I’ve never come close to committing coldblooded murder.

Still, there are times when I am certainly closer to homicidal tendencies than others. Once after seeing a David Lynch movie, I finished off a Slurpee and threw it into the bathroom trashcan before stepping up to a urinal. Another guy sidled up to the urinal beside me (there were other urinal opportunities, and he could have left a gap, but clearly he was a factory of poor decisions) and he said, “In one hole and out the other, eh?” Urinal small talk is definitely cause for violence.

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I’ve also spent my fair share of time on the 405, and I’m heartened by the fact that there are so few incidents of murder and mayhem on Southern California freeways. The number of violent fantasies I’ve had driving into Los Angeles could fill any number of true crime omnibuses. Hyperbole aside, the levels of restraint I’ve demonstrated are nothing short of super heroic. Thousands of BMW owners still waste oxygen as a result of my virtue.

And if you really want to fire up my bloodlust, be one of those people in a meeting who has no respect for rhythm, for give and take, for back and forth—ya know, those people who treat conversations the way Kenny G treats an E-flat. They use 5,319 words of verbal masturbation to put a bandage on their bruised egos, and all I can think of are seven words: “Hold still, I’m going to choke you.”

Which is why I’m grateful for gratitude.

Gratitude has saved me from depressions. It’s rescued me from any number of would-be faux pas. It’s the engine that drives my creativity. I write a lot of dark stuff—dark comedy and horror, thrillers and fairy tales, film noir and fantasy. Spending so much time one the dark side of my imagination has made me realize an important truth: things can always get worse.

A lot worse.

So it’s helpful to express gratitude. One of my more profound lessons in gratitude came by way of a family vacation. And I use that term loosely. The word vacation may conjure images of Maui or Niagara Falls or a Jackson Hole ski trip capped off each night with hot cocoa while nursing sore glutes in a jacuzzi on the deck of a custom-built chalet. This was not that.

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Money was tight when I was a kid, so we called vacations what most people call a shitty camping trip. And indeed we stretched the boundaries of the very concept of shittiness. We did a week in Lake Havasu. Note: I used the verb “did” in that last sentence since it possesses the connotation of doing a 5-to-10 stretch in San Quentin.

Some of you might roll your eyes and point out that MTV hosted spring break in Lake Havasu. You might even add that it’s often referred to as Arizona’s Playground. Fair enough. It does boast some world class water skiing, the London Bridge, and breathtaking desert landscapes. But again, we were camping.

In August.

In the 1980s.

When camping technology was closer to covered wagons than the Navy Seal-like innovations we enjoy today.

We had a tent, but it was essentially a nylon oven. Pigs have slow-roasted on a spit at lower temperatures than the inside of that godforsaken devil’s wet dream of a tent. And this was soul-crushing since we had to clear a quarter ton of granite rocks to pitch the tent only to learn that we had erected a sauna.

We spent the days, which hovered around 115°F, trying not to die of heat stroke while dodging dragonflies the size of station wagons. We spent the nights, which hovered around 95°F, moaning. The moaning served two purposes: to mark the agony, sure, but also to expel energy in hopes that sleep—or death—would come for us.

My mom attempted to soothe us by soaking beach towels in the ice chest and draping them over our backs to cool us off. It worked. It was just enough to make sleep possible until the sun fired back up the next morning. In a Lake Havasu August, the sun comes at you with all the energy of James Brown after snorting multiple rails of cocaine. And on one morning, that energy was compounded by mom’s bloodcurdling—quite literally bloodcurdling—screams.

To explain: we had two ice chests—one for sodas and beers; another for ground beef, chicken, and steaks. The meat locker, as it has come to be known, had been mishandled and the meat was no longer properly contained, so the ice chest was more accurately a bloodbath, which my mom—certainly reeling from the agony of triple-digit-degree camping—mistook for the ice chest of soda and beers. And that morning she woke up to the horrific image of me looking like Sissy Spacek’s stunt double in Carrie, only the blood had dried and caked in the creases of my neck, face, and belly button. Hence her bloodcurdling screams.

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After realizing what had happened, I remember thinking that it could be worse, that I could be dismembered and stowed in a styrofoam ice chest, my chilled blood used to soothe the sunburns of a family on a River Styx vacation. It can always be worse.

So I was grateful.

Fast forward thirty-ish years. I was married, and my wife and I were determined to provide our son and daughter a dream vacation, something that would indelibly impact their memories and strengthen our family bond. We took them to Hawaii. More specifically, we took them to Aulani, Disney’s resort on Oahu. It was a dream vacation from the jump. We got off the plane and got in the taxi line, and our taxi, for reasons still mysterious to me, was a limousine. Our kids laughed their balls off at the random good fortune of starting this vacation in a stretch limo fully stocked with juice boxes and Ritz crackers.

A half hour later we pulled up to the resort where we were greeted with leis, cocktails, and mocktails for the kids. I half expected Ricardo Montalbán to carry our bags to our room. After this, it only got better. If you’re unfamiliar with the Aulani, here’s the lowdown:

• A private beach, calm with little threat of undertow, as well as forty-foot nets that keep sharks from feasting on the spleens of toddlers, the thighs of fourth-graders.

• A manmade saltwater reef so that kids can swim among fish every color of the neon rainbow, without fear of being whisked away by strong currents, rogue waves, or Somali pirates.

• A volcano-themed set of waterslides that pour elegantly into a lazy river that shoots streams of warm water at the kids and ice-cold streams of Prosecco into the face holes of the adults.

• Soda fountains every fifty yards to jack the kids back up when the buzz of high-fructose corn syrup begins to wane.

• Day camps run by Disney characters trained to wear your kids out and ensure early bed times.

• A library of every Disney movie ever produced, even the ones the haven’t aged all that well.

• And too much more for me to list since Disney isn’t sponsoring this story.

I should also add that we upgraded our room to a suite, and it had a jacuzzi tub, one that actually fit me, with room to spare. Again, a dream vacation, not so much as a whiff of a Lake Havasu bloody towels experience.

But then it ended. The flight home from a great trip is always a long one, and this one was no different. In fact, it was even longer because we had to check into a hotel that night. We were driving up north for a wedding, and it didn’t make sense to drive back home only to double back the next day.

Before I reveal what transpired, I want you to know that I take great pride in my children’s manners. At restaurants they look servers in the eye. They say please and thank you. They write thank you notes. I remind them constantly that entitlement is fictional. That’s the problem with a Disney vacation. It blurs the line of what’s fictional and what ain’t.

The hotel we checked into was a Double Tree, a perfectly respectable accommodation. My kids stepped into the room and had a look around—two double beds, nightstands, a desk, a shower, a toilet, hotel art. . .

My six-year-old son spoke first: “This place doesn’t even have a jacuzzi tub.”

His eight-year-old sister followed: “What a dump.”

And then they threw their shit on the floor and turned on the TV. My wife looked at me and knew exactly what I was feeling. I say feeling because there weren’t really any cogent thoughts occurring in my brain. It was just base emotion. Anger. Regret. Self-loathing. Resentment.

My wife tried to calm me by reminding me that they were just children and children exhausted from a long day of traveling at that. When I finally could put a thought together, the only words that came out of my mouth were “Bloody Towels!”

In fact, “Bloody Towels” has become a refrain in our home, a reminder to practice gratitude, a prompt to count our blessings, a warning that things can always get worse.

In the spirit of gratitude, thanks for reading. You can practice some gratitude of your own by sharing this post (assuming you enjoyed it).

Practice Gratitude

And/Or you can practice gratitude in the comments. I’d love to hear the specific things, people, places, and blood-lustful experiences, that make you grateful.

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Fortune Cookies Baked By My Favorite People

My daughter graduates high school this week. Last year, in anticipation of this milestone, I sent the following text to a long list of friends and family:

If you had to make a list of favorite aphorisms, what would be on it? I’m creating a collection for our kids that includes my favorite people’s takes.

Many of these favorite people responded that they would get back to me as soon as they looked up aphorism. In the interest of getting ahead of that here: an aphorism is “a terse saying embodying a general truth, or astute observation, as ‘Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely’ (Lord Acton).” —dictionary.com

My favorite people responded with a strong list, and they also threw in some bonus proverbs, maxims, epigrams, misquotations, malaphors, and twisted truisms. Some are thoughtful and poignant. Some are absurd and silly. All of them are useful in their own way.

My favorite people range from professors, artists, and producers to lawyers, salesmen, the woman partly responsible for sending Bill Cosby to prison, and everything in between, i.e, this is a diverse group with an even more eclectic medley of tastes and points of view. May their collective wisdom bless my graduating daughter (and eventually my graduating son) as well as all of us.

One quick note before I share the curated list. One friend contributed by identifying the aphorism he hates most: Everything happens for a reason. He offered a thoughtful, measured deconstruction of this old chestnut that I can sum up with a small tweak: Sometimes things happen for a reason. Most times you're just standing where the piano lands.

Note: Many of these undoubtedly have sources, and a more responsible editor would have tracked them down. Unfortunately, my daughter is graduating high school and leaving for college soon, so I am currently operating at the outer limits of my emotional bandwidth. Chasing citations at this moment would almost certainly result in my death, and while that would make for a memorable footnote, it seems an unnecessarily high price to pay. Please accept my apologies and enjoy the fortune cookies.

Soul Maintenance

• First and foremost, don’t be a dick.

• Education is the ability to listen to almost anything without losing your temper or your self-confidence.

• Your perspective is your reality.

• Only the half-mad are wholly alive.

• If you think someone is normal, it’s because you don’t know them well enough.

• When someone shows you who they are, believe them.

• Be kind, for everyone you know is privately fighting a mighty battle.

• Silence is often the best answer.

• Forgiveness is the scent the violet sheds on the boot that crushed it.

• Be the person your dog thinks you are.

• You can change the world, but you can’t change your family.

The Hard Way

• If you do what you’ve always done, you’ll get what you’ve always got.

• Comfort is the enemy of growth.

• Good judgment comes from experience, and a lot of that comes from bad judgment.

• You are taught the lesson over and over until you become the teacher.

• If you have to eat a toad, do it first thing in the morning.

• It’s easier to ask for forgiveness than permission.

• Read it before you sign it.

• Know when to measure twice, cut once, or fail fast and fail forward.

• Always be two questions deep.

• Never underestimate the power of a good letter.

• Flexibility is the best ability.

Love, Friendship, and Other Poorly Supervised Activities

• If she’s willing to try a raw oyster with you on the first date, then she’ll probably be open to trying other things.

• The love we give is not lost, though we forget it.

• It is not a lack of love, but a lack of friendship, that makes unhappy marriages.

• A woman needs a man like a fish needs a bicycle.

• If someone is making an effort to ignore you, then he is not ignoring you.

• Say yes more often (unless it’s to your uncle).

Gravity Remains Undefeated

• Forgiveness means giving up all hope for a better past.

• It’s easier to fool people than to convince them that they have been fooled.

• They muddy the water to make it seem deep.

• He who has a why to live can bear almost any how.

• Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect.

• In matters of art, music, politics, and literature, the majority is always in the wrong.

• Never let the truth get in the way of a good story.

• Praise the God of all, drink the wine, and let the world be the world.

Stop Standing Around

• Don’t admire your problems; focus on solutions.

• Wherever you go, there you are.

• Fun ain’t always easy.

• It’s not the end of the world.

• Nothing is truly lost until your mom or wife can’t find it.

• When you call a cat to come, you are an optimist.

Broken Fortune Cookies

• What if we pronounced Aristotle like Chipotle?

• There’s more than one way to bury a dead horse.

• That train has sailed.

• Shit or get out of the kitchen.

• This may come back to haunt you in your ass.

• That’s a tough nut to swallow.

• We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.

• If a bear farts in the forest, do we smell it? And if we smelt it, odd are we dealt it.

• Tough titty, said the kitty, when the milk went dry.

• Even the tallest giraffe can stub its toe.

• You can lead a horse to water, but you’re going to get shit on your shoes.

• Don’t tell your grandmother how to suck eggs.

