the briefest introduction to the sport of jai alai ever displayed […]

Nicknames Ensure Sports Greatness or at Least That Somebody Sort of Likes You

A recent internal poll revealed nine of the 37 members of our executive leadership team excelled in athletics at either the collegiate or professional level.  While our legal department hasn’t tested the veracity of this poll, or whether the poll-ees were sober while logging their responses, we’re confident in the results as they explain the […]

We Lost a Bet and Had to Write Something “Fairytale-Like” So Here You Go Steve, We Hope You’re Happy

“I’m not going behind that hill,” said Princess Olgreth. It was actually a beautiful hill, covered in wildflowers. Well, except for the menacing growling emanating from the other side…and the ankle deep mud at the base here…why is farmland always so dirty? “But Wartsworth is there,” explained Fiddleson for the millionth time. “It’s not even […]

Boost Your Status In Society with the Right Super Bowl Foodstuffs

A rare, extra post because this won’t make sense next week, which means we have to come up with something else..any suggestions are fine, encouraged, but will likely be summarily ignored. Oh, back to the food. The Super Bowl is the second-largest day for American food consumptions after Thanksgiving. Thus the year-long recipe hoarding we […]

History Is Confusing, and None More So Than Super Bowl History

History Is Confusing, and None More So Than Super Bowl History The two weeks between the conference championship games and Superbowl LVI are not stressful like the two weeks prior to the federal individual tax filing and payment deadline generally known as Tax Day. It may feel that way, given there is a similar, slightly […]

Try Something New, But Maybe Not Icy Hot

Given the general assumption by those with athletic-minded persuasions that their excellence within a given sport is automatically transferable to another sport, it’s not surprising to find a meteoric rise in the popularity of contrast therapy as a means of recovery over the past few decades. That’s where we expose parts of the body to […]

Racquetball Is Way More Complicated Than You Think

There’s a misconception amongst athletic types that excellence at a given sport is automatically transferable to another sport. This faulty logic is most evident in horse racers believing they can drive NASCAR, swimmers thinking they can fly stunt planes, and tennis players equating their foot speed and hand-eye coordination with racquetball excellence. Which brings up […]

The Wrong Name Jeopardizes the Soul

Our colleague who went to prison got a lot of props, possibly survived, because he was really good at basketball. He’s probably still really good at basketball, but now he’s middle-aged, so body parts don’t go where the brain tells them to quite as adeptly, agilely, rapidly, or pain-freely as they did in his youth. […]

Championship Games Are More Educational Than One Thinks

In much simpler times we could turn on the television January 1st and click between three major broadcast networks to watch 72 straight hours of post-season, NCAA Division I Football Bowl Subdivision games, and shave years off our lifespans by eating Fritos®. Now Fritos® come in a bewildering array of varieties from which it’s impossible […]

PhD

Bartolomeo (real name) walks into the room with THIS song playing. It’s a conference room with roughly 30 well-spaced people sitting in uncomfortable, shiny bright metal-framed chairs, the kind surfaced in mysterious upholstery that’s constantly unravelling. This is the home office, in a strip mall in Federal Way, Washington. They do finance stuff. It’s incredible to witness. […]

Don’t Be a Dud This New Year’s Eve

Boxing is a sport that appears to be slightly hazardous to our health for two primary reasons: First, it takes place in a relatively inescapable ring surrounded by bloodthirsty onlookers hoping a distinct amount of harm falls upon participants; ala the smash hits Running Man, Hunger Games, and (sigh)…Squid Game – which we really hoped to avoid ever mentioning […]

Great Holiday Matchups You Can’t Miss But Will Miss Because It’s the Holidays

A plethora of holidays are coming down the pipeline to the point it can get a little confusing, and downright concerning, to understand where sports will fit in. Thus, we’re delving into the best things any human can do for sports entertainment during the forthcoming festive week (or weeks, depending on which holidays we celebrate), […]

Operation White Dove II: The Orders Said Spread Love. So They Did. With a Vengeance

Readers worldwide have waited two interminable weeks for the sequel to the acclaimed, award-winning, attention-garnering, riveting, soon-to-be-made-into-a-daytime-drama, psycho-paranormal thriller, Operation White Dove. Mostly because the original story degenerated into a rambling, incoherent diatribe/finger-pointing at nebulous, misconceived, and altogether assumed notions about writers and their various rampant addictions. Which ultimately generated a special kind of bait-and-switch-inspired disappointment […]

The Truth Behind Office Politics and Car Shows

Nobody understands why car shows don’t happen in the winter. Maybe it’s the softening of our resilience as a culture and now we’re so coddled and fragile the idea of standing outside, in some converted parking lot or requisitioned city street, staring at a 2022 Porsche Taycan GTS Sport Turismo in high-gloss black metallic at […]

Operation White Dove

Operation White Dove is a famous military-grade invasion of Kansas many people are learning about through their phones literally right now, as they sit on their local toilet or desk chair, the first of which is a function of necessity, and we suppose the latter of which is also a function of necessity given everyone […]

Speed Up Post Workout Recovery by Freezing to Death

One thing we wish we could do – because it looks really cool on shows like Ted Lasso, movies like Major League, and some other sports comedies we’ve seen – is workout so hard we need to immerse ourselves in a stainless-steel tub filled with ice, water, and whipped cream; otherwise known as an ice bath. Our […]

The Genealogy of a Three-Course Thanksgiving Feast

The best part about Thanksgiving is the cornucopia that will undoubtedly take center stage on the dining room table. This symbol of abundant harvest harkens back to Pilgrim* times when to express gratitude one filled an odd-shaped basket with fruits, vegetables, nuts, and flowers. That’s right, times are hard, but we’re cool with that, after […]

Youth Soccer Doesn’t Last Forever And We’re Fine With That

Around these parts it’s dark and windy and crappy which means the youth soccer season must be underway. We’re talking grade-school level stuff, not high-school soccer. High-school soccer happens in the Fall and Spring and possibly a bunch of other times but it’s too hard to pin down a source for confirmation since school administrations […]

Flag Football Is the Sports Equivalent of Karaoke

Adult flag football is a great activity for those still fond of high-school based on varsity athleticism and popularity, still angry about high-school based on lack of athletic ability and subsequent invisibility, and those shunned in high-school or otherwise deemed nerds and dorks based mostly on scholarship. It should be noted the shunned nerds and […]

Origins Of Your Overly Emotional and Ludicrous Football-Watching Behavior

Anything can happen. It’s not over by a long shot. The Season After The Seahawks Won The Superbowl began with an away game at San Diego on a super-hot Sunday afternoon. Really hot. People were naked in the stands, LEGOLAND melted, the lions at the San Diego Zoo took over the penguin exhibit’s 200,000 gallon […]

