Cutting Off Your Nose
There are thousand ways to sell your idea in the marketplace of them.
Every NFP org out there (and there are a LOT of them) has the schtick to get you to part with a few of your dollars so they can continue to operate. Lots of causes know how to use Kickstarter and IndieGo. Public radio shills to you by reminding you three or four times a year how you listen to them and need to pony up a couple ducets to keep listening. Hell, even the multitudes of homeless are trying get a few ounces of silver and ask you as you pass the Starbucks for it with a hopeful but determined look.
The techniques range from
You Can't Live Without This Thing
You Can Assuage Your Guilt By Giving Money to This Thing
Without This Thing Society Will Collapse
TRUMP Hates This Thing So Pay Me For It!
And then there is this:
Notes from the Post–it Wall – Week of June 18, 2017
• If my approach to being a dog parent is any indication of how I’ll be as a parent to a human, I’m going to wake the kid up to snuggle with it and throw things at its face.
Remember Watergate, or Else
So history is repeating itself here. In the early 1970s, we had a president pulling a Brock Turner on the Constitution, and today we, allegedly and potentially, are witnessing the same thing happen.
I Believe...
...that I really didn't need to know about the drugs in Carrie Fisher's system but I do need to know how the jury acquitted the cop who murdered Philando Castile.
Change Takes Fuel and We're Using it up on Bullshit
The Internet is a giant puddle of vomit from our minds all over the ether and my suggestion is that you use its power to protest things that matter to humanity and society rather than you and your four friends. And, no, you and your outrage do not represent anyone but you.
The Devil Made Me Do It or How We've Found Excuses for Fucking Everything
Several cops shoot a guy 47 times. This is not about wounding or incapacitating him; this is about killing him as dead as dead can be. The rationale (in a legal sense) is that they were in fear for their lives. As if fear for life justifies shooting someone 47 times.
A Chicago kid gets shot in a drive-by shooting caught between two street gangs warring over a moment of personal disrespect. When the gangs are called into question, family members and neighborhood activists place the blame on white supremacy keeping these otherwise stand up citizens in a system where they have no choice but to shoot one another.
An angry Fundamentalist Religious type decides that he needs to kill a bunch of people in a social setting to make a point. Instead of blaming the guy for being a homicidal asshole, we blame the religion. He, of course, blames the media or women or the Devil.
Eric Trump’s Bedtime Prayer
"Chopping Wood" | It's All in the Fundamentals
Charlie “Yardbird” Parker transformed himself from decent saxophone player into one of the most influential jazz musicians of the last 100 years. The change happened during a 10-month period, when Parker essentially dropped out of the scene and worked deeply on his craft.
By fully immersing himself in an environment that pushed his mastery, he reemerged on a path to becoming a legend.
Notes from the Post-it Wall – Week of June 11, 2017
• Is the old waitress at the café who is calling me sweetheart flirting with me? Because it’s working.
Shut Up and Make Some Art
Artists get paid so little on the middle to the bottom of the pile because Any asshole can say he's an artist. A degree means dick unless you're going to go into Arts Administration and, even then, grad school isn't about what you learn but who you impress and befriend. If everyone who felt a need to help his fellow man could simply declare that he was a doctor could be, in fact, a doctor, then being a doctor would have very little employable value.
![I Believe... [Get Your Feet Offa My Plane!]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/579fa3912994ca0eff850271/1497211809212-DD1TQ3EAID5C1KUDW74A/yorick.jpg)
I Believe... [Get Your Feet Offa My Plane!]
...that it really is completely unacceptable to get on a five-hour flight, take off your sandals and put your bare feet up on the seat in front of you. My response was simply to look at him and his feet and say "No. Not gonna happen." He put his sandals back on.
Discerning the Dominant Chimp
It's all in the attitude. We're all just a huge collection of stereotypes and cliches. Admit it to yourself and you'll feel better. I promise.
"Taxation is Theft."
"Taxation is theft" is a phrase I've been seeing a lot lately. Famous "Libertarians" like Penn Jillette are pictured with some quote remarking that taxation is equivalent to the government robbing us at gun point. Which is fine. He's allowed his opinion about that, and I certainly agree with Jillette on other things (his story about becoming an atheist is great, I think).
So, I want to work through this, on the internet, so that we can all be on the same page.
If taxation is theft, and theft is wrong, let us stop taxation.
Outta Sight, Outta Mind
In our daily walk through the paths we choose, we all want to feel important. This is as universal as breathing oxygen to live in the human condition. It is the reason behind our rage and sense of victimhood. It is the driving factor within our desire for connection with others.
To somehow find people in our lives who see us as being worth sacrifice and loyalty, commitment and love.
To be seen and treated as if we are of import.
Recovery
We're all a little bipolar. The fucking planet earth is bipolar. We all vacillate between happy and sad.
Notes from the Post-it Wall – Week of June 4, 2017
• All this talk about Wonder Woman being the first major motion picture featuring a female superhero… Uh, hello, sheeple! Is Barb Wire not major enough for you?
A Decade in Chicago, Ten Years of Mastering Disappointment
Finally, after a decade of imagining it, I had arrived in Chicago. The Big City. Home. Although I didn’t look the part, I was ready to take the place by storm. Within three months, it was clear that instead, Chicago was going to bend me over its knee and spank my ass red with the rotten corpse femur of Daddy Daley while I helplessly, and more and more self-destructively, took the beating like a frightened little bitch.
Between Generations and Happy to Steal from Both
"When I ask older people,* they say it's the smart thing to get a stable job with benefits and a secure salary even if I don't like the job. When I ask younger people,** they tell me to take time off, that it's completely fine to jump from job to job until I find something that, I don't know, fulfills me."
* Older than 33.
** Younger than 33.
My friend is leaving her job. It seems things are getting fairly dismal over at my former place of employ and that, perhaps, I got out while the getting was good. Unlike me, she's leaving without any kind of severance package and is a bit lost in her Next Step on the Journey sort of deal. She wanted to grab lunch and see how I'm doing as a gauge for what comes next for her.
"You don't seem to fit either category. What's that all about?"
![I Believe... [Bill Maher Needs to Channel Lenny Bruce]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/579fa3912994ca0eff850271/1496491406694-V9XM5S8C0MDXG2NFFAFU/yorick.jpg)
I Believe... [Bill Maher Needs to Channel Lenny Bruce]
...that if Bill Maher wants to say the word, he should take Lenny Bruce's cue and say it so many times it becomes meaningless or makes a point. The casual dropping of an intense racial epithet is exponentially worse in its flip and careless use.
Diversifying Your Identity Portfolio to Become a Real Live Person
Identity is that which we find our own self worth. It is the moniker we decide is most representative of our essential I—being professionally successful, being highly educated, making a lot of money, being an excellent parent, being pious and faithful in a chosen religion, being socially and/or sexually popular and desired, being physically attractive or beautiful. It includes areas that we have no control over but decide to embrace—our skin color, our gender, our sexual preferences, our physicality.
Race and gender and physicality are born-in traits but the choice is not to erase them but to either embrace the stereotypes laid upon skin color, sexuality and disability or buck those stereotypes. Culture, hair style, language—the trappings of the outward display of identity—are all conscious choices.
What you choose indicates what you value in life.
How do you want to be defined? By one action? By some opinion that could evolve? By a mistake, regrettable only with hindsight? Or by the sum of your parts? Okay, do that for other people. Start the trend.