Sheriff Roy Templeton had a headache. The assembled group of adults before him hadn’t stopped yelling since he stepped into Principal Doreen Jessup’s office at Nick Saban Intermediate School and asked “What’s the problem?”

When the school called about a row involving some parents and teachers, Mud Lick’s head law enforcement officer decided he’d handle the incident personally. Roy Junior started at Saban Middle in the fall and Sheriff Roy thought getting a little positive face time with the principal of his son’s new school would be advantageous. Continue reading →

Sheriff Roy wondered if what he saw was part of some weird fever dream.

The sky above was white as a sheet of paper with no form or shape to anything. Same with the ground below. No scenery was visible. Just white everywhere.

In fact, the only thing more peculiar than the scenery was the young boy standing in front of the Sheriff. Approximately twelve, wearing corduroy pants, a green polka-dotted shirt and a red bow tie, the ginger haired child smiled at Sheriff Roy with a knowing smirk.

“Time,” the boy said, “is an illusion. Lunchtime doubly so.” Continue reading →

Good morning everyone! By the time most of you are reading this, I’ll be at Dollywood with the kids. Those roller coasters don’t ride themselves, y’know, and I got myself a good deal on Tiger Balm at Costco this week.

Anyway, it’s Good Friday according to the Christians, so why don’t we spend some time today with some sharp, pointy sticks and poke a nice, big theological bear?

If you’re not of the Christian faith, Easter is basically the Super Bowl of chocolate. Forget the game in this case; it’s all about the halftime show – Cadbury Eggs, Reese’s Bunnies, and those mysterious chocolate rabbits that multiply in your pantry. Seriously, I’ve got one that’s been breeding since 2017. I call him “Warren Buffet.” Continue reading →

“We should get season passes for Dollywood this year,” my wife tells me one afternoon. “If we go twice we’ve essentially justified using them.”

“Sounds lovely,” I said, “Let’s do it.” I thought at most we might get a discussion out of it, and maybe we’d even make plans to go some point later in the year. My daughter loves roller coasters and my son’s a huge fan of the park’s midway area so a Dollywood visit is almost a certainty when we’re deciding what to do during the year.

But season passes were different. Season passes meant we got free parking, food discounts and a slew of other benefits. It meant we were some of THOSE people who did fun things like go to damn amusement parks twice a week. Continue reading →

The following may or may not be based on a true story. You be the judge—CLS

DEAR DIARY,

Zaslav wants me to do this diary thing for the upcoming documentary they’re going to do for me on HBO Max, Max, VICE or whatever the hell it’s called now. I can’t stand this place anymore or these people and I want to leave so bad. But I’m being paid a stupid amount of money to work here with people who I hate and who hate me, so what does one do? Continue reading →

I want to begin by discussing a rather nasty rumor I heard spread regarding my whereabouts last week. Contrary to what’s discussed on the Twitter, I had been nowhere near a “tragic kiln explosion.” Hell, I don’t even know where one would find a kiln locally.

My absence was a bit less dramatic. I was sick. Not overly sick, mind you. That would be crass to discuss publicly. But suffice it to say for my current purposes I was less than my optimal self.

How I fell ill came down to one of two possible culprits. One’s eight and one is ten. My kids are truly the greatest joy of my life. I look at them and I see the possibility of the future reflected in their eyes. Continue reading →

When we last left our intrepid heroes, Mud Lick’s top cops were attempting to solve the mystery of a prized cow allegedly anally probed by aliens—CLS

Sheriff Roy Templeton and Deputy Ernesto Miranda stood in front of what looked to be a cross between a nuclear bunker and an abandoned radio station.

“What in blazes are we doing here, boss, and why isn’t this building on any maps?” Miranda asked. Continue reading →

Back during the days of Fault Lines, my mean-ass editor tasked me weekly with compiling a post called the “Friday Fail.” It was a short post detailing what I thought were the biggest criminal justice failures of the week. We let readers vote on what they considered the worst in an informal poll for audience interaction. It was a fun little bit.

And we’re kind of bringing it back today because hoo boy do I have a doozy for you. This is probably the biggest fail I’ve seen since I started writing about America’s criminal justice system. Continue reading →

Sheriff Roy Templeton noticed two things on arriving at the scene of the incident.

The first was that Farmer Jesse Burkitt’s prize Holstein was very dead.

The second was the cow apparently met its demise when something (it had to be a something, Sheriff Roy thought) sucked its innards out through its rectal area.

“Deputy Miranda, what do we have here?” Sheriff Roy asked his second in command. Continue reading →

It is Groundhog Day in the year 2024.

For the first time in the company’s history, no one named McMahon is in charge at World Wrestling Entertainment. And for the first time in forty years, Vincent Kennedy McMahon, the guy who essentially nationalized professional wrestling in America, has nothing to do with the company that made him a billionaire.

This whole damn situation is wild and it’s only going to get more interesting as time goes on. Continue reading →