Bok! Bok! The Battle for Sports Supremacy Isn’t the Only Competition at Climate Pledge Arena

Shaquille O’Neal is opening what is ostensibly his sixth Big Chicken location inside Seattle’s Climate Pledge Arena, working in conjunction with the unfortunately named entertainment ground’s executive chef Molly De Mers. That is if she is not eaten by Shaq first. Molly’s specific role with Big Chicken’s first Seattle location remains a little unclear. Certainly […]

Sportsbooks Make You an Overall Better Person

Washington State recently allowed sports betting to take place at tribal casinos. This is a complex issue that deserves rapt attention and a review of offshore financial accounts hiding assets from both immediate friends and family as well as the federal government, given the former’s wont to access piles of bullion to spend lavishly on […]

Proprioception and the Mental Health Benefis of Winter Sports

When people move to the Pacific Northwest from states that don’t feature 226 to 308 days a year with clouds covering upwards of 75% of the sky they frequently freak out and want to move back to Napa, which is fine by Pacific Northwesterners, not that we have anything in particular against Napians other than […]

You’re Not Living Unless Your Blasting Away At Doves

Mourning doves are murderous, evil little birds bent on our destruction. They fly onto our windowsills at night like stalkers, attempting to peek between our blinds with their beady little black eyes to determine our specific location, report it back to the flock, then find a weak spot in our domiciles (typically plumbing vents, chimneys, […]

Profanity is the Hallmark of High Performance

The hard part about hiring a sports icon to market various products or services is one doesn’t ever know when the sports icon is going to freak out and swear like a Hell’s Angel or some other miscreant a corporation that’s trying to appeal to the mass market certainly does not want to associate itself […]

Shameless Promotion of Pendleton, Oregon

  Pendleton Oregon is a town that’s far away from Seattle and fairly far away from Portland and really far away from Portland, Maine, a town no one has ever been to but is apparently surrounded by 40,000 acres of wild blueberries. Surrounded in the sense that the state of Maine itself prorogates this vast […]

The Trouble with Neighborhood Corn

On August 4th, 2021, as the nation wakes up hung over after National Block Party Night, a.k.a. Night Out, I walk outside into the still-balmy Seattle summer air to jump into my recycling bin. We only have one bin. Our neighbors somehow scored two, likely thanks to their financial contributions to various Political Action Committees […]

Of Course

I notice when I say, “thank you” people now reply, “of course” instead of “you’re welcome.” Well, I noticed this at restaurants, bars and coffee shops back when those were places we could go into, then thought about it when they weren’t places we could go into, and now frequently notice since we can go […]

The Dog Kicks After It Poops

A: “I like your new dog.” J: “He kicks after he poops.” A: “Must be a pride thing.” J: “I do the same thing.” A: “That’s weird.” J: “I don’t do it in front of people.” A: “So do you kick the toilet? How do you not kick the toilet?” J: “It’s more of a […]

The Health, Wellness, and Fitness Industries Face a Huge Marketing Problem

The thing the makers of Peloton, who we think are called “Peloton,” don’t disclose on a big sticker like they should is if we ride that stupid bike for months on end and still drink delicious, hazy IPAs from Oregon, Washington or (if really lucky) Vermont every night we still end up with the physique […]

Wrestle With What Kind of Competitor You Are

The mentality of competition, otherwise known as competitiveness or in some cases sports psychology, allowed me to win the Seattle Half Marathon in 2002. Or maybe it was 2003. And technically it’s called The Amica Insurance Seattle Half Marathon, and technically I didn’t win it. I merely finished. Which was a win for me. If […]

Sometimes Roofs Flush Like Toilets

Trying something new is usually quite frightening which is why trying something new for self-improvement purposes or simply to maximize life experience is an ill-advised strategy for anyone capable of experiencing fear. Please don’t try and counter this logic by reflecting upon and realizing that everything you do now as a matter of routine – […]

When Was The Last Time You Hit The Track?

Horse racing takes place once a year in Kentucky and lasts about 90 seconds, at least as far as most Americans outside of Kentucky are concerned. But horse racing is a legitimate sport for people so addicted to it that they can’t stop riding horses or, more commonly, frequent the facilities where the competitions transpire […]

Look Good While Supporting the Local Gym

It’s normal to want to look cool. Cool communicates a confident handle on life – an ability to adapt to any situation, overcome massive obstacles, make tons of cash, dress well and, most importantly, act all nonplussed in face of massive adversity despite wanting to just totally freak out and vomit. This is best exemplified […]

We Can’t All Be Caeleb Dressel, But We Can All Use a Trampoline

The Summer Olympics are waiting like a stalking butler for most Americans to come home from work and not care. This is likely because most Americans are not true patriots, as evidenced by their proclivity to watch other, more interesting but way less jingoistic sports like soccer. …Wait a second here that can’t be right, […]

Sports Bars Are Key to Our Future

Aside from being great places to watch sports, drink beer, hide from spouses, kids and other mundane responsibilities then eventually, at the last possible moment, call an Uber to go home, sports bars are great places to become unreasonably competitive while flaunting unique skillsets like dart throwing, skee-ball rolling, table shuffleboard puck sliding, and loud, […]

OMENS

The first omen arrived in 2016 when a root spur from our 75-foot cedar tree started pushing up against the underside of the white cedar fence we share with our neighbor to the south. Maybe living next to a fence composed of its very being made this tree particularly resentful. The solution at the time […]

Sports Fans and Culinary Enthusiasts Are One And The Same

The most important part of professional sports is the food. In fact, anthropological studies indicate that throughout human history the progression of different ingredient combinations to create a given dish directly relates to our universal desire to ingest something delicious while watching someone else compete. It’s kind of a parasympathetic nervous system/psychological situation where we […]

If You Start Training Now You’ll Be Ready By July 25th

The annual Seattle Summer Celebration known as Seafair, what with the boat races, partying and general bedlam, is tomorrow, and you should get ready. What? Oh, it’s not tomorrow. Oops! Sorry about that. Apparently it’s still 12-weeks away. Well, the main weekend event with the boat races is 12-weeks away (August 5th). If you consider […]

Don’t Overlook the Marketing Capacity of Playoff Hockey

The Stanly Cup Playoffs are underway. I can tell because my friend who is a Pittsburgh Penguins fan made me come over and watch the third period of last Saturday’s game before we took our kids on a somewhat death-defying bike ride. I can also tell because the five other people in Seattle who follow […]

Motorsports Directly Threaten the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy Marketplace

