To look at Gordon’s back is to see a map of a country forged in brutality. He was an enslaved person and, in March of 1863, he managed to escape from the plantation where he was imprisoned. After a harrowing forty mile journey, he reached Baton Rouge and the safety of the Union Army.  Two […]

What could you do with one hundred thousand dollars? If you wanted to be insufferably responsible, you could make a solid down payment on a house, begin a solid college fund for your kid, or generously help one (or several) charities. Those are all mature, respectable suggestions. They’re also boring. For starters, you could buy […]

You don’t get to look like me without being a foodie. I’ve joked with my wife that she married a man who will never have rippling muscles or six-pack abs. It’s all because I love food. The preparation of it, the eating of it, and the reminiscing of it. There’s something special about it, and […]

The act of making a movie is the act of solving an escalating series of fiendishly difficult problems. If there’s a story problem the dumbass screenwriter missed, you have to fix it. If your lead actor can’t perform the role the way you need, you need to handle it. If you run out of money […]

Empathy is in short supply these days. It seems that way, anyway. Horrifyingly large numbers of so-called Christians not only allow bullying but embrace it and cheer it on. People who claim to have an evolved outlook on…well, everything, also lean hard into being judgmental and positively flee from the concept of forgiveness. It’s all […]

A wee bit of Googling tells me that some of the leading causes of death here in the good old U.S. of A. are heart disease,  COVID-19,* kidney disease, strokes, and cancer. Sure, accidental death cracked the top 10, but the majority are medical issues that tend to take us out slowly but surely. That […]

Some friendships are lifelong. Those people who will tolerate your foibles if you’re lucky enough to connect with them. They’ll have your back. You’ll have a real and genuine bond with them, the kind of bond that can weather years and endure drama. I have a few people like that in my life and I […]

Over time, audiences have been trained to regard franchises a certain way. The understanding is that everything is connected, and a plot point or character that’s introduced will be paid off in a later installment. Look at the MCU. When a person or concept is brought up, those in the know smile and think, “They’re […]

If you had told me years ago that I’d fall in love with Vienna, I would have laughed in your face. What country is it in, again? Germany? Poland? Oh, yeah, Austria. And Vienna is famous for what, exactly? You guessed it, I was a cretinous and incurious American who, for a while anyway, reveled […]

I need to give you a little bit of background about how we do things around these parts. I’m privileged because the site I write for allows me to write about anything I want. Nobody has ever said, “Hey, how about not so much of this MCU nonsense?” Nobody has ever DMd me and proclaimed, […]