Delaney asked to borrow my “The Old Man and the Sea,” which was required reading in one of her collegiate courses. I responded with a resounding no. The lifetime percentage rate of someone returning a borrowed book to me is about 10%. People don’t borrow books—they steal books. No one is going to get their…
“I’m not ashamed to tell the world, I’m in love with a man and his name is Mister Coffee!”-Jennifer Haubrich, Humor in the Middle, Substack When I was a kid, my uncle visited on Saturday mornings to chat with Mom and drink coffee. Sometimes his knocks woke us. Other times, Mom was already in her…
This just in from WAIT . . . WHAT? Real News Now: White House Resident Donald Trump has named both Elon Musk and Musk’s son X (formerly Twitter) Ash A Twelve, or X Æ A-Xii, to the front of the line for accessing the Doomsday Device passcode. Musk (home planet, Mars) is at the #1…
And I’m gonna’ die just a little more on each St. Valentine’s day . . .-Tom Waits, Blue Valentines. How I once dreaded Valentine’s Day, that cavity-inducing, flower-killing, quasi-holiday designed to make owners of a lonely heart, like me, feel like a turd in a tin cup. I envied any guy who was gifted something…
I enjoyed coffee with Y. Joel Wong over the holidays. Joel is a tenured professor in the Counseling and Counseling Psychology Programs at Indiana University. One specialty of his is gratitude and its link to well-being. I met up with Joel at Hopscotch Coffee in Bloomington so I could express a belated form of gratitude…
2024, for me, was a milestone year marking sincere attempts to trim brain fat while in pursuit of improved mental well-being. I started using Prozac and meeting with a mental health therapist. I had never sought mental therapy before, nor had I taken antidepressants. If Tony Soprano could see a therapist and accept Prozac, so…
COLD OPEN (actual recording of a Nov. 24, 2024 local radio news dispatch): Ladies and gentlemen, this is Walt Furball again in downtown Jasper. Well, I . . . I hardly know where to begin . . . the chaos . . . the gunshots . . . sirens . . . screams . ….
I saw the Blind Boys of Alabama last month. The gospel group, with roots reaching 80 years back and a history of helping break down racial barriers, truly lifted my soul, providing me a much-needed sense of positiveness. It was akin to an injection of God. The next day, I told my daughter, Delaney, it…
“Should I stay, or should I go?”—The Clash GUY RAZZ: I’m Guy Razz, host of How I Broke This. Welcome to my narrative journey about business ineptitude and the failed leaders who failed to learn from their failures. Listen as my guests reveal what led to their crushed entrepreneurial spirits. Today’s guest is Whiz Wagstaff,…
Four seventh-grade boys. Four seventh-grade girls. Two telephones—rotary dial dinosaurs adhered to parents’ kitchen walls. Thick, twisted, dangled cords, like entangled anacondas in heat. Four seventh-grade boys on a Friday night sleepover. Four seventh-grade girls at a slumber party barely a mile away. Before the number is dialed, though, the boys must muster a collective…