I used to work with a guy who always blathered on about this place called “Pacific Raceways.” Especially in the summer, as it turns out most motorsports in Washington State need to take place in the summer or early fall as to avoid the sky water. Something about the coefficient of friction…and fans not wanting […]

Summertime Cycling Doesn’t Require Corporate Sponsorship

May is a great time to sell a boat. Or a bicycle. At least in the Pacific Northwest. Or buy one. Of each. This is because we great citizens of this great region know, with certainty, that May signals the beginning of The Dry Season. That’s right, roughly 122 days of glowing warmth emanating from […]

PUT THE VINTAGE BACK IN YOUR BATHROOM

I’m worried about toilet magazines.   In ancient times, some of the classier establishments in my town, including classy households, had a rack of magazines for one to peruse while…using the facilities.   You know, taking a pause, etc. It’s fine. We all do it.   And it wasn’t always a rack. That was real […]

A Geologic Record of Rampant Sexism

The 2021 Trout Derby, put on by the Washington State Department of Fish & Wildlife (WDFW), opened Saturday April 24th. Who doesn’t like a derby? When was the last time you were in any kind of derby, go-kart, fishing, horse race or otherwise? 1959? I thought the word was extinct. We should put on a […]

TENNIS IS ALL ABOUT GETTING A GREAT TAN

Tennis players are amazing athletes, and amazing people. Just look at Rod Laver. Who is Rod Laver? I have no idea, but he had a Wilson tennis racket named after him, or possibly a pair of shoes, so he must have been double amazing. Or was it Stan Smith?   Let’s not enter the boring […]

BEAR CRAWLS BOLSTER NATIONAL SECURITY

When I was a freshman in high school my first class of the first semester was physical education (P.E.) at 7:45 a.m. Somehow, I drew the same short straw my sophomore year. How I envied the kids who enjoyed P.E. at roughly 1:00 p.m., in the daylight, with actual waves of radiant heat emanating from […]

IF YOU BOOK NOW YOU’LL GET THAT CAMPSITE IN AUGUST 2022

  I wonder what it’s like to camp in Arizona. Do people just go out into the middle of the Sonora desert, pitch a tent, then get eaten by rattlesnakes? Or die of heat stroke? Or freeze? The ground looks extra hard in Arizona, sounds terrible.   Scientific Fact: The Pacific Northwest is full of […]

OPENING DAY FOR LITTLE LEAGUE DRAMA

Last year Seattle’s North Central Little League cancelled its baseball season, which was tragic for kids aged 7-13. More importantly, it was devasting for their hyper-competitive parents, whose entire existence is predicated on sacrificing their overall familial relationship for the sake of future stardom and financial gain. Or at least a scholarship.   And don’t […]

INTERIOR DECORATION IS NOT ESSENTIAL TO THE VASECTOMY BUSINESS

There are a plethora of industries in which not much fun is had, as far as I can tell. Technology is definitely one of them. Fun can’t fit in the room with that much smugness or depressed resignation. These are the only two character traits made available to technology people by the cosmos, I checked, […]

IT’S OKAY TO ALREADY BE THINKING OF SUMMER SPORTS

Even though we’re only in March and technically the first day of spring was just last weekend, and Pacific Northwest springs aren’t very spring-like until about May, and right now it’s freezing outside, and raining, and I’m hungry – there are some summer sporting activities that I simply cannot wait to see again, as outlined […]

DO AS I SAY, NOT AS I DO

When I find myself completely overwhelmed and flying all over the place and acting grumpy and panicked and irrational I like to blame my son. Who is 12.   It’s because he puts a lot of pressure on me to set a good example, which makes my neurotic behavior worse. I can’t be expected to […]

CONNECTING THE CONNECTION REQUEST

Does anyone get their LinkedIn Friend, er, Connection Request rejected?   It must happen.   Perhaps it’s done in a passive-aggressive way, where the recipient of the request kind of curls up into a ball, shrinks back from the desk, and powers down their laptop with one curled finger rather than say “no.”   Is […]

OUR NATIONAL FORESTS NEED MORE READILY AVAILABLE PARKING

I know a guy who likes to bowhunt. I can tell because spanning the entire width of the rear window glass of his humungous Ford F350 there’s a decal that says “Bowhunter,” above an image of a similarly humungous arrow, complete with deadly looking broadhead (the pointy part that kills things), fletchings (which were the […]

SHOTGUN SPORTS AND STEAKS ARE THE BEST

Since I’m really into self-delusion, I enjoy fishing, hunting, and the gentlemanly sport of blasting the bajeezus out of clay pigeons. There’s no better place to blast the bajeezus out of clay pigeons than the booming metropolis of Sequim, Washington. And when I say, “no better place,” I really mean it. I don’t care where […]

RING AROUND THE RING

It turns out there’s a whole community behind the Ring Video Doorbell installed on my front door. Well, it’s next to my front door. You don’t know where I live, unless you also have a Ring Video Doorbell and are familiar with the secret side button double-click action that generates a map of all other […]

WHERE’S THE SHOWMANSHIP

For some reason I’ve never been invited to give a speech, virtually or otherwise. Especially not a speech at tech conferences like the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) or AWS re:Invent. Nor have I been invited to orate at healthcare summits like IMSH or the ever-popular AAOS/AANA/AOSSM.   This is likely because it’s widely known within […]

RELENTLESS ENTHUSIASM

isn’t the same as always being nice, or always feeling happy, or faking either one. Relentless enthusiasm is a choice, especially when you’re tired, especially when your team is beat up, especially when something hasn’t worked. When members of the 101st Airborne pass one their teammates during a run, they tap them on the shoulder and […]

I LOVE GETTING HUSTLED

The space-time continuum vacuum we’re all currently existing in thanks to the virus, made all the more surreal thanks to the  Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior–styled bandits attempting to overthrow the federal government on January 6th, has led to a proliferation of professional development courses, particularly of the online variety.   Okay, that’s not fair. […]

SAVE YOUR QUARTERS

  I’ve written about enterprising neighborhood capitalists before…. Did you see that? I’m using a tool you may not be familiar with called Search Engine Optimization or “SEO” for short. It’s pronounced “see-yo” conversationally.  Whenever I interview for writing jobs for one of the 44,832 technology companies here in the Pacific Northwest I’m always peppering my […]

SNOW-COVERED BIGOTRY

The snow was, quite mysteriously, very cold on our feet for some reason.   We had nice big snow boots on. And snow pants that made us (ok just me) look fat. It’s the pant’s fault entirely, not at all my body’s fault. A really good gig would be to invent snow pants that make […]

