I was almost finished with elementary school by the time I met a friend who had divorced parents. I know this must seem very weird in today's world where more marriages cease than continue, but it's true -- in my small-town Midwestern universe, every kid I knew had a mom and… Read full post »

1. Roofer



2. Poultry Inspector

 

3. Dairy Farmer

 

4. Lumberjack

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(Nanofiction is a story exactly 55 words in length.)

TWANGGGGGGG!

Has anything ever bothered you in life? 
-- Never.

Do you have any problem you need to solve?
-- 99 of them, in fact.

A pending court case you want to resolve in your favor?
-- I've retained a wild-haired wizard riding a glitter unicorn, thanks.

Health, relationship… Read full post »

AWWWW, MAN, HERE WE GO!

If I believed in hell, I'd sure be thinking I'd be going there because I've been laughing over this poor Indian kid's terrible autotuned and rather anemic pity party video for like 30 minutes now. AHAHAHA! Aw. HAHA! AWW. Please to EEeeNNnnJJjOOoyyY!

D4NNY, "Goodbye"

…

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/

It's not so great sometimes to be mired in the Consumer Age in the midst of a widening wealth distribution skew crisis. The poor are getting poorer, the middle class are getting poor, the upper middle class is slipping into middle class (which is getting poor), and then there's the 400…

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One (1) perfectly-pleasant Seattle Sunday afternoon in early June (NO RAIN ALLOWED)
One (1) modest but fully-funded Kickstarter campaign
One (1) great idea

Combine ingredients in tiny Capitol Hill-area park after application of city permit. Shake modest-but-fully-funded Kickstarter campai… Read full post »

Do you know how excited I was to see Mikal Cronin play here in Seattle last night? VERY MUCH, I WAS. I had waited with great patience since seeing him perform his own material on 2012's Bruise Cruise, when I was so super-thrilled that I went up to the pleasant, shaggy-haired… Read full post »

There is something very, very, very, very...different about Japanese culture, shall we agree? I see this difference most often in relation to music. I tell you what: there is no pop music fan more HARDCORE than a Japanese pop music fan, not in the whole wide world. I love them.

…

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It doesn't matter where I am, in what state or what town...if there are bizarre old albums around, I WILL FIND THEM! Here's today's lot from VV! Please to enjoy!

Let's just start right off with a bang here. Wow, sir...just so WOW.





…

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My very favorite book from my childhood was a volume from the LIFE Science Library called "The Mind," published in 1964. I cannot even estimate the hours I spent reading and re-reading this. It's really, really INTERESTING! There really isn't anything cooler than the human mind.



…

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The complexities surrounding the concept of fame -- motivations, attainment or lack of it, consequences of either outcome -- is a topic that forever fascinates me. As someone who is peripherally attached to the music business via photography, I've been able to observe the careers of many musical arti… Read full post »

Althea wrinkled her nose and frowned, as she pulled on a deep-rooted weed in the flower bed. Looking towards Bob, who was considering their ongoing aphid problem, she shouted to him over the roar of the Saturday lawnmowers. "Bob! That egg salad you made is off! It stinks all the way…

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HAHAHAHA! Have you ever seen anyone try to play the drums while horizontal??

JULIO! I LOVE YOU, MAAAAAAAN!!!

Julio, The Drunken Drummer

(On the way home from school today, Miss Ten and I were listening to the radio, as usual. "There She Goes" by The La's was playing.)

Miss Ten: (singing/humming along with the song, then pausing to speak) Mom? Nobody likes the music I like.

Me: Welcome to my world.

Miss Ten: Huh?

Me: Continue.

Miss… Read full post »

That is all.

Now that I have a chunk 'o lifetime banked, it's sometimes a good exercise to look back and think about where the world was when I got here, and how it is now. I am often frustrated by the sad lack of progress we've made in 50 years -- the idealistic…

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What an exciting day it was to be in attendance for the official world premiere of "Her Aim Is True," the feature-length documentary from director Karen Whitehead about rock photographer Jini Dellaccio. Both showings of the film this weekend at the prestigious Seattle International Film Festival were… Read full post »

It is part of natural human curiosity to want to know more about the things and people that have a profound impact on our lives, I think -- when something is meaningful to us, we like to set that into a context, perhaps reflecting on the unique qualities of a person… Read full post »

Sometimes a song comes on and you just gotta get up and MOVE! This was the scene tonight in my house, as I played a song from Bass Drum of Death's upcoming (June 25) self-titled album called "I Wanna Be Forgotten." Miss Ten just started dancing around the house like a…

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I found myself with a spare hour this afternoon in the Seattle Eastside 'burb of Woodinville, and decided to make a run back to the new Value Village thrift store there to pick up a few items that people wanted from the last time I was there! Of course, there were…

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Conversation sparkled, at a pretty nighttime party with friends, drinking wine. Alone together in the kitchen, I asked him about his daughter with the bubblegum-pink cheeks and braces on her legs, her time known to be short.