My Dentist First Got Me High
If I had to thank someone for my ongoing quest to get high, it’d probably be my dentist in 1975.Inclined and bibbed with a mouth full of cotton, I remember squinting at the…
These posts were written for my old blog and are still well worth a read.
Confession: I Joined the HairClub For a Week
First time I noticed I was losing my hair happened two years after I graduated high school. It was the spring of 1985. The Terminator with Arnold Schwarzenegger was still a big…
My Two Nights in Jail (A true story)
My eyes cracked open fifteen feet below an industrial ceiling made of cement pockmarked with unfinished air pockets; I had no idea where I was. The front lobe of my…
Scam Alert!!!
“Hi Sophina, I need some help. My balance just dropped to -$1,450.” ”You are so lucky!” “I am?” Sophina was my new online supervisor. For hours she had trained me…
The Way I Want to Die, Since I Must
Death is beautiful when seen to be a law, and not an accident. - Henry David Thoreau Any man can call time out, but no man can say how long…
Why “I’m not a racist” is NOT enough
Why “I’m not a racist” is NOT enough Watched a grown man’s life get inexplicably snuffed by a racist cop’s knee as his chickenshit accomplices joined in. All four ignored…
Making tough choices based on character over fear
At one point during my old job voice-writing news captions, I had to choose whether to sign a pro-union email. My employer wasn’t treating the employees right, and when a…
Transmuting frustration-based anger into laughter
On a recent trip with my kids to the Walmart to buy my wife’s birthday gifts, I got angry. Furious, really. And as much as it pissed me off to…
Attention social wallflowers – here are five surefire ways to schmooze easier
Every game day since he was a high school football player, NFL slot receiver Cole Beasley has gotten so nervous about what he’s about to do that he literally throws…
Do you know ‘The Muffler Men’?
One interesting thing about Bud and Ben Mufflers in Oak Cliff is that there is no Ben. It’s not that he’s dead – Ben was never alive in the first…
America sadly still doing the ‘car’ thing.
In 1890, wealthy American travelers used extravagant horse carriages to get around. When the first ‘horseless carriage’ appeared in the U.S. in 1893, most folks initially saw them as more…
Change your mindset, change your words.
There are two different ways to look at six ounces of water in a 12-ounce cup. That glass is either half-empty or half-full, as the saying (roughly) goes. Those who…
The art of handling criticism poorly.
Amy is absolutely horrible at taking criticism. Amy Bouzaglo was the co-owner (with her fire-tempered, enabling husband Samy) and head chef of (the now closed) Amy’s Baking Company in Scottsdale,…
NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen’s inspirational combine 40-yard-dash
If you think the 40-yard-dash at the NFL combine is challenging, try running it in a business suit. That’s what 48-year-old NFL Network anchor Rich Eisen has done for the…
What’s YOUR Impossible?
https://youtu.be/sefscV3GvWM The opening shot of Lauren Woolstencroft’s Super Bowl Commercial shows her as an infant born with two half legs and one and a half arms. My first thought was,…
Wise Words from the Dead
The situation is the boss. That’s a concept I just learned from watching the Grateful Dead documentary ‘Long Strange Trip’ on Amazon Prime. It was the philosophy adopted by the…
Don’t Fret…Dance Dance Dance!
Let’s all just take a big online breath here…and dance. Just a suggestion: click off the never-ending battle between the political left and right for a sec and pop on…
This is What Democracy Looks Like
Gentlemen, the Women’s Marches tomorrow aren’t just for women. At least the one I went to last year in Dallas wasn’t. Don’t get me wrong, it was ALL about empowering…
Wonderland Tropicals – Your Friends in the Pet Business
My children got to watch Butchy, an Oak Cliff ‘sugar glider’, fly. Well, technically a petite gliding possum that’d been hiding in what looked like a light brown sock in…
Some Americans Unhappy with the Stew in our Melting Pot.
In the early seventies, my great-aunt Myrtle would say the N-word at restaurants. She’d always treat my family to a big meal at one of the Lithuanian joints near her…