Sometimes I can't get things off my mind and they keep me up at night. Here are some things I've wanted to stop thinking about....
How one shift in your thinking solves multiple problems … My first full-time job in public relations was with Walt Disney World in the late ’80s and early ’90s. It was grunt-level stuff, but what I learned there would fuel my career as a copywriter and ghostwriter up to today. Now I’m not talking about “tips […]
In the South, etiquette is a game of chess … Lots of folks are moving to the South these days, and I’m gonna do all y’all transplants a big favor. You can thank me later. There’s a lot that goes unspoken down here, so it’s real easy to screw up and not be aware of […]
The lighter side of Jesus of Nazareth … When comedian Alan King was asked “What is the essence of Jewish humor?” he answered with a story. A guy’s having lunch at a Jewish deli. He flags down the waiter and says, “Taste the soup.” The waiter asks, “Is something wrong?” “Taste the soup.” “Is it […]
The perks and pitfalls of mindful dreaming … I was still a little boy when I became terrified of falling asleep. You see, I was being murdered in my dreams. Sometimes, my stalker was me. Looking back, I think it was the onset of an early adolescence that triggered the nightmares. My old self had […]
Neuroscience is both more and less advanced than it’s rumored to be … Aside from the eternal mystery of why reality exists at all rather than not, our own conscious awareness of it is likely the most baffling puzzle humans face. Our discoveries since the dawn of neuroscience in the mid-1800s are genuinely astounding, and […]
What you leave out means as much as what you put in … There are three sides in a triangle. Four gospels in the New Testament. And five ingredients in a tortilla española. Eggs (5), potatoes (3), onions (2), olive oil and salt. Nothing more, nothing less. Así se hace, so it is done. Back […]
And who grills beans anyway? … A rolling stone gathers no moss. A watched pot never boils. Fish don’t fry in the kitchen. And beans don’t burn on the grill. It is known. But wait, hold the phone a sec. Of course fish fries in the kitchen. Where else are you gonna fry it, the […]
And shipped the pieces all over Israel … Surely you recall the story from Sunday school: A rural priest is traveling across Israel with a member of his harem. They stop over in a town where the young woman is gang raped and beaten to death. So the priest cuts her body into a dozen […]
Once you know them, you can’t forget them — even if you want to … Some words, when you learn them, you wonder how you ever got along without them. And sometimes, there’s just no right word when you need one, so you have to make your own. These 14 words fall into both categories for me. […]
Because the fight is never over … Damned if I didn’t stumble across yet another article today by yet another befuddled onlooker wondering why in the hell Matt Gaetz doesn’t just hang it up and go home. Nobody likes the guy, even in his own party. And after all, it costs a person exactly nothing […]