We Killed Jason Todd
In 1988 my friends and I killed a kid.
He was just a boy really. We had help it wasn’t just me and my pals. there were adults involved, lots of them. I mean we were young we were just thirteen and really couldn’t comprehend the ramification of our actions, the adults knew what they were doing. I’m painting it to sound way more sinister than it was, and in today’s society, wouldn’t trend on Twitter but maybe in the ’80s, it was probably considered quite ominous.
Hell is a Sunday Matinee
The most acid I've ever taken by accident was at a Saturday night cast party.
Hey, Kid, Catch The Ball
If we didn’t play ball in the alleys, we played pinners against the front-stoop with a pinkie or fastpitch against the factory wall. What we didn’t want to do is hit our only league into the yard of Mr. Hardwick, who had Baron, the meanest German Shepard you could imagine on patrol. Baron drooled with desire when he saw us come near, the dream of tearing off a piece of our skin or even a finger or two making him crazy.
Dear Don (both of you; all of you)
Crime has never stopped paying. How naïve I have been all my life thinking that one day it would…not pay.
Tilly’s
I could see him as he talked. The mouth surrounded by the scraggly beard, moving at a thousand miles an hour. Him walking and talking at the same time since he never sat for too long in any one place. Medium height, medium build, and large hands with fingers, which had been broken years ago. The hands hid the story of a man feared by many when he was much younger.
The Social Worker
I got a call. I needed to go to a home. A redneck case. Trailer trash in an apartment. Truancy issue with a 6th grader, as if showing up to school was going to change his future.
Tani's Solution to America's Mass Shooting Problem
Finally, no American citizen will be forced to own a government issued weapon and can opt out and refuse, or return their weapon at any point in their life. Children will have the same choice at age 18.
PARDON MY FRONTAL LOBOTOMY
Excuse me, do you know where the restroom is?
I must confess to you, I smell like a petri dish.
The Cereal Wish | Part 4
As you have already learned, I am a quick thinker. Like, how I used my second wish to live inside of the classic sitcom Cheers. Yep. Everything is going to be smooth sailing from here on out.
It’s true that I’ll miss my girlfriend, Sarah, but as Dave Matthews said in a Facebook post in 2018, “What a great ending of a great tour!”
Norm walks over to me.
Sixty Is Hard to Accept
I hope to give more than I take in my limited time on this planet. Thinking about it nightly helps me to make better choices.
The Cinema of 2019: A Literate Ape End-of-Year Review
We enjoyed a lot of movies in 2019. While not a banner year like 1968 or 1999, the year certainly had its standouts. Here is our end of the year list of the films that impacted us the most compiled by Don Hall and Brett Dworski, both film fans and people with acceptable vision and hearing.
NOTE: These are not ranked because generally, we believe the practice of ranking films is fucking stupid. However, we do rate them from 1 to 5 Apes. Enjoy.
All Art is Political
But where, might you ask, is Art in all this. Well, if the concept of Politics precedes everything, guess what, Art, informs everything that politics and language created because 70,000 years ago, Homo sapiens developed an ability no other animal possesses, the ability to imagine that what which can not be seen. In other words, Imagination. If there is a dividing line between art and imagination, I’m hard pressed to find it.
Daylight Saving Time
I ask you — or anybody—
Why does it have to take 10 to make 1?
And even more puzzling —
Why bother?
The Case Against Joe Biden
With the House formally going forward with impeachment, the premise of Joe Biden’s whole campaign is obsolete. He and his campaign claimed he was the most electable and the best candidate to beat Donald Trump – patently not true anymore.
A “Be Best” Experience
It seems to me, anything that can happen in real life social situations can now happen in digital social situations. This proves to be a good thing when it’s time to celebrate. But when it comes to sexual humiliation, you just want it to go away.
Overcoming the Dreaded Writer's Block
Maybe if I couldn’t go over it, I could go around it? Surely it couldn’t be that long of a walk. All alone, I set off on the trek to find the edge of the Block with just my walking stick and my lack of thoughts (this is why I was over here after all). I kicked at a couple rocks as I trudged over the dismal landscape that was mostly gray and gloomy. Dirt and other sand-like material made up the terrain behind the Block and it perfectly reflected what every writer felt: self-doubting, unworthy, and lost.
Humans are Inherently Good
I truly believe now that we are all inherently good and are trying our best. We may fail a lot. But we really are good.
Exhibit A: Love. Love, actually, is all around. With few exceptions, we inherently love our families and our friends.
Exhibit B: Look around you. Look how many people are currently not murdering someone.
That’s good. High five, all of you.
Humans are Scum
I cannot express how excited I am. Because over the past couple weeks since I was assigned this topic, I’ve been overwhelmed by this deep, dark despair. But in the next few minutes, I get to unload it all onto you, and then I can resume the carefree complacency to which I’ve grown accustomed.
You. People. Suck.
It’s true and you all know it and here are seven reasons why.
Hank, Unedited
It's an early morning in September, twenty years in the future. MOM is driving her son HANK to school. Hank is an ordinary-looking child of 10 who suffers from a rare genetic disorder, Brittanicus Affectavus Horribulis.
Burn Museums // Build Co-ops
An engorged pig sits in a stale pond, lapping at the stagnant water while the fish die. Its heavy, muffled breath does nothing to stir the sheet of algae growing on the surface.
...that empathy is a limited and local resource. Expanding one’s desire to empathize with an increasing number of people spreads it thin like too little butter on too much bread.