When Crowdfunding Resembles Opportunism or The Greed in Your Ask is Getting Obvious
I most recently joined the World of Crowdfunding with my new Patreon Campaign. I’m torn as, in general, I’ve seen far too many of these efforts resemble either a corrupt civil servant trying to raise money for bail or legal fees, someone desperately using it as a replacement for medical insurance, or Ian Belknap using GoFundMe to help pay for an office space so he doesn’t have to deal with his kids at home while churning out pedantic screeds on Faceborg.
Go ahead and Google “crowdfunding abuse” and the list is long and ugly.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of November 12, 2017
• Few things bring me greater relief than deleting The Walking Dead from my DVR.
• Update resume.
• Do the best you can not to panic and shit the bed any more than you already have this month. You’re beginning to stink and are flinging your own shit everywhere.
American Online and the Dial-Up Generation
I know social media is here to stay and that people will continue to quite literally live their lives inside these forums, but let's all agree, if we're going to continue to make this virtual world the main place where most modern socialization takes place, let's do it with some manners and some grace.
Trusting Hope Over Experience: The Shedding of the Old
“Everything I had built in the past 15 years just went up in smoke. It’s gone. I mean, what the fuck do I do now?”
My friend had gone through one of those tribulations that involved losing status within the community of artists he was a part of, losing his job on top of that, and flailing his now beaten down limbs in search of what he was supposed to do, who he was supposed to be, after the dust had settled.
I understood the feeling.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting - Improv Team Meeting/Rehearsal
Martin needs to stop trying to kiss women in scenes. We will no longer “yes, and-” his tongue.
Born Angry
Some family stories get repeated over and over, become the stuff of legends. One such story is about when my mother was pregnant with me, and, from inside the womb, I was kicking so hard that I kicked the newspaper she was reading off her lap. Writing this now, I wonder if it was possible that the news was making me mad even then.
What Price to Admit Error?
I was also wrong about Louis C.K. Sure, when I made my semi-defense of the man no one had actually come out and declared that he was a sick asshat who just couldn't stop exposing himself to women, but I was still wrong. Joe, however, was dead right. C.K. has made his mea culpa and we'll see if he makes amends. But I was WRONG.
![I Believe...[Outing Spacey Doesn't Erase the ShitShow That Was "Rent"]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/579fa3912994ca0eff850271/1510269017541-WN5HYAHZA5DGTCTCA5A0/yorick2.jpg)
I Believe...[Outing Spacey Doesn't Erase the ShitShow That Was "Rent"]
...that, if you're going to carry around a palm-sized supercomputer that cost you a grand and is made almost entirely of in your back pocket, you probably shouldn't treat it like a disposable burner phone. The computing power to send NASA to the moon should not be so carelessly stashed that close to your bunghole, bro.
We Built This Shitty
If we believe in America, we have to know that all sides of America are America too. That means America is nauseous right now. Maybe the fact that both sides see each other as other is the biggest sickness we as a national entity have.
Chicken Little Was a Fucking Lunatic
Perhaps it's time to admit that maybe these are all acorns and the lunatic Chicken Little Syndrome is now ours to acknowledge. The Right owned it for eight years and now it's ours.
The Musical Mr. M
The music moved me, music that I was creating with my own breath and hands. It was the most real form of magic I’d ever discovered. I learned in those early days what incredible emotion could be found in music. To a young writer, music became a battery in which I could charge inspiration and draw energy.
Notes from the Post-it Wall — Week of November 5, 2017
• I would kill to be a sociopath.
I am Matisse
I am Matisse, and this is a kid’s story, because I am a kid. I am nine years old and very responsible for my age. The other Matisse, at least the only other one I know, was a great painter, the father of abstraction. I have decided to be empress of the universe. I’m what adults call precocious.
My Grandma-ma always speaks to me as if I’m the smartest person she ever met. My mom still thinks of me as only nine and my dad, well he just smiles at me all the time. Actually he beams. He doesn’t say much of anything.
The Minutes of Our Last Meeting – Columbia College Chicago - Board of Trustees Budget Committee
"Fewer people are buying our product. The only sensible solution is for us to charge more."
13 Things to Blame for the Trump Presidency
Who can we blame for the election of Donald Trump as president? Here is a short list of scapegoats and why any one of them deserve all of the blame. All of it.
If Men Are From Mars and Women Are From Venus, Where the Fuck Have I Been All This Time?
It has come to pass as I read the countless examples of sexual harassment proliferated by so many other men that I don't understand most men, either.
Dick pics?
Coming on to women by pulling the schlong out for view?
Masturbating in front of women as a seduction technique?
Catcalling random strangers?
Drugging women to have sex?
Raping drunk, sleeping women?
![I Believe... [Joking About "David Cop-a-Feel" is NOT Rapey]](https://images.squarespace-cdn.com/content/v1/579fa3912994ca0eff850271/1509638605865-VC6W813OLGBMCY0PESH4/yorick2.jpg)
I Believe... [Joking About "David Cop-a-Feel" is NOT Rapey]
Holiday Season
Halloween? Go nuts? Be a slutty nurse or a guy from TV for a night. Who cares? It's not The Purge. I'm staying inside and watching Charlie Brown.
The Transactional Life (and How to Get Around It)
If one does X, then one receives Y.
Couldn't be simpler. If one mows the neighbor's lawn, the neighbor will reward you with some money. If you clean your room, you receive an extra Twinkie. Punch the bigger kid, get clobbered. Do the crime, do the time. Quid Pro Quo. If X, then Y. Call it The Transactional Life.
The difficulty in growing older or up or however you choose to look at the passage of time is that you start to see that this contract with the world, this Transactional Life, is not fair. Most of the time, the value you place on X is not in equal proportion to the perceived value of Y.
Notes from the Post-it Wall – Week of October 29, 2017
• I have always appreciated Madonna for continuing to reinvent herself with each album or decade or whatever. With her new skin care line, she’s reinvented herself as a chubby Drew Barrymore.
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.