BLOOD, BEARS AND GOLDEN TEE

This guy’s blood squirted pretty much on me at the start of our honeymoon. I was a brand-new tech in an ER and I wanted this healthcare/emergency services gig to bolster my resume as I attempted to enter the fire service despite a healthy fear of heights, fire and driving oversized vehicles. Wanted it so […]

TECHNICALLY HITCHCOCK COVERED THIS

The house across the street from us, well kind of diagonally across the street and a few houses down so I think that’s called kitty-corner +10, is grey with white trim and 4000 feet tall. 4000 feet. It used to be dumpy and brown and a recluse-type person lived there. The house right next door […]

GOOD CHEER IS UNDERVALUED

If I was a rich tycoon I’d definitely have a National Football Team. Ah, an NFL team. NFL football team. I’d own it. One. Maybe eventually two. I’d call my first team The Porcelain Mice. Maybe I’ll put it in Portland. The Portland Porcelain Mice. But not Portland, Oregon, that place is too trendy plus […]

YOU LIKELY NEED PHYSICAL THERAPY

My wife is a physical therapist which means she actually helps people for a living rather than exploiting their weaknesses for financial gain. That’s why I married her – she’s literally my ticket into heaven. Which reminds me, I’ve got a great ground-floor opportunity for you we should discuss by tomorrow afternoon. It’s filling up […]

THIRD-PARTY CANDIDATES

My holidays are filled with Holiday Towels. Hand towels. Beach towels. Bath towels. Fuzzy towels. Threadbare towels. All shapes and sizes, towels, towels, towels. A bunch of Holiday Towels. Towels hanging off the kitchen faucet. Towels hanging off the oven door handle. Towels hanging off this towel rack in the bathroom. Towels in the laundry […]

DRYERS

I abhor pictures in the middle of formal web articles. Unless they’re of me, which they never are. I also get freaked out by backlinks. Whenever I see a backlink in these purported articles I make this old man grumpy noise-growl to signal my distaste. Backlinks stop me in my tracks because they seem to […]

AVIAN SPECIAL FORCES COMMUNITIES

It’s hunting season, and regardless how you feel about that you should also know that tofu is regularly hunted in the central portion of the United States. The blocks wobble their way down to Mexico from Canada in one of nature’s greatest migrations, second only to the flight of the Monarch butterfly. Thus from North […]

LinkedIn Rejections

Does anyone get their LinkedIn Friend, er, Connection Request rejected? It must happen. Perhaps it’s done in a passive aggressive way, where the recipient of the request kind of curls up into a ball, shrinks back from the desk, and powers-down their laptop with one curled finger rather than saying “no.” Is there even a […]

CAN

Whether you think you can, or think you can’t, you’re right.

SEE WHAT YOU’VE BEEN MISSING

You may be wondering if port cities come with seedy underbellies as implied by the 1980’s neon-splashed smash hit series  Miami Vice  (after which I’ve modeled most of my life).   They do.   The Usual Suspects, Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen, Harry Potter  – all take place in port cities. All reveal what goes […]

GOOGLE NAPS

Haha!   It’s pouring down rain here and 46-degrees and horrible out. And windy. Plus there’s a tech bubble. Great combination.   I’m not sure what a tech bubble is. Really it’s a rich person bubble. Or a perfectly-willing-to-spend-$15-on-a-craft-cocktail bubble. Or a make-my-house-more-valuable-but-also-a-larger house-unattainable bubble   Most of my neighbors work in the tech industry. […]

FOCUS GROUPS ARE JUST AN EXCUSE TO MAKE OUT

Technically one could walk around one’s neighborhood and turn off people’s gas mains. Then you’d have Total Control. You could be the Mayor of about four-square blocks. “He who controls the Spice, controls the universe” and all that. The Spice in this case is a metaphor for natural gas. It’s kind of a stretch if […]

FINAL PRODUCT

Your final product is what people see. They don’t get to see all the hard work behind it: your research, analysis, brainstorming, testing, corrections, management, organization, worry, and passion. Nope. Your work is just suddenly there. Ready to be judged. Oh no. I once threw a rooftop birthday party for a friend. It was glorious! […]

SECRET BEDTIME HOUSE LUST

I love my family. In quarantine I frequently find myself desperately wanting to get away from them. Wait, is what we’re doing still called quarantine? Currently I’ve escaped to our basement. There’s a man from Orkin (pest control) down here, and it’s small and cramped, and he’s just standing there not doing anything which is […]

GETTING PIZ-AID

I tell my son he should have been a meteorologist. He’s 11. Here in the greater Seattle area, our imminent doom lies not with the weather (rainy and relatively benign), but rather the many faults surrounding us…(the physical, rather than metaphorical, faults – you know, cracks in the Earth’s crusty part prone to quaking)…which I […]

BEWARE THE END CAP

The great 2020 Halloween debate in our neighborhood revolved around how to dispense candy. We were officially the only neighborhood in the country struggling to come to terms with this dilemma. We did the research. It’s true.   Several houses occupied by Rich People chose the Pipe Delivery Method. Since you may not intellectually understand […]

SLEDGE HAMMER WOULD DO IT

Imagine my surprise when the car started to slide down the mountain just a bit. The anti-lock brakes were doing that horrible rumble/bump thing, which is typically the first clue that something’s amiss, coupled with the fact that I didn’t want to go downhill anymore, yet we were still going downhill more. My son asked […]

EASY AND FUN CHANGEMAKING

What would this look like if it was easy and fun? Someone once told me this as I struggled to build a document in Excel – one of my many nemeses. My blood pressure elevates just when I read or hear the word “Excel.” I sweat more than usual, my chest gets tight, the whole […]

AXE COVERED PECTORALS

My dude friend told me that when you turn 40 weird stuff starts happening to you. I’m 47 now. 37!!! I’m 37! Think of me as 37. It’s fine. Okay it’s TRUE! Within a few months of turning 40 my ankle spontaneously gave out, my fence needed painting and we had a balance on a […]

Truly Creative Problem Solving

Is it so wrong to think of hiring an agent just for the sake of having an agent? I hired this Realtor® to walk into a business meeting with me. When asked who she was, I simply replied, “My agent.” What’s the big deal? She is. I mean she still thinks I’m selling my house […]

EARLY ADOPTERS

Fall haseth arrived, and as with every year it comes with a cornucopia (or “horn of plenty” which I find a much too sensual moniker) of fresh, vibrant and apparently controversial ideas. For example, my wife says the neighbor is going to be upset by the gigantic inflatable turkey dinner I’m putting in our front […]