• Not everyone who shits on you is your enemy; sometimes it’s fertilizer.

• When in doubt, look intelligent.

When I share this with my kids, I’ll preface it with the greatest aphorism ever written, the one that rules all the others—truly the first and only commandment one really needs—and not surprisingly, it comes from Mark Twain: “The human race has one really effective weapon, and that is laughter.” Brandish the laughter, my children, and swing that weapon with all of your might.

If you’re of the mind and can add to this list of collective wisdom, please do:

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“God kept me alive after I ate my weight in gas station sushi.”

“Allah protected me from a blind date with a weird kink where he wanted me to sit on balloons until they pop.”

“My guardian angel saved me when the manure truck I was tailgating hit the brakes.”

“The Holy Spirit told me not to take that adjustable-rate mortgage in 2007.”

I love the creative ways people justify their faith. Rarely do these methods convince me of anything spiritual, unless we count narcissism as a religion. The idea that an all-powerful God is micromanaging our day-to-day affairs while the world burns strikes me as absurd.

I have an easier time believing that God reacts to self-righteousness.

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In the late ‘90s, during my swinging bachelor days, I briefly dated a girl whose mother remains the best evidence for God that I’ve ever come across. Her mother was a devout Catholic, and she committed to two practices each week without fail: she attended Mass every Sunday, and she played the same lottery numbers every Wednesday and Friday. I don’t remember what the numbers were, but the girl I was dating could recite them by heart.

Her brother could also recite them by heart. I only met her brother a couple times, and I was surprised. He was clearly gay. After meeting him, this exchange happened between me and the girl I was dating:

“Your mom is a pretty relaxed Catholic.”

“Really?”

“Yeah, I mean I’ve never seen so many crucifixes or angel figurines in my life, and still, she’s pretty cool about your brother.”

“What do you mean?”

“You know, there’s not a lot of support for his community coming out of Vatican City.”

“His community?”

“Your brother is gay, right?”

“What?! No!”

“Really? That’s surprising.”

“Why would you say that?”

“He just seems gay.”

“I hope he’s not. It’ll kill our mother.”

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Okay, her brother absolutely was gay, and no, it did not kill their mother. Instead, it delivered a fate far worse than death. Their mother prayed to win the lottery on the regular. She truly believed that God wanted her numbers to hit so that she could do the Lord’s work with the winnings. In her mind, it wasn’t if her numbers would hit, it was simply a matter of when her numbers would hit, and she was trusting God with that timing.

Well, her son did come out. He stepped out of the closet and into his authentic identity with courage, conviction, and more faith than his mother ever had. And she responded with all the warmth of a witch’s tit. She cried, she yelled, she gnashed her teeth. She worked herself up into such a dither, and she became so despondent that she completely forgot to buy her Saturday lottery ticket.

And her numbers hit.

She was out twenty-three million dollars. God answered her prayers—and with timing that can only be described as divine. I didn’t date her daughter too much longer after that. I mean, there was no money in it.

Kidding.

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I am grateful for this experience. I can’t see any evidence for the divine in a winning lottery ticket. But a mother mistaking judgment for love? Absolutely Biblical.

To be fair, I am hardly an innocent. Self-righteousness is a trap I’ve fallen into more times than I care to admit. It’s fun. It’s easy. There’s something deeply comforting in believing that I’m special, that I’ve figured something out everyone else missed, that I can see clearly while everyone around me stumbles in the dark, that I know what God knows.

But every time I’ve convinced myself I was standing above other people, life has reminded me—usually violently and with a healthy dose of dark humor—that I’m standing among them. As we all are.

Now (and I say this cautiously) I possess just one holier-than-thou point of view, and it is this: before you saddle up your high horse, remember that nothing triggers the Lord’s ironic sense of humor like self-righteousness.

Request: Cosmic irony is my favorite. If you have any examples from your own life—or that guy at the office you hate—I’d love to hear them…

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Grant is a writer and a poet. I know a lot of scribblers, and he is easily the most competent wordsmith I’ve ever met. His writing stirs. It splits time in half and lets you peek behind the veil that separates this world from the next, and you come away from it realizing that it’s all an illusion. There is no separation. You are not you. I am not me. We are us.

Here’s a quick sample from his long poem, Untended Garden:

And everything here
is merely the same
simple star ash rearranged.

Could it be that all is present,
that everywhere is contained
in where we are?

In addition to his masterful poetry, Grant also knows his way around a good old-fashioned dick joke. Makes sense. Like poetry, a joke has to be structured, timed, lean. They both drive toward surprise and revelation, and they luxuriate in wordplay. Like this classic:

What did the elephant say to the naked man? 
“How do you breathe through that thing?”

As I typed up that joke, I could hear Grant’s chuckle echoing in my head. He’s among my favorite people to make laugh, to tease, to banter, to verbally spar. He gives as good as he gets. We used to sit side by side in rambling meetings about curriculum and assessment and write lists with titles like The Last Thing You Want to Hear in This Meeting. And we’d pass the list back and forth like snickering teenagers enduring a World History lecture from the knucklehead who got into teaching so he could coach golf.

One year, at a Christmas party, I made a comment about Grant’s age. I like to take the ancient piss out of him at every possible opportunity. I said, “You know, Grant, you’re the same age as my mom.” Without missing a beat, he said, “Who do you think your daddy is?” And we laughed before pivoting to talking about the nature of God or the dream logic of David Lynch. That’s how we do. We slip in and out of the sacred and the profane with relative ease.

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All this to say, Grant was the perfect person to be talking to when I saw a particularly poignant bumper sticker. I forget what Grant was talking about at the time, probably something thoughtful and elegant, so I interrupted him—

“I wish you were here to see what I’m seeing.”

“What’s that?”

“A bumper sticker, except it’s not on the bumper. It’s on the rear window, probably because it’s way too big for the bumper. In big bold baby blue letters, it says: I EAT ASS.”

At this point, we both started laughing for a good thirty or forty seconds. What follows is a summary of the rigorous intellectual inquiry that emerged from this encounter, an exploration of the artistic, moral, and literary merit of such self-expression.

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I couldn’t see the driver, so the gender of the I EAT ASS sticker owner was unclear, but the mental gymnastics required to conclude that it was a woman were the kind usually reserved for Flat Earthers. So, yeah, it was probably a man. The baby blue color also suggested as much. And a quick Google search for ‘I EAT ASS sticker’ only strengthened the theory, yielding multiple news stories involving the notorious Florida Man.

While the driver wasn’t visible, the make and model of the car was. An early 2020s Toyota Corolla Hybrid. You have to admire the man’s intrinsic sense of irony. To balance the practicality and sensibility of such a vehicle with just three publicly indecent syllables—that’s a master at work.

The contrast brought forth a lot of questions specific to his process. I mean, this guy saw this sticker and thought, Yeah, this is an accurate representation of who I am. And then he exchanged legal tender for this sticker. He did work, received money, and then gave that money to a sticker manufacturer who, in turn, gave him a repugnant decal. And then the guy carved time out of his day to clean his rear window and prep the surface, position the decal—it was dead center and as level as a pool table—and carefully affix it to the glass, smoothing out the bubbles for a clean transfer. The obvious precision of the sticker’s installation suggests a high-wire level of commitment. There’s no way this guy second-guessed his I EAT ASS ethos.

You also have to respect his inclusive nature. I suppose one could assume that he’s using the word “ass” as a misogynistic sort of synecdoche. Ass = woman. But I can’t imagine a misogynist leaving that up to chance or interpretation. He’s definitely an equal-opportunity eater of all things ass.

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Also, it’s important to note that there was no modifier of ass. He doesn’t eat hot ass. Or fat ass. Or even nice ass. Just ass. All shapes, sizes, colors, ages. He’s clearly a man of the people.

As a man of the people, he must also participate in the mundane humdrum of everyday life. It’s entertaining to daydream about this guy pulling into his mom’s driveway for an afternoon visit. Or navigating the parking lot just before, or just after, Sunday service. Or ordering at a Chick-fil-A drive-thru where the employees are required to end each exchange with “My pleasure.”

The use of the present tense is also compelling. He didn’t eat ass yesterday. He doesn’t plan to eat ass tomorrow or someday in the near or distant future. He eats ass in the spirit of René Descartes: Culo vescor, ergo sum. I EAT ASS, THEREFORE I AM.

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And then there’s the confidence, the sure-footedness of such a statement. I wrote for a good long while—many years actually, thousands of pages—before I had the courage to define myself as a writer. I shudder to think how many asses were eaten before this guy summoned the audacity to make it his own personal brand.

Eventually, Grant and I moved on from our exploration of the ASS EATER’s intentions and artistic point of view. But after our conversation, I returned to Grant’s poem:

And everything here
is merely the same
simple star ash rearranged.

Could it be that all is present,
that everywhere is contained
in where we are?

Maybe everything here really is just the same simple star ash rearranged. Poet. Philosopher. Florida Man. Ass eater. Same atoms. Same longing to be seen.

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

Send a Postcard!

All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

My mom plays fast and loose with words. Case in point: the other day, she tried to get my attention and said, “Johnny, I mean, Dave, um, Jack, Sammers, uh…Norman! I swear, I’m losing my mind.”

Let’s break this down.

Johnny is her brother, my uncle. She most often confuses me with him. He’s handsome, funny, charming. Still, not me. But enough points of comparison exist to warrant the occasional mixup.

Dave is my dad, but we mostly call him Pappo (technically, he’s my stepdad, but he showed up and did the dad work, so we’re going with dad). Still, not me.

Jack is my mom’s first husband (technically, he is my dad, but he didn’t show up to do the dad work, so we’re going with Jack). Their divorce lasted decades (not a typo). He does look a lot like me. Still, not me.

Sammers is my son, her grandbaby. Anyone would be flattered to be confused with his good looks and bright energy. Still, a boy. And also, still, not me.

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So in her search for my name, the trajectory was this: brother, husband, ex-husband, grandson, and finally—bingo!—son. Reminds me of that Robin Williams punch line: “Paging Dr Freud…”

And it’s not just humans that she mixes up. She also confuses artificial intelligence. She recently had this exchange with Siri.

Mom: Alexa?

Siri: …

Mom: Alexa, how do I get to Sam’s basketball practice?

Siri: …

Mom: Wait, not Alexa… Sorry, Serena, Syria, Sierra, Siri! Siri!

Siri: …

Mom: Hey, Siri!

Siri: Hmm?

Mom: Can you get me to Sam’s basketball practice?

Siri: Who is Sam?

Mom: My grandson.

Siri: “Sam, my grandson” is not in your contacts.

Mom: We call him Sammers.

Siri: Calling Sammers…

*iPhone begins to dial…*

Mom: Shit!

Siri: I don’t have an answer for that.

Mom: Alexa, stop calling Sammers. Alexa!

Siri: …

My fifteen-year-old daughter heard this and said it, “Made her laugh her balls off.” She’s her grandmother’s daughter.

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While language is tricky on my mom, so are directions. If you ask her what the greatest invention is in the history of human kind, don’t count on her to lobby for the wheel or the printing press or penicillin or the light bulb. For her, hands down, it’s any app that helps her navigate freeways and city streets. She once assumed the driving duties on a trip from southern California to Arizona so that my dad could sleep. He woke up and noticed palm trees, quickly deducing that she couldn’t possibly have driven all the way to Florida. Instead of taking the 10 east, she went west and drove to the bosom of the Pacific.

Let’s pump the brakes. I want to be clear. These mishaps are in no way a commentary on my mom’s intelligence. She’s exceptionally bright. In high school, when I was lost while studying T.S. Eliot’s The Wasteland, she helped me break it down, easily articulating and interpreting the figurative connotations. Intelligences vary. Hers is specific to emotion and fun and nourishment of the soul.

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She once saw a commercial of a family on a river rafting trip. She called the number on screen:

Mom: Hi, I want to know how much the river rafting costs?

Operator: Uh, the river rafting?

Mom: Yeah, it looks like so much fun.

Operator: I’m sorry, I think you might have the wrong number.

