Hi there!  If you’re reading this site, that means you enjoy the writing you find here on a regular basis. Or you got here by accident.  Or you’re a hate-reader.  Whatever the case, it’s wonderful to have you, and I’d like to take a moment to ask you to support this site via Patreon.

What’s Patreon, and how does it help support independent writing ( Read more... )

Thanks for tagging along with me on this tour of the Seattle Pinball Museum!  You all have been a great group, and it’s been a real treat strolling through the history of the silver ball with you.  We’ve seen some of the all-time classic machines during our walk, but before we conclude our little adventure, I thought I’d show you the flip side of ( Read more... )

Quickly, now: name one good filmmaker who started out making music videos.

Not bad, not bad. Now, just as quickly: name one good filmmaker who, after making it in feature films, went back and made more music videos.

Wasn’t as easy, was it? And if you’re looking for a reason why, it’s not because music videos pay less. It’s because music videos are ( Read more... )

Goodness knows our society has long mistaken the exhortation to kill its idols for an invitation to shit on its most talented members, but sometimes it seems that comics fandom in particular is determined to isolate the best and brightest of their chosen medium’s creators and relentlessly heap bile on them until they go away, leaving the job of ( Read more... )

From The Trouble with Principle by Stanley Fish:

“Many bad things are now being done in the name of neutral principles, and I hope it is clear by now that it is no paradox to say that bad things are being done by something which doesn’t exist.  Indeed, it is crucial that neutral principles not exist if they are to perform the function I have ( Read more... )

This site has momentarily suspended its provision of content.  Perhaps new material is being prepared.  Perhaps its proprietor has died.  Or perhaps a third thing.  By all means, keep checking back, see where it gets you.


( Read more... )

“Well, how’d you know it was Him, Jimmy, is my question.”

“I just knowed it.”

“Now, how’d you ‘just knowed’ somethin’ like that? You don’t ‘just know’ that somebody’s the Lord Jesus Christ returned to Earth.”

“Some things you just know, Clint. Like, instinctually.”

“What’d He look like?”

“About what you’d expect, really. Beard, white robe. Belt ( Read more... )

The question came over a week ago, from one of my oldest friends:  why don’t you write about politics anymore?

At first, it struck me as an absurd thing to ask:  don’t I write about politics all the damn time?  Didn’t I write for one of the internet’s spunkiest lefty blogs?  Didn’t I once cram my body full of dangerous drugs just so I could ( Read more... )

Life takes you in strange directions, it cannot be denied.  I myself used to be a liberal, and a communist before that, in the days when it seemed worthwhile to care about things.  But I am an old man now, and it profits me neither in mind or spirit to keep up with what the young folks are interested in fighting over.  For one thing, in my laddish ( Read more... )

( Read more... )