It's nothing new. It's why prisons are called "correctional" institutions. It's why toilets are located in "restrooms." It's why a 24-year-old is "a senior writer," and why people become senior, associate, assistant, consultant and undersecretary. In lieu of a raise, of course. People say Blazing Saddles couldn't be made nowadays. Yet A Million Ways to …
Category: Life
Futility Is Necessary and Inevitable
I don’t know whether it’s depressing because it really is or because I’m getting old and cranky. Perhaps I’m just starting to suspect that my labors have all been in vain. So little of what I wanted to achieve in life is done. Every day is a new day, but the passage of each pushes …
Back on Schedule
For a long time, I was a creature of habit. For all but the holiday season, I was working when most people were off and off when most were working. I’d warm up for NASCAR – full-time, 1993-2012 – by spending most of a week at preseason media functions, then spend half of …
I’m So Short of Money, It Makes My Eyes Itch
Sunday was astonishingly productive. I touched all the bases of my various sources of income. Now it’s Tuesday. Monday was a blink-out. On Monday, I went to Laurens District High School to take photos of football players. Before that, I chatted with Raiders head coach Chris Liner during the waning minutes of practice. Afterwards, my …
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Them Steadily Depressing, Lowdown, Mind-Messing Social Media Blues
It's dripping rain in the Poconos. It's iffy at Baltusrol. It's hot as fire here, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow. If the afternoon arrives and the race is delayed, I'm not going to watch NASCAR drivers pet their puppies (um, woe be unto thy dirty minds) in the motorcoach lot. I may mow the …
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An Unplanned Break from Civilization
In hindsight, losing my satellite TV reception wasn't such a bad thing. A storm hit last Thursday night, and while the damage wasn't severe, it did rip apart a cedar tree in the backyard. I'm not sure whether the tree will survive or not. She might just need to be taken out of her misery. …
Something About Nothing
It's gone, gone, gone. Gone, gone, gone. Crying won't bring it back. I have paraphrased. Lefty Frizzell was singing about a woman. My loss was just seven minutes long. It was a blog I worked on for seven minutes, but it was moving rapidly when the keyboard went dead, and the screen turned Petty blue, …
The Crazy World Is Just Getting Older
It's a lovely Saturday morning, not that I have so much as cracked a door to sniff the chill wind. My confidence relies on the sunlight flickering through the blinds behind me. The outside world flickers, also, affected by the various blinds of the programming I happen to be using. I read Sarah Palin's Facebook …
Moping About the Madness
This morning I'm feeling paralyzed. I need to write about cowboys in 1946, and my mind is stuck in the present. I've tried sticking planks under the tires. I've jammed the gears. Nothing. So I decided to ruminate here. I'm thinking. I'm thinking. Here's the transition I've been making, and it may be unduly influenced …
Tuesday Morning Consciousness Stream
I've had much to think of, and yet I've learned gradually that I'm living in a world that seldom thinks. It tweets. It texts. It posts. It links. It sinks. But it seldom thinks. It's turnt af. Nowumsayin? Saturday was unexpected. I was pecking away at something at least as nonsensical as this when …
Nightrider's Lament 