I live in New York City.  My family lives in Chicago.  When it comes to the holidays this year, my normally happy-to-jet-set brain got switched off in favor of the urge to do something other than my normal Thanksgiving routine.  Last year I flew in to Chicago on at 7 a.m. on Thanksgiving morning and, given my usual angst towards family gatherings and excess, did not result in the usual tryptophan-induced slumber, rather, it caused my blood to boil at temperatures hotter than Mom’s fresh mashed potatoes. Continue Reading »

I recently watched Born Into This, a documentary about Bukowski’s life that paints him as both a reckless drunk (which he was) and a vulnerable humanist (which he was, as well).  At one point early in the flick, a few different literary heads and celebrities describe exactly how they first came to read Bukowski, which got me thinking about the first time I’d read him. Continue Reading »

Ad serving is one of those strange concepts, becoming more and more common, that causes some gigantic database to appear to read your mind.  In essence, it takes your past behavior (in the internet’s case, page browsing, e-mail history, etc.) and anonymously feeds your information into a big sorting machine.  The machine then picks out what it has been programmed to give to you: an ad that appeals to what it has deemed your specific needs.

As you might know… Google’s “bots” read your email and suggest ads in that top little line of your Gmail inbox… this is what I just received: Continue Reading »

I found this report really interesting.  It’s from the MacArthur foundation and it’s a 2-page summary on some really significant findings about youth and how they consume and interact with digital media.  Most importantly, it’s about how it’s not necessarily as bad as it’s been made out to be.  This is something that most of us have known for a bit, but it’s always nice to have it scientifically backed up.

Digital Youth-Two Page Summary

I’ve been questioned by a few people over the years about how I justify my thinking on certain issues like the paving of natural landscapes.  On one hand, I was raised to appreciate the natural world.  Camping for weeks on end with no human contact wasn’t unheard of in my family and, these days, I find myself appreciating natural landscape more and more. Continue Reading »

Things have been busy.  Big updates really soon, though.  For now… I hope these videos bring as much glee to your life as they have to mine:

“Please don’t confront me with my failures,

I had not forgotten them.”

Carole King fan?  Chiffons fan?  60’s pop and stellar songwriting fan?  No?  How about being a fan of listening to myself and my friend, Joe, embarrassing ourselves?  See?  I knew I’d get you roped in somehow.

Check out our latest bout with degeneracy by clicking here and scrolling to the bottom, or by clicking on The Covers Project link on the left.

I like to zoom around town.  These days, I’m doing so on this bad boy:

It’s an Affinity Lo Pro Pursuit frame, Sugino Messenger crankset, Velocity Deep V’s laced to Milwaukee Hubs.  Chris King Headset, Nitto stem/handlebars.  Selle saddle.

It’s fast.  I’m fast on it.  Try and catch me.

Special thanks to the boys at Affinity Cycles and Ben’s Cycles in Milwaukee.

Thank you, Banksy.  Or Banksy’s impersonators.  Whichever it was.