Once a month, usually on the first Thursday, the Grassy Knoll Pub hangs a sign on the door that reads “Closed to the General Public.”

Inside, the Knoll’s staff sets to work on that day replacing the “conspiracy theory chic” decor with items more pleasing to those in law enforcement.

Gone, for example, were the pictures of Lee Harvey Oswald and Jack Ruby, replaced with photos of Wyatt Earp and J. Edgar Hoover. Cassidy, the Irish doorman of the Knoll, wanted to put of pictures of Joe Friday from “Dragnet” but Jesse Custer, the Knoll’s proprietor, nixed that idea. Continue reading →

Mx. Roberta Finklestein (pronouns they/them, MA in Gender Studies, Oberlin 2010) was perplexed. For the life of them they couldn’t figure out why they’d been pulled over that day by a nice but rather imposing Latinx gentleman working for the Sheriff’s Department, cited, and told to appear at the station for questioning.

They initially thought it had something to do with their allyship work and social justice initiatives they brought with them on starting as a substitute teacher for the Eighth Grade classes at Nicholas Saban Intermediate School in Driftwood County, Alabama. Continue reading →

Let’s start this with an admission. I’m a Batman kind of guy. Out of all the superhero types, be they Marvel, DC, or some other comic label, Gotham City’s Caped Crusader’s been the one I flocked to the most.

So when I heard a Batman cinematic reboot was in the works, I rolled my eyes a little. After all, the Dark Knight’s gotten treatments from Tim Burton, Christopher Nolan, and Joel Schumacher (for all the good THOSE movies did). What else could a new director bring to the table? Continue reading →

Happy Friday everyone! This weekend’s particularly significant for my family as we’re celebrating two big occasions. The first, of course, is Easter. I don’t know what happens in other parts of the country (or world) on Easter weekend, but in the South, everything shuts down for basically four days. The kids get Good Friday off, all weekend is theirs, and then the Monday after Easter is a day off for the kids as well.

I suspect the Monday holiday is more for the teachers than the students or parents.

But I digress. Everyone loves a long weekend. Continue reading →

Last week was vacation. We’d been looking forward to this for a while, as everyone in the office was extremely overworked.

My business partner was headed to the Dominican Republic for a week with family.

I had plans to do two things: jack and shit. Continue reading →

Hello all you beautiful people! Yes, it’s still me, but I’m feeling quite chipper this week as I’m finally on vacation for the first time in months. Real vacation. Not having to be nice to in-laws, not having to take the kids to various destination spots—I get to do shit that I want to do.

So naturally after catching up on some sleep, I decided to watch a movie I’d never have an interest in seeing otherwise. Paramount Plus, which I got a subscription for the Halo TV series, apparently has Johnny Knoxville’s latest cinematic endeavor, “Jackass Forever,” on the platform, so this week I’m going to share my notes with you while I watch it.

There will be SPOILERS aplenty, so stop reading now if you want to actually watch this.* Otherwise, read on. I’m subjecting myself to this abuse for you people. Continue reading →

I recently told the following joke to my wife, which went completely over her head:

“A boy is sitting on the side of the road, shaking a bottle of turpentine and watching the bubbles in the liquid. A priest walks by, and asks the boy what he’s doing.

“Father,” says the boy, “this is turpentine, the most powerful liquid in the world.”

“Why dear boy, you’re mistaken!” the Priest says. “The most powerful liquid in the world is holy water. You can rub it on a pregnant lady’s belly and she’ll have a healthy child!” Continue reading →

Let’s start this week with a confession. I’m not a big pre-screener of the stuff my kids watch. Usually I’m just too busy to watch everything they consume, so I kind of tend to trust parental filters and monitors to do the work for me.

Hoo boy, was I ever wrong to do that.

My daughter loves this one particular show called “Yo Gabba Gabba.” It’s a kids’ show, so it can’t be all that bad, right? And the people who run the summer camp my daughter attends have tapes of the show they play during TV hours, so it’s got to be at least educational and wholesome, right? Continue reading →

It’s time once again for a collection of musings, observations, opinions, and ramblings, all offered by a visually-impaired middle-aged crazy man on the Internet. As such, none of these should be taken seriously. Unless, of course, you agree with me.

I learned this week “Ogentroost” is the name of a Dutch metal band. It also sounds like some kind of obscure liver disease. Continue reading →

“I feel like our job as a group of documentarians trying to cover this very delicate issue was to do what we’re always trying to do, which is tell the truth. Let’s hear everybody out. And then let’s let the audience decide for themselves what’s true and what’s not true or what’s right and what’s wrong.”—“Cheer” director Greg Whitely (emphasis mine)

It’s funny reading a comment like that from a documentary filmmaker. One of my problems with that genre, specifically in the realm of criminal justice issues, is the tendency to take nuanced issues and present them as unvarnished truth. When the director’s eye turns its gaze toward what makes a story pop for the camera, concepts like the presumption of innocence become evanescent. Continue reading →