Every messiah has to die. I watched a new managerial god fly in, and while the wrapped coupe was cooling in the basement, he gathered the middle-management saints, who in turn assembled the sinners. Together, they would transform stale tickets…
The bobblehed speaks. “Capitalism sucks.” Watch the bobblehead on TikTok. Big head taking up all the screen-space. Profound revelation. Divine epiphany. Lips flapping he’s weaving through others on the street. Selfie stick extended. He stays in the frame. Miraculously. “This…
“Eighteen.” Vincent Furnier, aka Alice Cooper, was 23 when that song hit big in late 1970. It captures that messy threshold: no longer a kid, not yet a grown-up. The singer drifts between worlds, unsure who he is, unsure where…
I really just wanted a coffee that Friday evening, not a sermon. The sign read, “All welcome,” so I assumed I was part of “all” and entered. A conscript’s first three-day pass is sacred. That seemingly trivial reward marked the…
Despondency is that shit feeling that resides in a post-apocalyptic crud-hole between hopelessness and apathy. As an emotion, it’s legit, and it’s a signal, but it’s a faint signal that can lead to horrible stuff if left unchecked. Rage, ironically,…
The language of conscription is glossed over with words like duty, service, honor, and sacrifice, but beneath the shine, it stinks of rotten bureaucracy, drafting people into the meat grinder. Politicians say, “the nation calls,” but never admit to coercion.…
Do you know people who wander into a restaurant, glance at the menu, comment on every item, and then leave, telling everyone outside what they saw? Worse, some post it online, and the echo chamber churns out dozens of hollow…
As a youth, my hair was routinely massacred by Adventure Barbers. A couple of middle-aged gents operated a lucrative gig on the outskirts of my community. No matter what style you requested, you always got short back and sides. School…
Brad was flushed with rage. The veins in his forehead pulsated. “I can work for a tyrant, but not a narcissist who needs a performing monkey.” Brad resigned a week later, found a great job at a competitor’s firm, and…
“You will listen to your corporals. Their instructions will give you a better chance to survive.” I reckon the other rookies scoffed at those words, like I did. I was fresh out of university, and conscription had caught up with…