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Controversy sells.
This is bad for artists, bad for writers, bad for people trying to share their creation.
Unless of course, your creation is controversy. . . Then you’re in luck.
Social media algorithms have a lot of us confounded. The fact is, I can post a nothing picture of my face and get a certain number of likes and interactions.
I get way more if I post a picture of my dog’s face (but seriously… LOOK at that face) . . .
When you get to a certain age, you stop wishing your life away and start wishing that it would slow down. And that can be even worse.
You stop fretting Monday when in you’re in it and start fretting Tuesday because that’ll mean another precious day is gone.
Lately, however, I’ve been reciting a little mantra that has really drawn out some of the sting . . .
My vision for the world of Jesse Barrow grew out of some close friendships, two friends in particular who grew up in rural Alabama. Now, obviously these close friends weren’t around in 1911 rural Alabama, but as someone who studies history, I’ve always been fascinated by how our past affects our present. And the older I’ve become, the more I’ve been fascinated by how our present informs how we view our past, which then, paradoxically, informs our present. Both the past and the present can distort the truth . . .
It’s that time of year again…
That time of year that makes a parent’s skin crawl.
If you look carefully right about now, you’ll see fathers and mothers alike closing their blinds, locking their doors, and huddling together anxiously.
Though the flowers are blooming and the pools are open, the minds of parents are heavy with the knowledge that before it’s too late, they will have to re-enroll their child for school.
Not saying that the kids getting back in school is bad.
But the re-enrollment process was apparently designed to remind all of us adults how much we hated school when we were young. . .
Got my second shot today!
(When will I start getting 5G?)
Look, there’s an awful lot of information available today. Some of it is good, some of it is bad, and some of it is just what we have.
But if we’re going to be people who claim to care—to care about truth and our shared humanity—we need to be really careful what information we put stock in.
I’ll give you an example that broke my heart just today . . .
I want to apologize in advance for any grammatical or philosophical loopyness contained in this blog post. I had a stubborn wisdom tooth pulled two days ago and am still dealing with a good bit of pain and, hence, medication.
But there have been some things that have been on my heart/mind the last little bit that I wanted to try to express.
2020 has been some year, no doubt. And as it counts it down, I’ve had a little bit of a chance to reflect, and I’m going to try to shed some light in what’s been an eerily dark tunnel for many of us . . .
Ok, maybe there was no rabbi. There could have been, but I’d doubt it.
One artist was my mom.
One artist was a guy I’d never heard of in my life named Derik Hobbs . . .
The United States has lost an icon.
A big loss for our nation.
Huge.
RBG.
First of all, I want to say that I hate the political storm her passing will inevitably cause.
One of the things that law school has taught me is that, many times, our hard and fast notions of what side of the aisle people are on is totally untrue . . .
I want to say Happy New Year, and provide an update on where things are as far as my life and my writing.
2019 was been a whirlwind of a year that began with recovering from back surgery and tinkering—seriously, for the first time—with the idea of going to law school. The year ended with a couple strong workouts and first semester grades that I’m really proud of. . .
It’s a cliche but it’s true: life is fragile. And it’s precious.
My family lost an amazing human being last month. It was sudden, it was shocking, and it’s left me to sit in a mixture of numbness, disbelief, and unimaginable loss.
Writing this is difficult and I feel like it’s a very small step in what it might mean for me to begin to heal…
Funny story, I couldn’t have anything to eat or drink after midnight before my surgery. The last think I had was a glass of water around 9:30pm. Woke up the next morning super early, peed, showered, got ready, and showed up at the hospital. When they take me back to prep me, they draw blood, hook me up to an EKG, take a chest x-ray, and then tell me that they’ll need a urine sample. I’m like… not sure I’m going to be able to oblige you there. They laughed and said, “Oh, you’ll be fine, just keep trying.”
An hour later no dice. I’m thinking to myself, I really wish someone had TOLD me they were gonna need a sample, otherwise I would have saved it up that morning!…
No.
Not that kind of slice.
Sorry.
In less than a week’s time I’ll be having my first major surgery since I broke my arm jumping out of the bathtub at age seven (I had to pee!).
2018 has been a rough year for me, mostly stemming from my physical condition.
I’ve had low back pain on and off since I was a teenager, but starting in January, it was different than normal. It was more in my gluten and down my leg than ever before…
I scroll through my Facebook feed and man… are we ever talking over each other’s heads.
One friend posts a meme with false, faulty, or disingenuous information with a comment such as, “See, President A, B, or C is the DEVIL INCARNATE!”
Very next friend posts a meme with false, faulty, or disingenuous information with a comment such as, “See, President A, B, or C is the SAVIOR OF ALL MANKIND!”
And I’m like… Really?…..
