The Grape Depression: Wrathful About Grapes, Just Like Tom Joad
While grocery shopping this morning, I contemplated one of my lifelong disappointments: Grapes. I have always enjoyed grape juice. To drink it is to let the liquid equivalent of the red carpet at the Oscars unfurl and roll down your throat and into your stomach. It transforms all foods that follow into celebrities, and allows...
CTJ Lands Publication in “FrontMatter” With Article on eBooks & Scholarly Publishing
I wrote an article for Allen Press‘ publication FrontMatter, and it appeared in the newly published volume 16 issue yesterday. It is available for reading here. The article is titled “eManifest Destiny: Implications of the eBook Frontier for Scholarly Publishing.” Most shocking of all about this piece is the fact that the editors let me...
Peeing in the Gene Pool + Postscript “A Good Waffle is Hard to Find”
Last night I shopped at Walmart and found myself hemmed in by gene pool mutants. I know, I know. God made them. God loves them. I should too. I probably should have baked them a cake then and there at the Walmart bakery, Mom. I know that’s what Jesus would have done. But instead I...
Only in Dreams #3: Flunking Students and Failing as a Teacher
I taught public speaking at Missouri State University for five years, which is a way of saying I tortured hundreds of students for 1825 days. Which makes me sound like a Third World dictator that should be taken out by the United States. I saw countless students squirm like slices of bacon in a sizzling...
An Open Letter to Buffalo Wild Wings: Grill & Bah-Humbug (Now With Resolution!)
Dear Buffalo Wild Wings, You remember the part in the Christmas story where Mary and Joseph are turned away by the innkeeper because there are no vacancies in the inn? Well on Saturday, April 30th, 2011, you too turned away a pregnant woman who had needs. You did not even offer her a stable where...
The Cinemaddict on Harmony Korine’s “Mister Lonely”
You would think I would find it endearing when independent filmmaker Harmony Korine makes an appearance in a documentary on Norwegian black metal (Until the Light Takes Us), but nothing could save that meandering, formless film from mediocrity. I wanted to find it fascinating – this was a documentary about Satanic black metal bands who...
Deflated Balloons: From Happy to Sad in Sixty Seconds (An Ode to Pregnancy Hormones)
My wife is a brave soul. She is currently on the hormonal rollercoaster that is pregnancy. Unlike other amusement park rides, it has no lines whatsoever, and this is because no one particularly likes feeling alternately happy and sad in quick succession. Watching my wife go from happy to sad without any inkling as to...
Rhetoric, I Loathed Thee: Let Me Count (and Draw) the Ways
For me, enrolling in a required rhetoric class for my master’s degree was comparable to a clown enrolling in a class on tax auditing or thimble collecting. There I was, vibrating with ideas and excitement and an abundance of energy in a class that made the prospect of eating sawdust mixed with stale Ritz crackers...
Unable to Call for Help When Urine Trouble: Another Toilet Odyssey
I drew the above picture as a mock movie poster awhile ago. But I am starting to believe it has the potential to be a real film. Today’s post is dedicated to my fine friends at #DessertIsland on Twitter who are colossally creative, but do not (yet) wear colostomy bags. I am so glad I...
When Kurt Cobain Was the Sun Around Which the Musical Universe Revolved
This post is dedicated to my Seattle-based agent Jenée Arthur, who was kind enough to buy me a copy of Charles R. Cross’sCobain Unseenafter I signed with her. Thank you for all your hard work, Jenée. Enjoy the read. I spent an hour with Seattle’s lost son Kurt Cobain a few nights ago. I walked on...
Words We Took With Us Into War: Meditations on Marriage
Since I have OCD, I suppose there was something entirely appropriate – even unsurprising – about the fact that, when I asked my dad to preside at my wedding, I provided him with quotes for his homily that drew exclusively upon writers who published under initials rather than using their first names: G. K. Chesterton, C. S....
Guest Blog by WritRams: “Senior Surfing”
Hello readers! I know my posts have been scarce lately, as I have been fine-tuning and finalizing my manuscript. I suppose it is worth it for me to neglect my blog for a bit so I can give my manuscript to my agent and (fingers crossed) get published. For real. A book with a jacket...