TACTICS FOR MIS-HIRES

Have you ever created your S.T.A.R method? It stands for situation, truncate, assent, react.   No it stands for solve, tackle, arbitrary, recompense. Retract?   Retract!   This, combined with Adderall®, will help you with your interviews and your ability to talk-down to people.   It stands for situation, task, action, result. It’s a way […]

THE AILS

I like my Mac because it’s slim and smart like me minus the slim part, and I mean smart is subjective, but you get the idea. The keyboard glows, as does the Apple with a bite out of it on the cover, so that makes me think I’m modern and understand things.   I like […]

7TH GRADE NEWSROOM BRAWL

Have you heard those stories about Australian rugby teams being on international flights and they have their uniforms on or at least red and white horizontal-striped long-sleeved shirts with grass stains and blood all over and they’re already drunk then they just keep partying and getting more drunk and somehow the flight attendants and all […]

I HAVE A VERY IMPORTANT BUSINESS MEETING

Have you ever read an online article chock-full of backlinks? It’s super fun. You know, say you’re looking up a way to oh, smoke meat. Or apologize to your wife for forgetting to roll the recycling bin to the curb and the truck that dumps it all into the ocean has already come and gone. […]

REMEDIAL MATHEMATICS

Do you think t-shirts should cost $5.00 a piece? I think at Costco a 6-pack of Calvin Klein V-neck t-shirts (I love V-necks much to the frustration of the general public) costs $30.00. What would happen if we all paid $30.00 per t-shirt at Costco? I’m a whiz at pivot tables in Excel so the […]

NACHO CHEESE-COVERED GOOEY DUCKS

There’s really good queso in Lincoln Nebraska. Seattle, not so much. The Lincoln Nebraska queso looks fundamentally unhealthy. It actually glows a little bit. It’s not yellow, it’s white with multicolored flakes of what I assume are peppers of some kind. Green, red, orange, and yellow shards of what I hope are at least vegetable […]

HOW TO HOST A COCAINE PARTY SHOOTOUT

It would be great to invite your friends over to your vacation rental, then create a fake death scene. There are some important keys to this gag though. First, the vacation rental needs to be an actual vacation rental and not your house; i.e. (or e.g.) it’s not in the town you live in, you […]

“And it would a been could a been worse than you would ever know.” – Modest Mouse

I hereby challenge you to make a beef stir fry that tastes good. In my fridge lives a container of raw, stir-fry shaped beef strips of unknown “cut” as I threw out the original packaging. The beef oozes pure menace instead of juice. It hates itself, yet bathes in the power of its malevolence, and […]

BEWARE THE ROOFER

I wonder if the crew roofing the house next door is out to get me.  What if they sneak over to my house and take off my roof and not put on a new one?  You know. As a gag.  That’s the kind of hilarity homeowners can expect from the likes of me if I go […]

FEAR & THE GREAT PLACE

What we’re afraid of doing may be exactly what we need to do. If we’re indoctrinated from an early age through the educational system to memorize, conform and play the notes as written, it’s no wonder that’s what we’re doing. But it doesn’t feel right. Great organizations seek creativity, innovation and clean, crisp thought by […]

Hills Like Pink Oxen

Lying in my waterbed last night, the waves making a gentle gurgling sound, or so I think until I realize there is a man in the closet with a top hat and a bottle of Scope who isn’t a very good gargle-er, I think about running for president, what would happen if I ride my […]

Smooth Operator

There’s a sign on this huge asphalt construction dump truck in front of my house that says: Keep social distance Stay 6-feet back Do not touch truck Wait. Do not touch truck? I’m happy about it. At first because it’s hilarious, then later because it shows so much care on a very unusual canvas. “Do […]

Wormhole Continuums

Like a white rabbit running through a field of melted chocolate, we sit in the netherworld of virtual school, virtual work, and virtual vacation. I needed to relax so I pulled up my 1998 screen saver with the fish – you know, the ones in the bowl, slowly swimming around. It didn’t help. I was […]

Your Why

There’s a business/emotional intelligence (I don’t know what the latter one is) writer person (Simon Sinek) who talks about looking internally to find your “why” in terms of what you do, in general. Sounds pretty broad, and you may think the process involves scented candles, talismans, wispy clothing and body odor but it’s actually legit. […]

LIKE LOOKING INTO A MIRROR

There’s a formerly remote mountainside lake on the Olympic Peninsula that remains the perennial favorite for funny-car fueled ski boats, human powered kayaks, and the mysterious gravity-defying 21st Century phenomenon known as stand-up-kayaks. No. Stand up paddleboards. The air temperature exceeds 72 degrees Fahrenheit approximately six or so times a year at said crystalline lake. […]

Action Sequence

Cheddar snaps awake in his dimly lit apartment. At least he slept in his bed this time. He had his dream again. Or his thoughts again, he’s pretty sure he was awake. He knows he was awake. Pinned down behind the front passenger’s side wheel of the police cruiser, an officer down next to him, […]

A LITTLE PAIN FEELS GOOD

In one foul swoop my plans were wrecked by gross incompetence. Really, it was a function of space time. I’ve got other places to spend my incompetence. The house got smaller as the kid got older and the pandemic got isolating-er and work became house and house became work. Now I’m looking at fascia boards […]

EMBRACE THE SUCK

You know what I think is annoying? Suitcases. And/or fancy leather weekender bags that cool people like Keanu Reeves probably have.  Because in an effort to avoid the chaos of not having enough stuff, I create entropy in the form of packing too much stuff. Plus I look like an exhausted middle aged father grumpily […]

BELIEF

A peer of mine named Robert Boyle observed: “Customer chaos means they need us more, not less.” If change breeds fear because we’re all so desperate for control, perhaps serving others is the antidote. “…need us more…” Because they believe. What happens when we choose to believe as well?