Mom: Really, I double-checked it. We’re so excited to go on this river rafting trip.

Operator: Um, this is the number to order Rogaine. We have a commercial where Rogaine patients are river rafting…

Mom: Well, can you put me in touch with them? The river rafting trip seems like such a blast.

Operator: …

Say what you will, but I prefer the person who concerns herself with good times first and hair loss second.

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And that optimism takes other forms, too. When I first started screenwriting, a producer optioned my script and submitted it to John Cusack’s company (my mom called him John Coo-sack). Essentially, that means my script was mailed in and stacked on a desk among hundreds, maybe thousands of scripts from eager young writers. Still, when I showed up to my mom’s work one day, one of her coworkers said, “Oh, my god! Congratulations! Your mom tells me you and John Cusack have been nominated for an Academy Award!” There’s a fine line, shaped like a silly straw, between delusions of grandeur and a loving, supportive mother.

My mom’s most recent slip occurred at the drive-thru of an In-N-Out Burger. For those of you who don’t know, In-N-Out is in the conversation for the greatest hamburger on earth (Anthony Bourdain said as much) and if you factor in price, it’s a hands-down winner. The company is Christian, but more subtle with their convictions than, say, a Chic-fil-A or a Hobby Lobby. They sneak biblical citations on the bottom underside of their cups and on their burger wrappers. I only mention this to underscore that they’re a more conservative organization. Their employees are friendly and clean-cut. If you squint your eyes, you feel like you’re in a 1950s soda shop.

And they have a secret menu, ways to modify your order. Ask for a cheeseburger “animal style” and you get a mustard-cooked patty, extra sauce, grilled onions, and pickles. Any In-N-Out patron who knows what she’s doing orders “animal style.”

Enter my mom. A secret menu with language-specific items and her disposition is a recipe for, well, an entirely different secret menu.

In-N-Out Drive-thru Operator: Welcome to In-N-Out! How can I help you today?

Mom: Hi, I’d like a double-double, fries, and a chocolate shake.

In-N-Out Drive-thru Operator: Would you like onions on that double-double?

Mom: Yes, please. In fact, I’d like it doggy style.

In-N-Out Drive-thru Operator: …

Mom: Hello… Did you hear me? I’d like that double-double doggy style.

In-N-Out Drive-thru Operator: I’m sorry, did you mean animal style?

Mom: Isn’t that what I said?

In-N-Out Drive-thru Operator: Um… no…

Mom: What did I say?

In-N-Out Drive-thru Operator: You said… um… you said you wanted it doggy style.

Mom: Oh, well… whatever it’s called.

When my mom pulled forward to the drive-thru window, a dozen clean-cut, red-faced teenagers stared back at her, trying and failing to keep from smiling, their hormones bouncing back and forth off the pristine white tiles.

I’ve made a pretty wonderful life for myself, and a lot of it has come by way of how adept I am with writing, with language and words. Makes sense. Being raised by my mom provided a linguistic gymnasium that T.S. Eliot would have difficulty imagining.

Mark Twain wrote in a letter that “The difference between the almost right word and the right word is really a large matter—'tis the difference between the lightning-bug and the lightning.” Of course Twain is right. I would, however, add that the difference between the right word and right wrong word is the difference between lightning and laughing your balls off.

Thanks for reading! If you want another story that features my mom, consider her grim directions in Bunny Rabbits, Kindergarteners, Epiphanies & Other Depressing Things. And if you want to get a sense for how my mom made perpetrated a different sort of mix-up on our family vacation, read Bloody Towels. Or for a little more restaurant humor: Claw and Disorder. You might also peruse how I’m raising my children with an eye on adventure and psychological trauma in Manslaughter, Santa Claus, and a Hatchet. Once you’ve gotten through all of those, maybe just check out the All Kinds of Funny Archive.

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Projectiles were lobbed haphazardly. Teeth were gnashed. The dogs of war had been slipped from their chains and given free rein to commit any number of crimes: war crimes, crimes against humanity, crimes of passion, and too many property crimes to count.

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The first affront to peace and decency came by way of a stubby-legged infantrywoman who stood about two feet high, a highly decorated grunt, evidenced by the pair of berets that kept her wispy peach fuzz fixed to the top of her dome. She perched in a wooden high chair, eyes tracing the landscape as she gnawed on a fat carrot, a makeshift proxy for a Cuban-rolled Montecristo, easing the grueling pain of her ravaged baby teeth-cut gums. Her scars were earned, and so was her right to quiet the war inside her.

She possessed the affected demeanor of a soldier who had seen too much in her brief five months in the shit. Her squishy cheeks played counterpoint to her reckless, churlish, feral spirit. Her commanding officer sat just feet away, and it was clear that the superior rank was merely ornamental. There was no controlling this pint-sized wildcard. With no more use for the carrot, she flung it overhead into a crowd of civilians. It thumped an innocent upside his head, and she didn’t even clock the casualty. She was a crayon eater who loved the smell of breast milk in the morning.

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Further down the front, a shellshocked maternal commander struggled to keep her two toddling subordinates in line. The woman was battle-hardened but still vulnerable, which was corroborated by her voluminous belly—she had another pup incoming, an additional wide-eyed, green-as-they-come recruit to initiate into the line of fire. She had the weight of the world on her shoulders and in her womb.

Her rank-and-file troops had pushed her to the brink. They were breaking ranks, coming apart at the seams, unraveling under fire. Apparently, they had run through all their quarters, and with nothing left in the tank, they would have to simply sit down and eat. Oh, the horror! The horror of compliance, of sitting still, of nourishment and sustenance, imposed by the cold, callous will of the maternal top brass.

My wife and I watched in silence, each of us repeating a silent prayer, both for the mother’s patience and her troops’ safety. It was clear in the vacant expression of the young mother’s eyes that she was contemplating the benefits of friendly fire. Sure, she might spend some time in the brig, but the R&R would likely justify the court-martial.

The most heartening moment on the front came by way of a symmetrical family unit: a maternal CO, a paternal XO, and two boots on the ground—one barefoot with painted toes, the other a little older and wearing light-up Velcro. Most impressive was the orderliness and discipline of the two junior enlisted, a precision clearly subsidized by the suffering of the ranking officers.

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The mother’s cool demeanor was contrasted by her clothes and hair. Her cardigan twisted up under one armpit. Her blouse displayed any number of foreign substances, many of them bodily fluids. Her jeans had seen neither an iron nor a dryer in a good long while, if ever. The only comb her hair had seen in many days was what she could fashion from her own un-manicured fingers. It was clear she held no regard for civilian expectations of presentation and propriety.

Her paternal XO maintained similar standards, though his contribution was largely symbolic. Where she could still muster a warm smile, he could barely stay conscious—present in body, but otherwise on indefinite leave. SOP for too many young fathers. Still, their underlings were well-behaved, even quiet.

My wife and I watched all of this melee as we tipped back beers and reflected on our twenty-two years of marriage. Many of those years are framed precisely by the scenes described above. We felt compelled to grab each of the parents, pull them into an empathetic embrace, and demand that they lean in and enjoy the chaos. What feels like trauma—early onset PTSD, even—will soon enough give way to an overwhelming wave of nostalgia.

I once read a book—one by Sebastian Junger, I believe—that many retired soldiers yearn for the frontline. They want to go back to that place where life is lived at full tilt. I’m sure this sounds crazy to the ones neck-deep in fear and uncertainty. But once you’ve got the scars, it does make a certain wistful sense.

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Similarly I’ve heard there’s no love like that between soldiers who’ve seen combat. I’ve never been to war, but I’ve raised a couple kids, shoulder to shoulder with my wife. One of those kids is heading off to college soon. We can already feel the quiet looming on the horizon. As we raised a glass to honor our twenty-two years, those scars on our hearts started to ache—the kind of pain you love to feel because it reminds you of all the battles fought, won, and celebrated.

Happiest of anniversaries to my beautiful wife.

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

Ray gave me carte blanche in terms of topics. I typically write nonfiction here on Substack, but Ray’s audience is generally interested in fiction writing, so I aimed in that direction. Specifically, I tried to answer the question most writers get asked—how do you come up with ideas? My response? You gotta start building a spaceship. I’ve pasted the article in its entirety below.

But first, if you’re interested in learning about storytelling or writing, Ray’s the best there is. You can find Ray’s Substack here, and you can see his face here:

Building a Better Spaceship

Genres are funhouse mirrors. I read horror for the scares, yes, but also because that fear is eerily familiar. I enjoy a good meet-cute in a romantic comedy, but what I really love is the characters’ vulnerability, which is terrifying and inspiring (maybe I’ll dangle my heart over the void like that?). Genre works because it distorts and magnifies what we all feel—hope, shame, longing, dread. And for us storytellers, that’s the shortcut—emotion. To wit:

Alienation → Science Fiction
Fear → Horror
Grief → Haunted House
Vulnerability → Romantic Comedy
Dread → Thriller
Anger → Revenge
Resilience → Western
Epiphany → Coming-of-Age

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When my life is spiraling out of control, I immediately think of Aristotle and fatal flaws. And then I look back at my decisions, those moments when apathy overshadowed my heart, insecurity hobbled my conviction, or selfishness impeded my compassion, and I pivot. At least I try to. I’d much rather own up to my doe-eyed naivete in a coming-of-age story than tragically kill my father, bang my mother, and live the rest of my life in literal and/or spiritual blindness. In this way, knowing the patterns and expectations of genre have real-world utility.

In the middle of junior high, I transferred schools, this on the heels of my parents’ divorce, which should have had its own reality show on Animal Planet. On top of our family carnival, I was stocky, shy to the point of mute, and I loved reading, all of which made me an easy target for anyone in my school district. I felt so out of place, I was certain I was a different species.

In fact, “different species” was the language I used when journaling about this time in my life. A few quick word associations—different… misunderstood… alien…—and my junior high experiences snapped into focus as science fiction. With the genre table set, I cozied up to my junior high self and started asking questions:

“Why do you feel like an alien?”
“I don’t have any friends.”
“Why do you think that is?”
“I’m different, I guess.”
“What are you doing about it?”
“I’m gathering parts to build a spaceship.”
“Where will you go?”
“Maybe… some place where people don’t hate me.”

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And there we go, I have a story that basically wrote itself. I’ve got a character who’s easy to care about—feeling misunderstood is pretty universal. The character has a goal—to build a spaceship. The character has a need—to love himself and to be loved. And there are any number of obstacles I can put in his path—bullies, skeptical adults, the outcast girl who crushes on our hero (even though he’s too insecure to realize it).

Puberty as horror? The jump from getting pubic hair to becoming a werewolf is a short (and curly) one. The jump from acne to zombies is even shorter. Puberty wasn’t any easier on me than it was on anyone else, and the horror material runs deep, as evidenced by menarche in Carrie, chest hair in Teen Wolf, and sexual awakening in It Follows.

There’s also my bouts with depression, those stretches where I feel broken, and a cynical film hangs over everything. Cold and corrupt, all these moments ache and burn for a hardboiled crime treatment. The crime? Not sure yet, but I know from my depression dance card that it feels like somebody wants me dead, and that’s a pretty great place to start. As far as the usual suspects go, there’s no shortage of personalities I can draw on to populate a police lineup: the junior high bully who smashed my teeth into the spigot of the water fountain; every highway patrolman I’ve ever met; or my junkie aunt who drugged me in the mall and tipped a sales clerk to watch me while she shopped. It takes little creative energy to imagine rounding these turds up in the third act, laying out all their felonies and misdemeanors, one-upping them with wit, cunning, and a world-weary soliloquy as I pin the ultimate crime on my deadbeat dad who, I must confess, fleshes out a mob boss pretty nicely.

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In marriage, I’ve been fortunate (and industrious—my wife and I put in the work) so there’s not a lot of conflict to draw on. Before I was married, though, I spent a brief time on the dating scene. Few things prepare someone to write Absurdism like dating. Roughly 1 in 100 people are psychopaths. I imagine that percentage greatly increases if we’re talking about single people. The pursuit of romance and companionship is fertile ground for nonsensical dialogue, circular plotlines, and existential angst galore. Any person who has swiped left, right, or otherwise knows what it’s like to Wait for Godot and can put their spin on that Absurdist yarn. Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind, Seinfeld, The Lobster, Portnoy’s Complaint—all have heartbeats, irregular though they may be.

