Today I sent out forty review copies of Chasing the Last Whale and Hallucinabulia: the Dream Diary of an Unintended Solitarian. It’s a new beginning! I’m also going to give away ten free Kindle versions of each book. I’ll tell you how you can win it in a second. If you like either or both…
A sign that the apocalypse is imminent
April 15, 2024
We are doomed. The world is about to end. How do I know that the apocalypse is imminent? Because after fifty years, there’s finally a good Japanese pop band. It’s called Tricot, pronouced “tree-ko.” Our destruction won’t be pretty. Tricot may be over before it really begins. Although most English-speaking press say that it’s an…
How screwed are we? THIS screwed.
April 14, 2024
This isn’t the same country it was when I was young. I lived in Tyler, Texas, from 1972 to 1975; Portland, Oregon, from 1981 to 1985; San Francisco, California, from 1991 to 1993; and Los Angeles from 1993 to the present. I’ve never seen such publicly expressed insanity as I’m seeing now. We are screwed….
Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part One
April 13, 2024
On April 12, 2014, the novelist Anne Rice posted the following video on her Facebook fan page and asked for comments. I obliged her. In the interest of full disclosure, I was raised a Catholic, like Rice was. She and I both left the church at eighteen, but I never looked back. I was an…
Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part Two
April 13, 2024
The conclusion of my Facebook conversation with the novelist Anne Rice. Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part Two Christianity, with its belief in a fiery and everlasting Hell has waged battles and wars of genocide against other peoples throughout its long and bloody and cruel history because it believes ultimately that it has the only…
Have we turned a corner?
April 12, 2024
My father was a complex man. He had an astonishing intellect, a streak of brutality, great artistic skill, indestructible narcissism, bursts of amazing compassion, the total inability to admit when he was wrong, an urge to do the right thing, an adamant refusal to do the right thing, and secrets buried so deeply inside that…
The men behind the masks
April 12, 2024
The band Kiss was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on April 10, 2014. Here are the men behind the masks, holding their awards. From the left, they are Paul Stanley (guitar, vocals), Ace Frehley (guitar), Peter Criss (drums), and Gene Simmons (bass, vocals). This was the first time the original lineup…
Knowledge is power
April 11, 2024
Today I got a frantic message about an article by the execrable Seymour Hersh, one of the most dishonest “journalists” in the business. Titled “The Red Line and the Rat Line,” the piece claims—without presenting any evidence whatsoever—that Turkey provided the sarin nerve gas that was used in the Damascus suburb of Ghouta on August…
Dragonflies and tarantula hawks
April 10, 2024
My friend the Father Who Dances asked me to please keep writing about what I consider possible signs and patterns indicating that all is well. Therefore, here’s a post about dragonflies and tarantula hawks. This is for you, Father. The last two weeks have been very hard on Tim and me. There’s no specific reason….