The future will not involve underwear

We should all do time capsules about this whole pandemic thing. As in a steel tube approximately one-foot long with a 4.25-inch diameter buried 20-feet underground, in my case filled with various writings. Oh, and several headshots as I want to be famous in the distant future, like 500 years from now. 500 years is […]

THE PERIODIC TABLE OF BEER

I have a dream where I don’t have my cell phone. Or mobile phone. Or smart phone. Or tracking beacon. Or whatever you want to call it. Ok, it’s not really a dream. It’s just something I think about, randomly. See? I think. But lacking a phone directly impacts my ability to take photographs of […]

DEEP THOUGHTS III

Sometimes looking at someone straight in the eye makes you want to do the “wave.”“C’mon, let’s do the wave!” A good first date move is to respectively go in for a kiss then stop and ask if they’ve recently had garlic so you play hard to get. With the coming of summer Tom eargerly anticipated […]

ANALOG OVER DIGITAL

Someone sent me a thank you letter.  A LETTER. In an envelope. A cute, tiny white envelope. I’m outraged.  The vapid, thoughtless, infinity-scroll addicted, path-of-least resistance-seeking, phone-mashing, wide-mouthed consumer inside me is OUTRAGED. This aberration even has a little rectangular (a distinctly foreign rectangle, I must say) blue stamp with: BY AIR MAIL par avion […]

THAT GUY FROM THE OFFICE’S DOG

Does the act of picking up dog poop vary amongst human beings? So an A-list celebrity, for example; when they pick up their dog’s poop, is it like most things A-list and done with a smooth, quiet, undulating grace glimmering in wealth? Perhaps once you’re in a major motion picture you have people to do […]

BITTER LIKE A SNAke IS A PHRASE

My son has a snake, it’s orange and white with red beady eyes of death. Her name is Creamsicle. A highly-covered, newsworthy snake, not new to the press. You may have seen her on The Today Show*. *I find this show terrifying. I’m sure when son moves out of the house we’ll end up adopting […]

THE BATTLE OF ADIRONDACK

I walked the dog last night around dinner time. Like 5:30, 6:00. I literally said out loud, “Where the f*$k is everybody?” I live amongst rows of houses created between 1902 – 2020. Fairly diverse. It’s the time of year around here that you try and grasp to slow down – blue skies, warm, no […]

80’S BATHROOMS WERE THE BEST

I’m worried about toilet magazines. In ancient times, some of the classier establishments in my town, including classy households, had a rack of magazines for one to peruse while…using the facilities.  You know, dropping the…okay, okay I won’t do it. It wasn’t always a rack. That was real high-end stuff. Oftentimes it was a metal […]

I’ve Never Been In Def Leppard’s Airplane

Not unlike a blind pig stumbling upon an acorn, I recently defeated the laws of percentage chance. Well, implying I’m in direct, active, conscious competition with percentage chance may be a slight overstatement. If I choose to do battle with cosmic entities, I prefer less formidable ones, like pop-up advertisements. Why do those still exist […]

ALCOHOL FREE STRESS REDUCTION

This comes from an Akimbo workshop – so it’s a little bit of my material, a lot of Seth Godin’s and other great folks. There’s research out there that shows a great mechanism to develop resilience to stress is human connection. Maybe the practical step to transform stress from a bad thing to a good […]

HOW TO SPOT A FUTURE PONZI SCHEMER

Our neighborhood had an Art Walk last Saturday. It was sunny. Normally I’m too busy (disinterested in anything of higher culture or requiring effort) to participate in “Art Walks.” Hmmmph. Art Walks. So stupid. Who do these people think they are, Dr. Seuss? The presumptive pageantry reeks of guilty bourgeoisie compensating for their teeming wealth […]

STEaL A BASe

I’m swinging for the fences here, they can’t all be home runs. Come on, how do you want to live your life.  It’s cool if you want to bat percentages.  I once knew a guy in college who was the de facto coach of our lame intramural softball team.  He said, and I quoteth: “You […]

KEYS Aren’t That RAre

I really enjoy Simon Sinek. I’m guessing I’m not the only one. To summarize my take on his view of what makes an organization or company or mission great, here’s a brief list: Psychological safety. Trusting teams. Fulfillment. Supporting others. Happiness. Worthy cause. I read and hear about organizations where this form of “great” exists. […]

Power up

Do you think everyone is scared? Scared to lose their job? Scared of their boss? Scared of their “direct report?” Scared of their teammates? Imagine a posture of no fear.  We can get there, but a few things have to happen first. Nothing’s perfect. But if your leadership is toxic, you will always live in […]

Don’t go commando

Do people still buy houses? Frequently I walk my dog because I have to. Technically I don’t have to, we have a doggie door built into our circa 1912 big-old-wood-framed door (doggie door will be listed as “updated fixtures” when we list our house) but still I think it’s good for him to get outside, […]

Stop Listening

What if we stopped listening to the voice that tells us: We can’t do what we really want to do because it’s too hard or it might not work. We might fail, be humiliated. We have all these shortcomings and flaws. Those people over there who do what we do are so much better, we’re […]

How To Take Over the World or At Least Your Neighborhood

Typically I like to see people’s houses so I can judge how successful they are. Big nice house = big nice success. No problems whatsoever, most likely. However, 2020 has forced me to change my tune. I’ve realized that the trappings of apparent success (home ownership, boat ownership, diner club membership, sword ownership) are just […]

build your own special forces

Some of the highest-performing teams in the world value trust over performance.  Navy Seals equate high performers with LOW trust to be toxic team members. United States Marines Officer Candidate School evaluates leaders as they work through obstacle courses. There’s no check box for whether they overcame the obstacles, only boxes for levels of trust […]

Deep Thoughts en masse

When I’m on vacation I like to call different people in the office to tell them real quick I’m worried about this-or-that project but now I have to go because my Pina Colada arrived. That way they know I’m a real team player. If your spouse ever says they want a divorce the first thing […]

Sasha fierce

Sometimes when we look at challenges we think the others have an abundance of confidence, bravery, motivation, and skill to overcome the challenge and reach their goal.  That they’re not like us. Not scared, worried, unconfident, hesitant. But this is rarely the case.  Even Beyonce relies on her alter-ego Sasha Fierce to protect herself when […]

Angry Chair

I’m watching a podcast…er, well, it’s a video so I guess a talk show, about marketing and adapting to change.  The two hosts are independent marketers with previous experience. Although I haven’t verified this by asking for references.   They make money through marketing consulting, writing, coaching, possibly team building…and advising in general.   Which is great. […]

PSA’s are so unbelievably lame

I’m stuck in the Capital Hill Autonomous Zone (CHAZ) but now it’s called Capital Hill Occupied Protest (CHOP) and now there’s been three shootings in about four days so it may be going back to normal.  Super conservative people in the Midwest think it’s Mad Max meets Lord of the Flies. So does Fox News. […]

Dave & The Dancing Conspiracy

Does everyone know how to dance really well? Like, really well, with rhythm, different styles and methodologies, while wearing cool space clothes seemingly from wherever the cool people hang out in outer space? Certainly not the space station. That place seems like kind of a drag.  Dave asks the question because Dave sees ads, oddly […]

Tell yourself a good Story

What do you tell yourself about possibility every day? The narrative that runs in your mind, the flowing, seamless story you tell yourself about who you are, where you are, what you’re doing and (unfortunately) where you “stack up” relative to other people (the world of measurement is truly a messy place to live – […]

Three Kinds of Empathy

Cognitive – I can see from your perspective. Emotional – I feel your emotions with you. Empathic Concern – I see you are in trouble, I take action to help. To make change, within organizations, for our customers or for our society, we need all three.  If we don’t have all three, we need to […]