Speaking of Absurdism, raising my kids has offered infinite storytelling opportunities, particularly in the Western genre. Every parent knows that kids aren’t really human beings—they’re livestock that must be herded, fed, and protected against all manner of wildness and savagery. And laws? Good luck enforcing laws against a willful toddler. I’m pretty sure High Noon was written by a father who knew nap time was imminent.

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Just before I became a father, I attended labor and delivery classes with my wife. The entire experience fascinated me, and my wife’s body became even more epic in my mind than it already was. It became epic in terms of genre—tall tale, Old Testament-epic. I wrote a story about a woman whose pregnant belly grew to the size of a small mountain, and when her water broke, it flooded and drowned the entire village, which was populated by cruel, judgmental hypocrites. It was probably sacrilegious to write my own Book of the Bible, but you can’t perform miracles without offending the money changers.

Of course, these examples are filtered through my lens. Your lens is probably—hopefully—different. And that’s good. One person’s belly laugh is another’s slasher-induced scream of mortal terror. Leverage genre. Build a spaceship. Arm yourself for the zombie apocalypse. Or drift off in a hot air balloon and give your younger self the meet-cute you deserve.

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

During film school, I interned in the Story Department at Columbia Pictures, which meant that I had access to every script floating around Hollywood. The rumor on the lot was that Will Ferrell and John C. Reilly were holed up at The Mondrian, knocking back beers, playing video games, and—ever so occasionally—drafting the script for Stepbrothers. Again, just a rumor, but not all that difficult to imagine.

I read all of the drafts—there were several. I laughed out loud. A lot. Probably more than when watching the actual movie. I do recall the moment in one of the drafts when they become best friends. It’s a series of quick exchanges in which they discover their common ground and commit to best friendship. What follows are some of my criteria for just such an opportunity.

Cheerleaders

You and I are driving down the street. We hit a red light. We notice a person on the sidewalk. Could be a man. Could be a woman. Doesn’t matter. This person is obese. Super fat. Like, carrying the sort of bulk you see primarily on reality show candidates. And this person is wearing shorts, a T-shirt, running shoes, and earbuds. The arms are pumping, the legs are shuffling, the head is bopping to the music—this person is giving as much effort as possible. It ain’t quick, it ain’t aggressive, it ain’t glamorous.

But if you look at this person and think or—better yet—say, “Fuck yeah. Get it!” Then you are my brother, you are my sister. This is the energy I want in a friend. It’s not enough to not be a bully. I want to keep company with people who root for underdogs, the ones who see anyone living a full-throated life and feel inspired rather than threatened. We need more cheerleaders.

Fun Seekers

My wife sent me a screenshot of a text message she received from a friend of a friend. The sender was asking if we wanted an 85-pound Sulcata tortoise. My wife followed up the screenshot with a response: “I kinda do want an 85-pound Sulcata tortoise.”

“Me, too,” I said. And so we got an 85-pound Sulcata tortoise who we named Sir Scooter Waddlebottoms. Scooter was an unmitigated disaster for our home, but a joyful disaster, one we would never have enjoyed had it not been for our commitment to fun. Which is how my wife and I make major decisions. Jobs, family, kids, life pivots of any kind—does it sound like it will be fun? If so, then we’re all in, practicality, personal safety, and harmonious living be damned.

To be clear, my wife and I aren’t just each other’s yes men. We are, however, each other’s custodians of fun. You get one wild and precious life. Why not know what that wild and precious life is like in the company of the largest mainland species of African tortoise?

Crossing Guards

It’s difficult to think of a more earnest occupation than protecting kids from vehicular manslaughter. If there is a heaven, crossing guards should get an express lane. Somewhat related, I bet thirty pieces of silver that the crossing guard for the Paradise Express Lane is Mr. Rogers.

High Stakes Intimacy

I love dialogue. Specifically, I love dialogue that exists in a context similar to that of a tightrope walker working without a net. I don’t go to the bank all that often anymore, but when I did, I loved opening the conversation like this:

Teller: Good morning, what can we do for you today?
Norm: Before I make this deposit, you can tell me how many times this bank has been robbed. 

In my experience, there were two types of bank tellers. One was definitely coached by HR and would try to change the conversation immediately. The other—my favorite—would meet the moment headfirst.

Teller: You’d be surprised. 
Norm: Yeah?    
Teller: Oh yeah. 
Norm: Tell me everything.  

And then I would get stories about bank robbers who were charming or clumsy or prolific. And I would get details about the tellers who talked back or wet their pants or were in on the mother-grabbin’ robbery.

This doesn’t have to be about crime, though. I love it when a person opens their arms to conversations that have nothing to do with the weather or traffic or their plans to eat stewed prunes on the cruise with their aunt Tess. The people who want to belly up to conversations about their odd obsessions, the STD they contracted in Juarez, the disdain they’re harboring for aunt Tess after she got drunk on the cruise and projectile vomited stewed prunes into the kiddy pool—these are my people. Let the vulnerability flow.

The Truly Powerful

I love people who are wrong, admit they’re wrong, and apologize for being wrong. Let me break that down. I love people who are wrong, which is to say, I love people. If you’re consistently right—or, worse, always right—it’s probably because you’re not taking any risks, you’re not learning, you’re not living, you’re not really a person. At least, you’re not a person worth knowing.

Admitting you’re wrong has nothing to do with imperfection and everything to do with growth. It’s a blessing to be wrong. It’s a spiritual windfall to concede your humanity. In fact, I would argue that humanity itself is defined by the unreasonable commitment to keep going despite a relentless stream of wrongness, of dip-shittery, of choosing the wrong lottery numbers again and again and again until you admit that somebody is going to win the lottery—just not you—and your money would be better spent on a Sulcata tortoise.

Polarity of Taste

I love the Philistine. I love the snob. I love when you get both in the same person. I want to eat bacon-wrapped hotdogs from a street vendor while discussing the deep focus cinematographic implications of Citizen Kane. I want to stroll through the Louvre while connecting the aesthetics of the Renaissance to The Evil Dead trilogy.

I want to wander through Costco, gnawing a rotisserie drumstick I haven’t yet paid for while debating Hume’s take on free will. I want to belly up to a dive bar that only serves beer, whiskey, pretzels, and Tums by the tablet while analyzing the nature of musical genius. I want to compare The Three Stooges to Plato, Aristotle, and Socrates. The best company pivots from chic to shenanigans and only looks down their noses to check their notes.

My Kinda People

The curious. The self-deprecators. The shameless hobbyists. The playful. The ones who always apologize for their shortcomings but never for their interests, passions, and commitments to a fun and full life. The children at heart. The ones who are only certain about their uncertainty. The ones who recognize an opportunity for adventure and lean in. And especially the ones who start a conversation like this: “Have you heard the one about…”

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

Ps and Qs

Hate crimes are acceptable for any person who treats service workers like servants. If you don’t make it a point to look a busboy in the eyes and say thank you when he refills your water or clears your plate of gnawed chicken bones, you’re probably a turd. And if you’re a turd, you have no business being in any restaurant. Go lie in the yard with the rest of the turds and be quick about it.

Red Flags

If you hoist flags—any flags—you’re probably a boring person, and it’s best to avoid conversations with you. The only acceptable flag is one that reads, All flags are dumb (including this one).

Boners for Bullies

If you saw a powerful man—say, the most powerful man on the planet—shush a woman doing her job and call her a piggy, and you thought, “She was asking for it,” then you are the piggy. May somebody shove a spit up your ass, roast you over an open flame, and gouge you for eggs and gasoline.

Untasty

If you watched The Big Lebowski, Being John Malkovich, or Boogie Nights and said “I don’t get it,” then there are hard limits to how seriously I can take you as a human being. Your taste, your capacity for joy, your appreciation for irony, your inability to understand that bruised and broken hearts are healed with humor—it’s all suspect. You should work on yourself. And quickly.

Wave Disabilities

There are two types of people. Both types might cut me off in traffic. They might nearly sideswipe me on the freeway. They might make us miss a green light because they’re distracted by something wholly insignificant. The decent of the two will offer an apologetic wave, a humble gesture that says, Please forgive me, I meant no harm. To this person, I wish nothing but winning lottery tickets. The other type who can’t be bothered to wave—may that person win the lottery and die of a heart attack from the surprise. There is no room for nuance here. You’re either a good person and you wave, or you’re a miserable bastard whose head is merely decorative.

Cellular Exhibitionists

I think all decent people can agree—the electric chair is for anyone who talks on speakerphone in public. Nobody wants to hear about your hemorrhoid diagnosis at full volume.

Savages

I was at a tap house in college. The bar had over 200 beers on draft. This guy bellied up to the bar and said, “Holy shit! Over 200 beers! Give me a… Coors Light!” Are. You. Fucking. Serious?! This is the same person who travels to Rome and seeks out a McDonald’s. We need to flush these people from the gene pool.

The Perpetually Offended

A preference for self-righteousness over laughter is an unforgivable sin. As far as virtues go, humor beats the shit out of piety. If you’d rather look down your nose than laugh, then go ahead and shove that dirty look up your sanctimonious ass.

Ye Apologists (Et al.)

I can separate the art from the artist. But in my heart, I believe people who justify listening to Kanye West because they think his music is good should suck a fat one. Kanye West does not make good music. You’ve confused Kanye West with Michael Jackson. So Beat it, mother fucker. Related—and I’ve covered this topic, but it bears repeating—Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the USA” is a musical abortion, and there’s no excuse for playing it. Ever. Just listen to the fireworks in silence, for fuck’s sake. No need to desecrate the moment with cotton candy patriotism.

Sycophants, Toadies, and Boot Lickers

Give me the punk rockers, the hip-hoppers, the iconoclasts, and anyone who keeps the sacred cows in their crosshairs. If you like the taste of boot heels, if the sound of corporate and government titles arouse you, if you like the feeling of being told what and how to think, then move along… right along with the rest of the lemmings… straight off that cliff.

Concessions

These dealbreakers are specific to my experience in this life. I understand that many of my positions are likely dealbreakers for other people. Fair enough. The door swings both ways. To this point, “faithful” teenagers who go to school with my son regularly promise him that he’s going to hell because he doesn’t go to their church. His go-to reply: Hell is where they play all the good music. Hard to argue with that. It is, after all, a dealbreaker.

I’d love to hear what’s a dealbreaker for other people. As noted earlier, the above criteria are working. They can and will change. Sharing your dealbreakers may help me—and others—live a healthier life. So post ‘em if you got ‘em.

Leave a comment

If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

Send a Postcard!

All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

I’ve been thinking about this sentence a lot. I used to think it was spot-on. It required precious little imagination to look at most people going about their wretchedly mundane routines and see that they would rather trade their spreadsheets for a wood shop or their sales draw for watercolors and an easel. I no longer think it’s entirely accurate. It needs a revision to remain in step with our current human condition.

Here’s how I’d update it: The mass of men lead lives of confused desperation. To put a finer point on it, most of us have a wound—a bottomless hole—and we don’t know where it came from or what to fill it with.

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If you follow the news, you probably saw this confused desperation play out this week. I generally avoid writing about the news. Evergreen over ephemeral. This one is no different. But full transparency, the subject matter was inspired by Kristi Noem or, more specifically, Kristi Noem’s husband.

If you make it a point to spare yourself of the deluge of negativity, cynicism, and abject terror delivered by way of most news outlets, let me catch you as quickly as possible for our purposes here. Bryon Noem, now the most famous cuckold since Will Smith, was exposed as a participant in an online bimbofication fetish community.

Not familiar with the bimbofication fetish? Neither was I. Apparently, Bryon likes to dress up in pink hot pants while wearing prosthetic boobs. But not just, ya know, any old pair of prosthetic boobs. Massively huge, ridiculously large prosthetic boobs—the kind Jessica Rabbit would look at and think, That’s a little much.

