I don’t have a smart speaker. My TV is not stupid, but it’s old enough that it can’t listen to me. I’ve turned off all the things on all my devices for maximum privacy protection. I’ve turned on all the things on my devices for maximum privacy protection. My car is a 2007, so Russian hackers can’t apply my brakes from their phones just for fun. But I do …
I am looking at my email inbox on one monitor and the cursor last highlighted a robo-generated email from Amazon asking me how I liked my clip-on guitar tuner. I am also looking at the New York Times website front page on the other monitor (I have two monitors because of work) with a few pixels showing at the top of a huge full-width ad for the ShowTime show …
I’m noticing that every time I turn on a TV news show the first words I hear are “Donald Trump…” Same with NPR. I don’t hear his name as a first + surname anymore, just “Donaldtrump”, or “Dontrump” or “Dontrum”, depending on the speaker and also depending on how hard I might be trying to postpone the inevitable arrival of that bloated, orange flesh melon image in my visual …
> Honestly. Writing, making art, posting on social media all seem like impotent and feckless responses to tragedy. I’m even coming to despise the word “tragedy” if only because it’s starting to lose it’s meaning with overuse. Others are better at memorializing, analyzing and eulogizing. All I know how to do is make a few pieces of useless art, write a few mediocre poems. I’m not a cultural spokesperson. No one is …
I like inclement weather. The closer I physically get to the fog-shrouded coast the more chipper becomes my demeanor. But this is nuts. It’s frickin’ May, it’s flippin’ California and it hasn’t gotten above 68 for weeks. My cats are velcroed to the bed. I’m wearing a sweater as we speak. I know this qualifies as a heat wave in god-forsaken zip codes like Minnesota but we Cali types …
I don’t believe in astrology because I try to be a rational, reasonable person. That said, I swear I can predict when Mercury has gone retrograde. For you uninitiated who may not be familiar, the term “Mercury going retrograde” refers to a celestial phenomenon wherein 3 or 4 times a year the planet Mercury appears to “catch-up” to the Earth’s orbit and appears to be moving in an opposite, or …
James Taylor’s Zen-like lyrics to “Secret O’ Life” wound up in my head one evening while my sketch pad was at arm’s length. The result is what’s above…which was easier said than drawn, which is sort of the point of the song. “The secret of life is enjoying the passage of time. Any fool can do it, there ain’t nothing to it. Nobody knows how we got to the …
I’m a little wistful tonight. As I sit in my living room recovering from a short, hilly ride on a quiet Monday morning in late April, I’m thinking of past rides out to Tilden, and missing the cycling from years past, especially with my two nephews and my brother-in-law. It was a period when our lives and schedules miraculously converged and 50+ miles was considered an average distance for …
I was on a century bike ride this weekend and passed this storefront in a small town on the north coast of California. This would only make sense to someone who designs and/or develops web sites but the fact that CSS is apparently available at your local store (and even available “used”) is more than a little disconcerting. Then again, I guess it would be convenient to be able …
The other day I went into my bank (which shall remain nameless except to say it may start with the letters W as in “What the..” and F as in “F*ck”) to make a deposit. The nice teller, who was just so nice and nicely asked me if I was having a nice day and was the third person to call me “sir” in a smiley, nice, nice way …