Halibut Seen Riding Bike To Buy More Beer

We bought some official Schwinn® bikes about three years ago and used them once. Now, not unlike most of those with a bike, we use them quite frequently in an effort to not go insane and get some form of exercise. I also enjoy seeing other humans in the process, even if they’re almost running […]

Helpful Observations For your Day as a human

When I’m on vacation I like to call different people in the office to tell them real quick I’m worried about this-or-that project but now I have to go because my Pina Colada arrived. That way they know I take the “be a team player” thing seriously.

chris Hemsworth is a disgusting slob too

Slowly, ever so slowly, I think I’m becoming disassociated from reality. You can tell by the way I dress, and my current state of personal hygiene…which I think added together equal “appearance.”  It’s not like I looked like Chris Hemsworth before, or even Dabney Coleman. But I think I sort of held it together in […]

A Series of Things I Don’t Understand

I spend a lot of time looking at websites focused on getting me a job. Well, they aren’t all made to get me, specifically, a job, but they’re employment websites. I examine LinkedIn (I know what you’re going to say but let’s face it, LinkedIn is for getting a gig), various recruiters’ sites, as well […]

You’ll Be In this story

This is territory heavily plowed, as it should be. I’m cautious – I don’t want to add to the noise, even if it’s important noise. So I’ll just add a little. Like most history, the events (pandemic, racism, murder) of 2020, approximately January through today June 3rd, happened, but will be defined by what we […]

Dead Thing on my sidewalk

Recently I saw a sidewalk I really liked, so I walked on it. Barefoot, it was warm on my feet. I have disturbingly unattractive feet. They’re flat, pale, slightly hairy, odiferous, disproportionately toe-y with triangle-shaped toenails (not exaggerating) to the degree a friend used to announce “Spearfoot Rides Again” upon my entrance to the public […]

airwar Vii

We do this to push our abilities as an artist collective. We do this to create art. We do this to champion original thought and make positive change in the world by spreading ideas we believe in through story creation.  We want the better clients. The smart clients, the ones who hear the words “status-quo” […]

I’ve Never met a yogi

Sometimes in the midst of chaos I like to think about driveways. Saturday night we returned from our brief stint out in the world (really my in-laws place where our scheduled outdoor manual labor was cancelled due to inclement weather…well, it started raining and I threw such a fit over getting wet, comparing myself to […]

airwar VI

Of course, you play an important role in creating your story, but we’re not for the faint of heart. It’s very likely we don’t want to work with you, because you likely think the fact you have a marketing budget means you know best and can tell us what to do. This is exactly why […]

Bloom County and Unruly youth

“He that is without sin among you…let him cast a stone… So I cast that mutha.” I distinctly remember this from a Bloom County cartoon, although I can’t remember who specifically said it. I bring it up in reference to my judgy-ness. Judge judge judge. Don’t judge me I only judge you k? The best […]

Deep thoughts too

A funny gag would be to invite your friends over for dinner and then you get a fake gun and leave the door open and lay down on the floor with pools of fake blood everywhere and the fake gun is in your outstretched hand and they come in and think everyone’s dead. You’d all […]

Deep Thoughts total copy

If I were a duck in a park, I’d be really aggressive, quacking extra loud and preening my feathers vigorously in hopes of getting extra bread. Because mmmmmmmmmm, bread.   I never believed in parallelograms until I realized I lived in one and it burned down.  If I were on a mountain top with a fish, […]

How to Navigate Your New Workplace – Welcome!

This friendly guide will prove invaluable to your exploration, adaptation and ultimate success within your new workplace, regardless of industry. That’s right, we’ve compiled all the common denominators from every office environment and created a survival guide just for you, no matter whether you’re a technology worker, professor, banker, car salesperson, or account executive. This […]

Yes is an Un-popped Popcorn Kernel of Space Time

A stern look, or high-pitched voice, tends to get me to give up the kernels of my time by saying “yes.” “Yes” manager-type or other de-facto leader, I will do what you say, particularly after I give you my input and you ignore it. After all, you are the leader. “Yes,” whomever, I will help […]

10 Crack Commandments

I’m pretty cheap, so I’ve typically streamed music on my phone through Pandora, the free version.  Of course, when the ads came on in the middle of one of my brief, wheezing workouts I’d act all outraged at the intrusion, almost wanting to storm about my small basement, arms gesticulating wildly and finger pointing at […]

Gangster (Long form blog post damn the conventions)

Oftentimes I’m reminded of the scene from Goodfellas where, at the end of all the sex and violence and bloodletting, the main handsome gangster is standing on the doorstep of his new suburban (government sponsored, witness protection provided) home, picking up a newspaper the paper boy just lobbed on his front porch, and his voiceover […]

HR Done real Good

Hi Kelly, Patrick McNerthney here. We spoke back in January about a Copywriter role with Amazon. I’ve followed our old email thread for reference. Somehow (I can’t remember the details it’s all a blur) they didn’t select me! Dumbfounding. It was really embarrassing when I showed up for my first day and the security team […]

Don’t Ask about Saturday

Have you ever had someone ask (typically abruptly, and out of context, or in some other capacity that awakens your brain’s alarmist/self-preservationist tendencies) “…what are you doing for lunch?” or “…what are you doing Saturday?” or “what are you doing tonight?” -Shudder- I’m not the fastest sloth in the forest, so I’ve fallen victim to […]

Airwar V

Marketing is about getting your idea to your smallest viable audience (the one that will actually listen to you) by telling them a story.  The story has to be interesting, otherwise people won’t listen.  Interesting is relative of course; and it always involves an original thought.  We’re about determining the best way to tell your […]

Curmudgeon Eyes New Storefront with High Degree of Skepticism

SEATTLE, WA – A geriatric man holding a bag of dog excrement warily eyed a new storefront in Seattle’s Ballard neighborhood 8 a.m. Thursday morning, according to several eyewitnesses.  “Yeah, it was strange,” said Ted Lambert, who walked by the man as he paced in front of Sunny Hill, a 5-day old restaurant. “I heard […]

AIRWAR IV

Let the big companies with the big coffers and gargantuan ad budgets blow their dough on SEO campaigns, AdWords, popups, Instagram Stories and anything else they think (or are told) is appropriate.  Let them add to the clutter and noise. Even if you could scream the loudest, why would you want to?  Your idea is […]

AIRWAR III

How quick can you be on that platform? Can you hack the feed, stay on top? Are your Facebook and Instagram ads streaming fast enough, staying prominent enough, maintaining relevance? Instagram Stories offers 500,000,000.00 (not made up) connections through advertising.  How valuable is that supply, and how unique to you is it? Once you figure […]