Using the pseudonym Jason Jackson, the First Gentleman of South Dakota engaged webcam models and fetish performers as a submissive, seeking affirmation to the tune of $25,000, all in.

It’s weird, sure. But I’m all about weird. As long as it’s good weird. I have no problem with good weird. Consenting adults. Self-expression. Nobody hurt (as far as I know). So this seems like good weird.

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Before you spring to judgment, remember your scripture. I believe it was in the Book of John, somewhere around chapter 8: “Let him who is without giant prosthetic tits among you be the first to throw a stone at her.” I’m pretty sure that’s what it says. I haven’t been to Sunday School in a while. But that morality checks out. Be as weird as you wanna be, provided you don’t hurt anybody or redirect your wound at other innocent weirdoes.

Therein lies the rub, right? The Noems, as far as I can tell, are decidedly bad weird. They’ve made a career passing judgment—and crafting policy—against the very kind of weird they now find in their own home. I’ve made it a point to lean into good weird and surround myself with the good weirdoes.

It’s easy to spot a good weirdo. They’re not hiding anything. A few months ago, I took my wife and kids to see Amigo the Devil. One of his hits is a darkly comic folk song titled “I Hope Your Husband Dies.” We got in line for the venue, and I can confidently say the queue included millions upon millions of dollars in tattoos, piercings, leather, spikes, black makeup, therapy bills, and bail bonds.

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My family didn’t exactly fit in stylistically. We looked like a handful of Skittles tossed into a bowl of black licorice and motor oil. But at the same time, we felt right at home. Every person we met was kind and polite with a great sense of humor and a desire to just be. I would have trusted any one of them to babysit my kids. By comparison, I wouldn’t trust the Noems to babysit my cactus. The poor prickly thing would end up pregnant and shot in the face.

Many people would look at Amigo the Devil’s fanbase and assume all sorts of horrors. And like any large swath of the population, there’s sure to be a turd or two. After all, humans are humans. But our experiences at the few shows we’ve attended have been nothing but fun and soul-nourishing. I can’t say the same about many of the more mainstream events I’ve been to, say, pro football or baseball games, where droves of insecure dipshits, apparently drinking the first beer of their lives, have committed any number of violent felonies.

If you’ve spent time on social media in the last year or two, then you probably came across this refrain: Fuck your feelings. It’s a shorthand, seeming to suggest that practicality supersedes emotion and empathy. It reminds me of my time teaching research papers to community college students. I allowed my students to choose their own topics, and I encouraged them toward unusual subject matter. (Who needs to read another regurgitated pro-con research paper about abortion or gun control? Not this guy.) One semester, a student researched and wrote about foot fetishes.

I found this fascinating because I find feet—just about every foot I’ve ever seen—aesthetically repugnant. Certainly, anyone with a foot fetish is also a serial killer, I used to think. Then the student presented her research. One source suggested that foot fetishes began in infancy after babies were weaned from the breast, perhaps too early. Where does a baby go once it can sit up and hold its own bottle? On the floor, at mother’s feet. Suddenly, foot fetishists transformed in my mind from morally depraved toe-knuckle connoisseurs to hungry babies in need of comfort and nourishment.

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Feeling your feelings is essential. So is making it okay for other people to feel their feelings—and express those feelings in a healthy fashion. When you hinder the flow of emotion, it comes out sideways, as cockeyed as the nipples on Bryon Noem’s knockers.

Most creatives know this, I think. Creativity is one of those channels for good weird. But it takes courage. It requires openness and vulnerability. That vulnerability has come easy to me for the most part. I was blessed to have some short-sighted, hard-hearted critics in my family snap this into focus.

I got good grades when I was young, and I was always drawn to artistic hobbies. At one point, I wanted to illustrate comic books for a living. I told as much to one relative, and she said, “That’s stupid. Why would you waste all those brains on something like that?” This was her equivalent of Fuck your feelings. She made that comment with a cigarette in one hand, a bottle of pills in another, and a stack of losing lottery scratchers beside three fingers of gin. If she was the paragon of brains, I knew that I would be syncing my life to the rhythm of my heart. Good weird or go fuck yourself.

Another seminal moment happened in my first Creative Writing Workshop. If you’ve never been part of one, just know that everyone reads everyone else’s material and provides feedback, written and oral. After workshopping one of my recent stories that was particularly R-rated, one of my peers wrote me a note: I admire how bold your choices are. I could never be that honest. It stuck with me, mostly because it broke my heart. How tragic for a person to take a creative writing class and feel that he couldn’t express himself in a make-believe fashion (let alone in the real world)? It’s one of the saddest things I’ve ever heard.

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Stephen King has an essay called “Why We Crave Horror Movies.” Here’s an excerpt:

For myself, I like to see the most aggressive of them — Dawn of the Dead, for instance — as lifting a trap door in the civilized forebrain and throwing a basket of raw meat to the hungry alligators swimming around in that subterranean river beneath. Why bother? Because it keeps them from getting out, man. It keeps them down there and me up here. It was Lennon and McCartney who said that all you need is love, and I would agree with that. As long as you keep the gators fed.

Those of us who are good weird keep the gators fed. More importantly, we don’t beat our chests—prosthetic or otherwise—when other people keep their gators fed.

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

Touché.

This week is the last week that my little girl will be a little girl, at least as far as American law is concerned. And I’m not really worried about her at all. In fact, I’m worried for any poor bastard that gets in her way.

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When she was in kindergarten, we had our first parent-teacher conference. I’ve spent enough time in classrooms—mostly with college students—to believe I possess a dangerously confident instinct for predicting students’ futures, whether they will spend their time in C-suites or prison cells (or both, as the case may be). Aware that my instincts might be colored or compromised when it comes to my own progeny, I asked the kindergarten teacher, “How likely is it that Charlee ends up in prison?”

“Very unlikely,” she said, “unless she’s the warden.”

A couple years later, wanting to double down on my daughter’s independence, I encouraged her to start her own business. I told her I’d loan her money to buy materials to make bracelets, which she could sell, use the proceeds to pay off her loan, and then rinse and repeat. She liked the idea.

The next week, while picking her up from school, she asked for a few minutes to talk to a friend. I watched from a distance. A little second grade dialogue, some mutual nodding, the friend walking up to her mom, more dialogue and nodding, the mom reaching into her purse and handing a twenty to her daughter, and finally that girl handing the twenty to my daughter.

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“Okay,” Charlee said, "we can go.”

“What just happened?”

“I got a pre-order for my bracelets. I don’t need your loan anymore.”

Just like that, I was muscled out of the boardroom.

So at this point, my daughter had social confidence and financial independence. My only concern was her ability to protect herself physically, to let another human being know, in no uncertain terms, that she was willing—and capable—to break a motherfucker’s neck if and when the situation called for it. To address this concern, I tricked her into getting strong by putting her on a rock climbing team.

She took to it pretty well, eventually ranking among the top 100 in the country for her age. On the rock walls of climbing gyms and the giant boulders of Joshua Tree and Red Rocks, she proved herself a competent climber, graceful and elegant, flexible and poised. And her strength was impressive, even confusing. Fathers of daughters, take note: fit your girl for rock climbing shoes and sleep well at night. Here she is at 13, putting the work in:

Not long after this, we were at Pizza Port in San Clemente (the best pizza west of New York, if you ask me). Pizza Port is one of those joints that has a collection of arcade games to distract the kids while the parents bump gums and watch the game. All this to say, there’s a fair amount of controlled chaos. Charlee came up to me to explain that some uncle was giving his nephew quarters for every push-up they could do. “And they’re not even real push-ups, dad.”

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My concern for the proper push-up biomechanics of a gaggle of prepubescent boys couldn’t have been lower, so I just nodded and told her to play some video games. A few minutes later, the energy of this little pizza parlor changed. The chaos had channeled itself into a count… 23… 24… 25… 26…

My wife and the friends we had met for pizza looked up and saw that everyone was staring in the direction of the boys who were doing the push-ups… 38… 39… 40…

At 40, some woman started clapping her hands aggressively, threw her head back and hollered, “Woooooo! Get it, girl!”

Girl?

We stood up and beelined for the melee. Charlee had insinuated herself into the nephews’ and uncle’s push-up challenge, and she was embarrassing the lot of them.

…48… 49… 50!

Charlee stood up and dusted her hands off. Later she would tell me that she could have done more, but she didn’t want to make the boys feel too bad. The uncle gave Charlee ten bucks and told her it would have been more if her dad wasn’t wearing a Lakers hat (stupid Celtics fan with his soft, punk-ass nephews and their busted push-ups).

Charlee is getting ready to move across the country for college. I’m not worried about her. Not even a little bit. Any time she’s of the mind, she can walk into any bar, challenge some “man” to a push-up contest or a pull-up contest, and use the money to buy rounds of drinks for her friends or as seed money for her next business venture.

I won’t say my work here is done, but I feel pretty good about where this young woman is headed. Happiest of birthdays to our beautiful little girl!

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

Because Mother Nature saddled me with a coiffure of doom, I regularly endured all manner of backhanded compliments and existential sleights. Old ladies were the most prolific of perpetrators. My mom would drag me into the grocery store, and some old crone who smelled of mothballs and tuna casserole leftovers would scrub my head with her Lee Press-On Nails® and say, “Oh, my heavens, just look at these beautiful curls!”

Even as a toddler, I found the words “beautiful curls” profoundly emasculating. I would do my best to bob and weave and slip the unwelcome hands of these doting old bags, but they were relentless. “He hates having curly hair,” my mom would tell them as I tried to keep their manicured meat hooks away from me.

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“He hates it?!” the hairline assailant would snap back. And then she would turn to me and launch into her pearl-clutching sermon: “Do you have any idea how much money I would pay to have your curls? I’d give my right arm for such beautiful ringlets.”

I remember thinking, I would give my right arm if you old prunes would keep your oven mitts outta my kitchen.

“Some day,” the old women would promise me, “you’re gonna love that head of hair.”

Yeah, not likely, grandma. Here’s a wildly incomplete list of insults, blasphemies, and hairdo digs I suffered in my early years:

• Top Ramen Noggin

• Curly Q

• Oliver Twist

• Pubic Head

• Your hair be like, “Structure is just a suggestion.”

• Frizz Face

• Fuzz Ball

• It looks like slinkies are unionizing on your dome.

• That boy only thinks in cursive.

• Brillo Head

• Oingo Boingo Brain

• Afrotastic

• Them curls got plot twists.

• Curly Sue

• Shirley Temple

• Big Perm

• Lord of the Ringlets

• Mr. Frizzle

• Little Orphan Normie

The last is my mom’s fault. One Halloween—despite my reasonable, righteous four-year-old protests—she put me in a little red and white dress, strapped patent leather Mary Janes on my feet, and spray-painted my hair a reddish-orange hue. I wanted to be a pirate. She wanted me to be Little Orphan Annie. “Norm, you’re going to win the preschool Halloween costume contest. Don’t you want to win?”

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I did not want to win. I wanted to wear a hook on my hand and a patch over my eye. I wanted to carry a cutlass with my good hand and tuck a flintlock pistol into my breeches. And I wanted to say things, like “Avast!” and “Fetch me some grog and cackle fruit, ye wench!” Instead, I felt itchy in the white tights my mom stuffed me into, and I did everything I could to avoid eye contact and ignore requests for “It’s the Hard Knock Life.”

But the real insult to injury? I did not win the preschool Halloween costume contest. I don’t remember who did. Probably some confident straight-haired preschooler in a pirate costume. My mom said, “Ya know, Norm, I don’t think you won because the judges actually thought you were a girl—the costume was that good.” And the award for the worst consolation prize in the history of consolation prizes goes to my mother.

Since that Little Orphan Annie scandal, life with curly hair has continued along the same trajectory of humiliation and discomfort. I recall dressing for PE in the seventh grade and hearing this philosophical conversation: ”Do you think Norm has straight hair on his wiener?”