Duck Fly By

If I chose to be more weird I may have even fewer friends and more enemies. Completely untrue, I don’t have any enemies which may mean I’m doing things wrong. I do believe my life would be much busier if I chose to be weird in my particular version of weird. I’d be filming little […]

My Dog’s Terrible attitude

The encapsulation of my family into our single-family residence is strangely exhausting. At this point, the dog and our 11-year old are ready to move out, as evidenced by the lease agreements I found hidden in the closet.  Minor complaint, relatively speaking, but still I will complain. There’s this underlying tension between myself, my wife, […]

Airwar II

What does digital marketing mean?  Is it the popup ad that appears on your phone? The one you frantically mash to close quickly, desperately? Can you bear even a microsecond of an intrusive popup ad that some organization likely paid tens and tens of thousands of dollars for?  Why do you think they bought it? […]

Airwar

What does SEO mean to you?  In real terms, not the terms an SEO Specialist told you. Think about it.  It probably doesn’t mean a lot.  How about a description? What does it do, what’s it made of, what does it look like?  Can you describe it?   Yet you and your organization like to think […]

jAZZ HANDS

I remember living in West Seattle, going to the gym, running home and eating a sandwich, then going to Bank of America to make a deposit. The teller laughed at everything I said. I was charming. I was vibrant. I was unstoppable. I distinctly remember jumping in my car, high on my ability to communicate […]

MICE BITE

My son was rewarded in August, 2018, for some now-forgotten accomplishment, with a snake. Actually, I’m certain the accomplishment had something to do with school. We’re not big “…get an ‘A’” people, so I know it wasn’t grades. I’m sure it involved him overcoming his resistance and general disdain for school. Or something. In his […]

SAKE Box

I love those little wooden sake cubes. I’ve only experienced one, once. It was refilled several times during our meal to the point it resembled the Trevi Fountain minus the coins although at one point I tried to throw a quarter in over my shoulder after which the rest of the night gets kind of […]

gopher holes

How hard will you fight for your idea? Do you only fight for things that improve your status? Do you only fight for things that financially benefit you the most? Have you ever thought about fighting for something that benefits someone else, benefits another person, or better yet a group, in any way?  It has […]

Perpetuity

Like most loyal Americans, I own a dog. Actually, the dog is a byproduct of my wife and son’s desire to have a dog. I remained ambivalent about the creatures after our Chihuahua passed away two summers ago. This was a mathematical function, rather than an emotional one. At the risk of sounding coarse, my […]

I’ve never had a hot italian beef sandwich

Idiosyncratic – I wish it just meant being weird and rocking it, and in a way it does, but I guess there are larger implications to the word. Idiosyncrasy is for breaking through the static, the buzzing, the noise, the pace, the clutter. To get attention, to stand out. But again, not by joining the […]

urinal

Salish Sea, Washington – A man appeared standing sideways at a public urinal in a men’s room off the Salish Sea Thursday, April 23rd at approximately 11:33 a.m. according to several witnesses. “I hadn’t seen anything like that since grade school,” said innocent passerby John Rigenthole, an electrical engineer by trade. “I mean, I kind […]

Dialogue

 “Are you smoking?”  “No.”  “Your Google search says are cigarette butts compostable.”  “Jerimiah did that.” “He’s 10.” “He goes to private school. All private school kids smoke.” “Since when? It’s not 1978.” “He’s got big problems. I think he smokes. I saw him looking at a Rolling Stone at Max’s house.” “Your shirt smells like […]

Eating Less and Exercise Can’t Possibly Work

There’s a Peloton bike in my basement. Actually, it’s not a Peloton bike. Those cost $1,000,000.00. It’s a “spin” bike of sturdy variety, priced for those of us in the lower tax brackets, recommended by my wife’s hairdresser. Who is likely very fit. However, when I open the Peloton app on my phone and place […]

FedEx and the War on Possibility

I’m at a FedEx Kinkos in Seattle, Washington. They have these little cubicles from which one can work. I’m typically the only person weird enough to actually come and utilize said cubicles – I guess everyone else has a home office or prefers the cacophony of the ubiquitous Seattle Coffee Shop.  Nonetheless, here I sit. […]

Perhaps a Pink Glittering Phone Case Would Help

I keep this list on my phone. Also, I hate my phone. Like, there’s something wrong with me. I’ve tried every “tone” or beep or whatever, but whenever it goes off I sort of convulse/snap grab it as if to hurl it through a window as my heart rate jumps to 130. I think it’s […]

rooster

Dale Calhoun sees it on Tuesday morning. He thinks he should have worn a jacket. The air looks wet, it’s darkish out. He notices everything is pretty much dry though. The neighbor’s house is olive green with off-white trim, a sort of craftsman, but with two bright white columns at the entryway. Did someone build […]

Travel Story

So there’s kind of a list of weird things I know the phrase “there’s no such thing as fiction” is reasonably understood by folks in the creative space. Or folks in general I guess. Although, sometimes I point it out to normal citizens, typically at the many highfalutin (had to look up that spelling, I […]

COVER LETTER

3.3.2020 Francis Green Alo Media Flex, Inc. 1201 6th Avenue Ste 400 Los Alto, CA 94022 Hello  “Francis,” Thank you for taking the time to respond to my application for Vice President, Consumer Affairs & Communications Liaison Level III, South District. I’ve realized I really want the word “Vice President” in my title, because it […]

Succulents

Sitting in the pot Looking at me Planning my demise Tendrils of doom, always reaching Swollen in greed, infected, malevolent Why can’t we just all go back to Aloe Vera?

Water Stains & Ties

I put on a suit yesterday. My father is a retired attorney, I remember he wore a tie every workday at a minimum, sometimes with a sport coat, occasionally with a full suit. I also remember my father grimacing with his nose bent up to the bathroom mirror as he plucked his nose hairs with […]

FEDEX and the war on possibility

I’m at a FedEx Kinkos in Seattle, Washington. They have these little cubicles from which one can work. I’m typically the only person weird enough to actually come and utilize said cubicles – I guess everyone else has a home office or prefers the cacophony of the ubiquitous Seattle Coffee Shop.  Nonetheless, here I sit It’s […]

VIRUS

Walking into the grocery store this morning I couldn’t helpbut think about the basket I was grabbing to hold the two days-worth ofproteins I planned on buying (I decided on a tri-tip I’d marinate for tonight,then some chicken parmesan that only required baking-off for tomorrow). Should I wipe off the handle? Where were those littlesanitizing wipe […]