“Wieners don’t have hair. Balls have hair.”

“You know what I meant.”

“Sounds like you don’t have any hair on your balls at all.”

“Yeah, that’s still better than having straight hair on your balls.”

“And curly hair on your head.”

“Definitely.”

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For several years, I kept things close, nearly shaved to avoid any further conversations that equated my hair with the forbidden forest. When I waited tables through college, I let it grow out a bit, but even in my early twenties, I caught a lot of flack. Every other table I waited on would tell me I looked like Justin Timberlake.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I can hear you thinking, Must have been so hard to be compared to an international pop/movie star. Well, timing and context matter. This was in the late 90s. It was never, “Oh, my god, you look like Justin Timberlake. Can I have your phone number so that you can be my sex slave?” It was more like, “Ha, you look like Justin Timberlake, my 12-year-old sister and my gay uncle love that dude.”

Even now, in my forties, the indignities continue to stack up, just in ways that I never could have anticipated. The shots now come by way of marketing. Having curly hair means that I have to use particular products, and those products do little for my confidence.

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I’ve used Strictly Curls, which sounds like a support group for kinky-headed conservatives.

I’ve used Curl Talk. This one is a complete misnomer. Talk implies conversation, exchange, back-and-forth. My curls have no interest in compromise.

I’ve used DevaCurl, even though I have no intentions of auditioning for a lead role in Moulin Rouge!

I’ve used Aunt Jackie's Curl La La Defining Curl Custard, which despite what you might think is not a dessert served in a convalescent home.

I’ve used Love Ur Curls, and the implied positive affirmation has a negative effect on my soul.

I’ve used Not Your Mother’s Curl Talk Frizz Control Sculpting Gel. I was drawn to this one because of the Little Orphan Annie trauma, courtesy of my own mother

Currently, I’m using Miss Jessie's Pillow Soft Curls, this one by way of my daughter who has inherited not only my hair texture but the albatross that is tethered to every single one of our zigzag hair follicles.

My daughter’s hair complaints are now a refrain in our household. My son’s hair grew out wavy after his first haircut, not curly, not straight, somewhere in between (my wife has never forgiven me). And weirdly, after having both of our kids, my wife’s hair has started to curl, despite being sleek and straight before becoming parents. This suggests a certain amount of aggression, even consciousness. Are my curls alive? Sentient? Do they have feelings?

These are the questions I ponder when I’m trying to fall asleep, wearing the bonnet my daughter had made for me—her face printed on it—the bonnet she insists I wear to bed each night to minimize the frizz, to enhance the bounce, and—apparently—to remind me who’s really in control.

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

Send a Postcard!

All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

With our son’s everlasting soul on the line, we whipped up a new family policy. Each week, Sam would need to read a novel of my choosing before he could receive the Wi-Fi password or play any video games. If he finished on Wednesday, he could play the rest of the week. And not only did he have to read the book, he had to convince me—via a series of Socratic dialogues—that he had engaged the book, reflected on its characters and themes, and integrated its literary wisdom into his prepubescent worldview.

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Of course, he protested. He even tried to argue that video games are a form of literature, which is a fairly creative albeit bullshit line of reasoning, even for a ten-year-old. I’m sure some video game enthusiasts out there will come to his defense, and I concede that some video games do have literary qualities. But come on? We’re gonna compare Orwell’s anthropomorphic critique of dictatorship to picking up hookers in Grand Theft Auto?

We started Sam with Steinbeck’s The Pearl. I had prepared myself for war, for a battle of wills, a multi-front trench-warfare campaign of whining, begging, and bargaining. But I underestimated my son’s need for spiritual nourishment and Steinbeck’s ability to provide soulful sustenance. He devoured the novella in a single day and loved it.

Over the next few weeks, he read To Kill a Mockingbird, Animal Farm, Frankenstein, and Lord of the Flies. We had great conversations about all of them, about right and wrong, good and evil, forgiveness and guilt—it was wonderful. One afternoon, my wife and I went for our daily COVID stroll, cocktails in hand (we made it a point to mark every day of the pandemic with a happy hour walk, which we lovingly referred to as cock walk). About a half mile into our walk, we received a call from Sam. He was reading Of Mice and Men, and he was pretty upset. He had arrived at the scene where they euthanize the dog.

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“What’s wrong, buddy?” I said.

“They killed the dog.”

“Yeah.”

“Why did they kill the dog?! Why would they let them kill the dog?!”

We calmed him down and had a good talk about life and death and tough decisions, and we reassured him that our dogs weren’t going anywhere (unless Banjo makes one of his famous naughty boy choices). He took a deep breath and said, “Okay, I have to keep reading.”

He hung up, and I turned to my wife. “Wow, if he struggled with the dog dying, he’s gonna fall apart at the end of that book.” Those of you who have read Of Mice and Men know what I’m talking about. Those who haven’t, stop reading this right now and go read Of Mice and Men.

Our son’s willingness to throw himself into a new hobby is one of my favorite things about him. He has acquired a PhD-level understanding of Legos, Warhammer, chess, and basketball. Basketball was the big one. On car rides to school, I heard questions like this: “Dad, did you know that Bob Cousy led the NBA in assists for eight consecutive seasons?” Or “Dad, did you know that Hakeem Olajuwon scored the most points ever without attempting a single free throw?” And “Dad, did you know that the triangle offense—” And then he would go into a 20-minute symposium on the ins and outs of proper court spacing.

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He must have asked me for my top five favorite basketball players of all time over a thousand times. And he must have told me his twice that many times. His enthusiasm is infectious and charming. The boy knows what this life is about. He knows that the world lines up for those of us bold enough to be excited about living.

He has recently retired from playing basketball (I have more thoughts on this, which I’ll deliver at a later time—for now I’ll just say that the worst thing about youth sports is adults). He has replaced his daily soliloquy about Kobe Bryant and triple doubles and the pick-and-roll with a devotion to cinema. The boy loves movies.

I started him on Hitchcock and Capra and Billy Wilder, and now he’s getting into Scorsese and Tarantino and Fincher. Recently, we just watched Boogie Nights, and he wrote up a review on Letterboxd: “This soundtrack walked so the Guardians of the Galaxy soundtrack could run.” Not too bad.

He made it a goal to watch all of the Oscar-nominated films. Not just the major categories, like all of the films. He didn’t quite get there, but he did see 45 of the 50 nominated films, including all of the shorts.

One night my wife got up to use the restroom. It was about two in the morning. I stirred because I heard her arguing with Sam. She came back to bed after a minute or so.

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“What’s wrong?”

“Sam’s still awake.”

“Video games?”

“Nope.”

“Doom scrolling?”

“Nope.”

“What’s he doing?”

“He’s watching some Danish foreign film.”

“Really?”

“Really.”

“I mean… we don’t really have a play, do we?”

“Nope. He wins.”

“Yeah. Also, as parents, I think we win.”

“Yeah.”

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Last weekend we flew to Boston for our daughter’s volleyball tournament. While there, I learned that the Coolidge Corner Theater was screening Mr. Melvin, a recut of Lloyd Kaufman’s The Toxic Avenger Part II and The Toxic Avenger Part III: The Last Temptation of Toxie. It was the most ridiculous thing I’ve ever seen. At one point, the titular hero rips somebody’s intestines out and uses them as nunchuks.

The theater, which was full of cinephiles, erupted in laughter and cheers. I looked over at Sam, a huge smile spread across his face. The same kid who felt deeply for the dog in Of Mice and Men, smiling at the absurdity of over-the-top gore and dark comedy. He’s all in on making movies, he says. I can’t wait to buy that ticket.

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

Send a Postcard!

All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

Someday I’m gonna stop procrastinating. I’m gonna start waking up early to enjoy the morning quiet and meditate like a monk. I’m gonna be zen as shit.

Someday I’m gonna speak more elegantly and stop using so many fucking cuss words.

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Someday I’m gonna ride on an airplane, and when that airplane lands, I’m gonna sit in my seat and hum super complex pieces of classical music instead of having my usual anxiety attack where I tick off each row that exits before me and obsessively strategize about how I’m going to get my carryon from the overhead compartment in one smooth buttery motion so I don’t offend the person behind me, thereby avoiding a would-be confrontation that lands me in TSA custody.

Someday I’m gonna start saving for retirement. I’m gonna invest. I’m gonna talk intelligently about compound interest and the Wall Street Journal but, like, in a thoughtful, ethical way that’s not at all douchey, and I’m only gonna flaunt my money in the presence of Crypto knuckleheads and only to inspire them to be, ya know, more modest.

Someday I’m gonna come to terms with the fact that I’ll never again dunk a basketball, and I’ll arrive at that sad, tragic conclusion with the mature acceptance of a death row inmate who has made her peace with the Lord.

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Someday I’m gonna stop wishing hateful things on cyclists. I’ll just drive right past them, calmly and peacefully, and I won’t even mumble anything defamatory about their stupid spandex and the way it compresses their testicles and probably has a severely as-of-yet-scientifically-unverified-but-definitely-negative impact on the DNA they pass on to their dumb offspring.

Someday I’m gonna be a hugger. Even when I don’t want to hug someone, I’m gonna do it. Because people need more hugs. At least I assume they do because most people are turds, and hugs have gotta help with de-turdifying people. That’s just biology.

Someday I’m gonna stop being so vain. I’m gonna stop obsessing over my hairline and my weight and the way one side of my lips are higher than the other when I smile and my pigeon-toed gait and the way I look in pictures and my Bert-and-Ernie eyebrows and my nipples that are bigger than I want them to be. And I’m definitely gonna stop comparing myself to Brad Pitt and Robert Redford and Denzel Washington and Christ crucified in all those paintings where he has super defined abs. Holy shit, I’m gonna be gloriously humble.

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Someday my default philosophy is gonna be optimism. I’m gonna watch the news and hear about World Wars and famines and hate crimes and school shootings and powerful government employees who shoot puppies—I’m gonna take all that in, and I’m gonna feel hope. I’m gonna squeeze every ounce of hope from that pure, concentrated evil.

Someday I’m gonna stop cracking “That’s what she said” jokes. I’m gonna grow up, and when I hear people say things like, “This is way too big” or “I’ll take it any way I can get it,” I’ll just nod and go right on participating in adult conversation, and I’ll be totally okay with it—firm and committed (That’s what she said!).

Someday I’m gonna finish learning Spanish. My accent will be as good as anything on a telenovela, and it will be sexy but not gratuitously sexy. Just the right amount of sexy. And I’ll have so many amigos nuevos that I wouldn’t have otherwise. And we’ll chop it up in Español, and they will call me Normando, never gringo. It’s gonna be asombroso. So pinche asombroso.

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Someday I’m gonna stop noodling on the guitar and really learn it. I’m gonna master all the chords, all the scales, and even the modes (whatever those are). And young people will come and ask me for life advice, and I’ll just whip out the guitar and sing them a little ditty that I improvise on the spot. And the lyrics are gonna be so profound and the melody is gonna be so emotionally stirring that I’ll inspire those young people to take up their own instruments and the world will be filled with so much beautiful music—everyone will be Singin’ in the Rain up in this bitch.

Someday I’m gonna stop having revenge fantasies. When that son of a bitch in the raised Chevy with the dumb fuck bootleg sticker of Calvin peeing on the Ford logo cuts me off and doesn’t do me the courtesy of an apology wave, I’m not gonna imagine hunting him down at his trailer park, driving him out to The Salton Sea, and making him dig his own grave while he begs for mercy and I pretend not to hear him the same way he pretended not to see me. Instead, I’m just gonna breathe through the blind, seething rage and have faith that the divine will intervene and somehow the bastard will develop irritable bowel syndrome until he learns a little god damn consideration.

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Someday I’m gonna stop eating when I’m full—I’m not gonna wait until I hate myself. And I’m definitely not gonna pop Cadbury Crème Eggs like Tic Tacs anymore. I’m gonna listen to my body before it makes crazy digestion noises that sounds like cries for help. I’m gonna listen to my body so freakin’ good that I’m gonna keep all my limbs. Suck it, diabetes.

Someday I’m gonna be a better human being.

So much better.

Someday.

Written with a nod (and a debt of gratitude) to the short film, Retirement Plan.

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

Send a Postcard!

All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review. And it’s FREE on Kindle starting March 9th through March 13th.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

It’s more about the experience, the story, the meal as opposed to the food. I ask people that a lot. What are your most memorable meals? Not necessarily the best tasting food, though that can factor into the assessment, but rather the meals that loom large in the heart.

In no particular order, the greatest gastronomic hits of my life:

Frosty

A Wendy’s Frosty, to be specific, somewhere off the 5 in Central California. My wife had had an episode while visiting her sister. Her eyes shut, and she lost control of the musculature in her upper body. The ambulance whisked her away, and I was pretty sure I was about to be a 20-something widower. Turns out it was just the result of a particularly rare neurological condition that makes it look like she’s shuffling off this mortal coil.

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The Bay Area emergency room doctors got it under control enough to send us home to see a neurologist. What they used to get it under control was Ativan, which made my wife loopy. She had the cognitive function of a toddler who’d been given a Benadryl-laced juice box. And while I was worried for her life—and our life moving forward—all anxieties were put to rest when we got her a Wendy’s Frosty, and she looked at it sort of crosseyed and said, “Ooooohhh, chocolate.” Though when she said chocolate, it sounded like she had added a few more syllables. Still, it was then that I knew all would be well. Nothing trauma bonds like chocolate sweet treats.

Norm Orleans

For my fortieth, my wife organized a trip to The Big Easy. It was November, well after my birthday, but a better time to spend all day in the French Quarter, the Bywater, and Frenchmen Street since it was just sixty-five degrees and sunny. From eight in the morning to midnight, we walked around the city, sipping on Sazeracs and hurricanes and eating crawfish flatbread and chicken and andouille gumbo and pecan praline pain perdu and enough beignets to choke a donkey.

At sunset, we wound up in the Garden District and hopped on a trolley to make our way back to Preservation Hall. The day’s alcohol consumption had been prolific, and we knew if we were going to make it through the show, we’d need sustenance. My friend Gwendolyn assured us that she had a plan. And she did.

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She called in a sandwich order, which was delivered to us by bike as we waited in line. The sandwiches were called All That Jazz, a po’ boy stacked with ham and turkey and something they call “wow” sauce. I’m no saucier, but if I had to guess, I’d say the “wow” of the “wow” sauce is some combination of acid and fat—acid from the tears of your enemies, fat from farm-raised angels. The NOLA voodoo is no joke, and I’m sure it plays an important role in this sandwich.

We tore into them just a few minutes before we were ushered into Preservation Hall. I looked up, sort of confused. Which is my favorite emotion when I’m eating. To be so confused because you’re having a new sensory experience? That’s the best stuff of life. I made eye contact with my brother-in-law who was also confused. We nodded at each other, a recognition of our spiritual alignment. This was the best sandwich ever made.

The next day I went back to the place that made them just to confirm. I’m glad I tasted the sandwich before I saw where it was made. The kitchen was in the back of a convenience store, and there is no way it would pass any health inspector’s lowest standard. Still, the sandwich held up to stone-cold sobriety—a perfect exclamation point to one of the best days of my life.

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Two for One

I went to Laughlin for my bachelor’s party. Laughlin is where you go if you can’t afford Reno. Reno is where you go if you can’t afford Vegas. Still, I had a great time. A handful of my best friends, my new brother-in-law, my new father-in-law, and Pappo, my dad. After a day of water skiing and a night at the craps table, we ended up at one of Laughlin’s fine breakfast bistros.

The server, with the half-smoked cigarette tucked behind her ear, let us know that the prime rib dinner (again, it was breakfast) was on sale for $2.99. Pappo heard that and replied, “I’ll take two.” I don’t remember what else was served or eaten. Nothing meaningful survives in the shadow of “I’ll take two of the $2.99 prime rib Laughlin casino dinners.”

The World’s Best Restaurant

My wife and I sprang for Eleven Madison Park on an anniversary trip to New York. This wasn’t long after it had been named The World’s Best Restaurant but a little while after it had been used in storylines of The Bear.

It was an eight-course tasting menu, each course paired with wine. But before we gnawed on a piece of focaccia or sipped on a pinot noir, the server invited us to surrender our phones to a wooden box that he would relocate to the back of the house for the duration of our meal. It was voluntary but encouraged as the restaurant wanted us to focus on the meal, to be present, to truly eat together.

We dropped our phones in the box, ate and drank for hours, and had one of the best conversations of our marriage, our friendship, our lives. A table over from us, a family of six—parents, kids, grandparents—ate their Eleven Madison Park dinners, all of them glued to their phones. I’m confident they’d never had a “meal” in their lives. They weren’t really people. Each of them was just his or her own big gaping face hole. As tragic as anything I’d ever seen.

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At the end of the meal, our server reminded us that the gratuity and the bill had already been paid (you pay everything up front, which I’m convinced every restaurant should adopt). He also brought us gifts: granola, tea, a list of suggestions for bagels and coffee in the city, the complete descriptive list of what we had eaten and drunk over eight courses, and a bottle of apricot brandy from the bar. He said, “I’m just gonna leave this right here. Enjoy as much as you like.” And then he dropped the box with our phones, each of which had been bow-tied with a bar of chocolate, a reward for committing to the meal.

Meatloaf

The other meal that comes to mind isn’t just one. It’s a motif. A running theme through my life.

Meatloaf.

Meatloaf is my Death Row meal. I know what many of you are saying. “Meatloaf? Seriously? Your foodie credibility is kaput.” But this is my mom’s meatloaf. She makes it with Cheez-Its. It’s spiritual sustenance. The Bible tells us that Jesus fed 5,000 with five loaves and two fish. It’s a shame Jesus didn’t have my mom’s meatloaf recipe. Could have added a few more zeroes to his miracle metrics.

We once told a waitress about my mom’s meatloaf, and she asked for the recipe. I scribbled it out on a cocktail napkin. A few weeks later, we saw this waitress, and she told us she made it. She loved it so much, she made it for Thanksgiving dinner. No punk ass turkey dinner for her. She made my mom’s meatloaf. And it got such rave reviews that she framed the cocktail napkin with the recipe and hung it in her kitchen. It’s a Death Row meal, but it’s also a Live-Your-Life meal.

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For the curious foodies among you:

Death Row Meatloaf Recipe

Ingredients:

• 2 lbs hamburger (3 lbs if you use more fat meat. More fat gives it better taste. Just go with more fat. Life is short. Also, this is Death Row.)

• 1 bell pepper, chopped

• 1 onion, chopped

• 1 can of Campbell’s Cream of Celery soup (not sure if the brand is important, but you wouldn’t rewrite a Shakespearean sonnet, so stick to the script.)

• 1 egg

• 1 box of Cheez-It crackers (crushed—not sure if it’s necessary, but I imagine I’m Walter White crushing up blue sky meth when I do this.)

Steps:

• Mix ingredients together (optional: play music, preferably “I’d Do Anything for Love (But I Won’t Do That)”)

• Form meatloaf in large, flat glass casserole dish. Not too thick.

• Cook at 350° until done—you want the sides and top a little crispy.

Nota bene:

• If you use the fatty hamburger, you’ll need to drain about halfway through baking—and again when meatloaf is done.

• Pair with ketchup or beef gravy.

• Serve with mashed potatoes and a side of green beans.

• Feel warm and loved and as if you just experienced a gastronomic miracle of a meal. Because you have.

Enjoy!

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

Not too long ago, my wife and I met with an estate planning attorney to get a draft on our last will and testament. It’s something I’d been looking forward to for a long time. It’s uncomfortable for some people, and I get it—it’s a morbid endeavor by design. But who says morbid has to be unpleasant?

I know that sounds like something Jeffery Dahmer might say, but as a storyteller, I love a good ending. Why not use a last will and testament to set up a rip-roarin’ final act, a dénouement that will impact your bereaved for the rest of their lives?

Below are some ideas that I’m still trying to get into my will because my wife has “some concerns.” I’m sharing them here in hopes that my readers will rally around some of these ideas so that I can actually bring them to life after my death.

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The Permanent Bronzer

This is my ideal end game. I’d like my corpse to be cast in bronze. I could be seated, I could be standing, but honestly, the form is less important than the function. My wife and/or kids would then need to hire an engineer to turn my bronzed body into a lawn sprinkler (or a fountain). The water would spurt from my mouth and/or ears. I know some of you might be imagining other possibilities, but we’ll leave that to the Belgians.

Everyone dies, not everyone gets to become art. Added to that, I would get to play with my grandkids, great grandkids, etc. for generations to come. I imagine one of them complaining that he’s bored on a hot summer day, and his parents can say, “Go play with The General,” (The General is going to be my grandpa name.) and then he’ll attach the hose, and off I’ll go, my bronzed head swiveling, shooting water from my mouth and/or nose as my grandson squeals with delight. Picture it — it’s a god damn Norman Rockwell painting. But ya know, as a bronze sculpture.

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Ink-credibly Post-Mortem

A while back I got a tattoo, a half sleeve on my upper right arm. I found an artist I liked and submitted an application. I couldn’t just walk into her shop; I had to apply with an idea. So I sent her a few quotes from The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, and she came up with a design that had a ship navigating a storm in sea serpent-infested waters. I loved it. I still love it. And I think it would be a pity to let it die with my body. The tattoo artist actually commented on that aspect of her craft—all of her tattoo art, she said, had a shelf life determined by the body wearing it.

While that’s a morbidly romantic idea, it isn’t entirely true. Someone else dreamt up an even more morbidly romantic idea. You can now have your tattooed skin posthumously removed, preserved, and framed as wall art. Of course, this means I’ll have to get another tattoo. I wouldn’t want my kids to fight over who gets the ship and the sea serpents. Sure, as teenagers they say they don’t want to hang my skin on their walls, but they’re young, and they have a long way to go to develop good taste.

Refer a friend

Talking Tombstones

An Irishman died and used the opportunity to prank his mourners. As they lowered his coffin into the ground, a recording of his voice played: “Let me out! It’s fookin’ dark in here!” Genius. Also, selfless. The tears immediately turned to laughs.

Taking his lead, I’d like my gravestone to be immersive and interactive. Imagine a mourning family walking past my grave, triggering a motion sensor that plays my voice: “Hey folks! I need a favor. Get a shovel and a crowbar… and maybe some smelling salts if you got weak stomachs…”

Rest in Beats

My daughter’s friends have told her many times that her dad has good playlists. This is my fave compliment. Nothing makes me feel as good as when a person says something like, “Norm, you’re right. The Infamous Stringdusters’ cover of The Cure’s ‘Just Like Heaven’ is sublime! And Ray Charles’ ‘Careless Love’ might be the sexiest song ever recorded. Your music curation is top fucking shelf!” I mean, I basically hear it all the time.

So another option would be to have my cremains pressed into vinyl. If any of you have seen Joel Schumacher’s The Lost Boys, you’re probably hearing that classic Corey Haim line, “Death by Stereo!” But I suppose this would be “Death in Stereo.” The challenge here would be deciding on the final — and I mean final — playlist. Gotta have Tom Waits, Lucius, Amigo the Devil, The Grateful Dead, Johnny Cash, Gov’t Mule, N.W.A., Steve Earle… Probably gonna have to be a double album.

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

"Make each day your masterpiece."

It’s empowering, creative, and personal. It’s rooted in the present. It has no patience for victim mentalities, and it makes no promises. If you’re lucky enough to get a day—after all, some of us won’t have a tomorrow—then you have an opportunity to manifest something beautiful.

Sure, the day might throw all kinds of nonsense at you. It might hit you with a tax audit. It might wallop you with a busted hip or a rash on your inner, upper thigh that looks like something out of a Cronenberg film. Or it might blindside you with the middle seat on a cross-country flight, sticking you between a pair of up-and-coming Sumo wrestlers. But all of that is noise, easily drowned out when you recall The Wizard of Westwood:

"Make each day your masterpiece."

It’s the sort of encouragement you get from a man who was born to be the perfect grandpa.

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Somewhat related, below is a masterpiece of a day, as lived by Hunter S. Thompson, detailed (probably satirically) by E. Jean Carroll in Hunter: The Strange and Savage Life of Hunter S. Thompson. The Great Gonzo journalist may not have been the perfect grandpa, but I can scarcely imagine a better example of uncle energy.

3:00 p.m. rise
3:05 Chivas Regal with the morning papers, Dunhills
3:45 cocaine 3:50 another glass of Chivas, Dunhill
4:05 first cup of coffee, Dunhill
4:15 cocaine
4:16 orange juice, Dunhill
4:30 cocaine
4:54 cocaine
5:05 cocaine
5:11 coffee, Dunhills
5:30 more ice in the Chivas
5:45 cocaine, etc., etc.
6:00 grass to take the edge off the day
7:05 Woody Creek Tavern for lunch-Heineken, two margaritas, coleslaw, a taco salad, a double order of fried onion rings, carrot cake, ice cream, a bean fritter, Dunhills, another Heineken, cocaine, and for the ride home, a snow cone (a glass of shredded ice over which is poured three or four jig­gers of Chivas)
9:00 starts snorting cocaine seriously
10:00 drops acid
11:00 Chartreuse, cocaine, grass
11:30 cocaine, etc, etc.
12:00 midnight, Hunter S. Thompson is ready to write
12:05-6:00 a.m. Chartreuse, cocaine, grass, Chivas, coffee, Heineken, clove cigarettes, grapefruit, Dunhills, orange juice, gin, continuous pornographic movies.
6:00 the hot tub-champagne, Dove Bars, fettuccine Alfredo
8:00 Halcyon
8:20 sleep

The “6:00 grass to take the edge of the day” is what really gets me. Unfiltered genius at work there.

I doubt John Wooden would have endorsed the details at play in this application of his philosophy, but I do believe he would have applauded the effort, the commitment, and the rock solid constitution required to undertake such indulgent artistry.

While I marvel at Thompson’s enthusiasm (apocryphal though it may be), my masterpieces have involved much less cocaine. I’ve had a handful of masterpieces over the years, and they always look different. Context matters, of course—the company one keeps, the day’s objective, spiritual and psychological agility, and so on.

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Having said all that, I believe yesterday—Valentine’s Day—was a masterpiece for the books. I submit the following as evidence:

7:01 Woken by Captain Banjo. Got up, fed the dogs and chickens in my boxer shorts. Bite in the air made for erect nipples. Back to bed.

7:15ish Dreamt of being a starting shooting guard for the Los Angeles Lakers. Shot 100% from the field. Did not go to the locker room with the team after two quarters. Instead, played guitar duet with Prince at the halftime show.

9:03 Woke to the smell of chocolate chip scones, baked by my wife.

9:05 Coffee, scones, and almond kringle. Ate and drank. No shame.

9:15 Watched Olympic skeleton highlights, followed by curling highlights. Shored up confidence that a Winter Olympic medal remains within reach. Never mind my age, my busted knee, or my complete lack of winter sports training and familiarity.

10:00 Began 5-mile hike with wife.

10:30 Enjoyed the sight of at least a dozen different wild flowers. Note to self: share this wisdom with son—a beautiful hike is the way to give flowers to your Valentine.

10:47 Held hands with wife on the trail. Made her feel like she was in a Hallmark movie without the experience actually sucking balls the way Hallmark movies do.

11:02 Reached the summit of our hike. Which is near a monastery. Encountered a monk who stood slack-jawed by our energy. He approached and asked, “What’s your secret?” We just smiled and shrugged. Everyone’s gotta do their own work, brother.

11:17 Began our descent. Noticed family with whiny kids in tow, the mom and dad questioning all their life decisions, including marriage, parenting, and belief in a loving God. Made jokes about them under our breath as we passed them by.

11:23 Noted a couple hiking in the opposite direction. The man took the woman’s hand in his, not because he loved her (or she him) but because they clocked our energy and were trying to emulate. But we are not the same. My wife and I have put in the reps. Way more reps.

12:07 Pastrami and Swiss on a baguette, washed down with a citrus IPA.

12:17 Shared a second citrus IPA with the wife.

12:30 Nap. Dreamt I was Donald O’Connor in Singin’ in the Rain.

2:33 Woke. Watched Mr. Thunder Jones play with the new kitten, Reverend Eddie. Wife and I agreed to promote Mr. Thunder Jones to Uncle Thunder Jones.

3:07 Strummed guitar. Not certain but confident that I stumbled upon the secret chord that David played, which pleased the Lord.

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4:12 Completed 50 burpees. No big deal.

5:02 Cooked for the wife and kids. Honey Sriracha ribeye bites with a side of glazed Hasselback sweet potatoes. Mixed a couple of Old Fashioneds with homemade citrus-infused simple syrup, topped with a bespoke, hand-cut flower garnish made from orange peel.

6:35 Watched Dazed and Confused with the kids. Luxuriated in nostalgia on many levels.

9:07 Crawled into bed with the wife. Watched episodes of Veep.

10:32 EUPHEMISM

10:47 EUPHEMISM

11:07 EUPHEMISM

11:15 Hydrate.

11:21 EUPHEMISM

11:47 EUPHEMISM

11:58 Stretch hamstrings and lower back.

11:59 Sleep.

I’m guessing this is one of the few if not only pieces of writing that mentions John Wooden and Hunter S. Thompson. To take this unlikely pairing to Masterpiece level, I’ll close with the words of another iconoclast, O’Shea Jackson, also known as Ice Cube:

But not just a good day. A masterpiece.

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

“What’s up?”

“Dad, they’re coming for me.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yeah.”

“Who is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“Are we sticking with the original plan?”

“Yeah.”

“Drive safe. I’ll see if I can flush them out.”

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I step outside the house. Because we live in a more rural area of Orange County—and because some of our neighbors almost certainly have corpses buried in their basements—I’m skeptical that anyone will actually come after my daughter. Still, we’re not taking any chances.

I open our gate. I walk around my car. I skirt the perimeter of our fence…

Nobody.

Next I walk across the street. I peek over my neighbor’s fence. I investigate the easement beside the neighbor’s house. I peer into bushes. I circumnavigate all the live oaks.

Still, nobody.

I walk a little further down the street, my eyesight searching far and near for anyone looking up to no good. Just as I pass a neighbor’s trash cans, I find them. Three young women, crouched hip to hip. Only one of them has a gun.

They look at me, all of them forcing grins, a poor attempt to disguise the shame on their faces.

“You girls must be looking for Charlee.”

They say nothing.

“Guess I’ll have to divert her.” I pull out my cell.

“No! Please!” says the one with the gun.

“Please?! Get the fuck outta here! Sweetheart, we’re playing to win!”

Don’t mistake the exclamation points or the profanity. I do not yell at this girl. I am not mad. I’m grinning—shamelessly—as I talk to them. This is the most fun I’ve had in a good long while.

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I pull out my phone and dial my daughter. The call won’t go through. Rural often means shitty coverage. So I fake it. “Char!” I say, after pretending to let it ring for a bit. “They’re here! Put the contingency plan into effect.” I say this loudly so the girls can hear me. They don’t seem particularly bright, and I wonder if they know what ‘contingency’ means, so I add, “Yeah, that’s right, Plan B.” This seems to register, and the girls start whispering.

I walk back into the yard to get better reception. I finally get ahold of Charlee and I’m able to warn her properly.

“Do you know who it is?”

“Nah,” I say. “Some girls I’ve never seen before. I’ll get their picture for you.”

I put Captain Banjo on a leash, and I return to the street. The girls are gone. But Banjo has the scent. According to a brief internet search, Banjo, being a basset hound, has 220 million to 300 million olfactory receptors, making him one of the best trackers in the animal kingdom. He sniffs out this genius trio of assassins in about fifteen seconds. They moved their kneeling scrum to the next neighbor’s set of trash cans, about thirty feet from where I initially found them. When the zombie apocalypse comes, these girls will be dead in the time it takes to roll their eyes.

“Ladies, unfortunately for you, Charlee has two sets of grandparents, several aunts and uncles, and so many extended family and friends who live a short drive from here. Which means Charlee could be anywhere right now. And she certainly won’t be coming here. You’re welcome to wait—it’s a free country—but I’d suggest you don’t hide in or around the neighbor’s houses. They might shoot you with a real gun.”

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After this, I take their picture. They all look away as I do. No more grins. Nothing but shame. The pic is for Charlee so she knows the identity of her would-be assassin, but it’s also for me to show the neighbors so they don’t mistake what’s actually happening for something dangerous or nefarious.

And what’s actually happening is Senior Assassin.

If you’re unfamiliar, here’s the gist: high school seniors pitch in twenty bucks to play. Everyone is assigned a target, a person to assassinate within an allotted amount of time. To assassinate a target, you must shoot said target with a water gun, and it must be documented so that it can be shared on social media.

There are safe zones—school (during school hours), work, cars—and there is even safety gear, things you can wear that prevent you from being assassinated. A player can wear floaties, goggles, or flippers, all of which function like kevlar vests.

Things get even more fun during purge days, which is when everyone is a target, and anyone can get got. This becomes even more intense when there are chaos-purge days—anyone can get got and safety gear won’t keep you safe.

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Two weeks in and Charlee is still alive, despite many of her peers who have been betrayed, hunted down like dogs, and squirted in the back. Charlee eliminated her first target at a BJ’s Restaurant and Brewhouse, a popular teen hangout on Tuesdays because there’s a deal on Pizookie. Her target sat in a booth near the back of the restaurant, wearing goggles. The rules state that goggles must be worn on the face or the forehead, but Charlee’s target dangled the goggles haphazardly atop her head. Char crept through the restaurant and blasted her. Turf war, “Italian” restaurant, point blank murder—my daughter is basically Michael Corleone in The Godfather.

I’ve heard many of these kids play video games over the years, with my daughter and my son. The shit talking is top notch. In any number of Fortnite games, I’ve heard a teenager say, “Suck lead, you jabroni dipshit” and then dance on the corpse of their friend.

In Senior Assassin, the tone is much different. I follow the Instagram so I see all the assassinations. A senior springs an attack from the bushes, eliminates the target, and immediately says, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, I had to.” The immediate need to atone is funny and interesting and speaks to the differences between online and real-world confrontations.

I do wonder if the tone shifts as the game continues and the pot grows. In previous years, the winner took home over two grand, no small payday for a teenager with an itchy trigger finger. And the game lasted months, from the end of January to the middle of May. Some parents are exhausted by this possibility. Not me. I’m here for all of it. This is the text I sent one of my friends shortly after my interaction with the three shameful Senior Assassins who fumbled their attempt on my daughter’s life:

Caught three punk-ass girls hiding by our neighbor’s trash cans. Snuffed ‘em out. [REDACTED SO AS NOT TO DIVULGE LEONARD STRATEGY] Mission Impossible up in this bitch, mother fuckers! We came to play!

Planning to screen The Godfather for Charlee this week. Next time she blasts one of her peers, I can hear her saying, “Leave the gun, take the Pizookie.”

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If you want me to send an All Kinds of Funny: Unsolicited love letter (of sorts) to one of your people, click this button:

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

His belly is rotund. It’s firm, ample, and shameful (though it’s obvious he never feels shame). In a famine, he’d be the last man standing because his fat reserve runs so deep. Despite this, he charges every meal that’s served—he thinks he’s Oliver Twist but he’s more like South Park’s Cartman.

I’ve never heard him say “please” or “thank you.” The only word I’ve heard him say—if you can call it a word—is this bellowing whine that sounds like “more, more, more!”

He possesses no grace or decorum. Every time he enters a room, he rushes in as if he’s been snorting rails of blow, and his eyes have this vacant, devil-may-give-a-shit quality, and I swear I can hear him humming Rage Against the Machine: “Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me! Fuck you, I won’t do what you tell me!”

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He’s also a bully. I’ll just be sitting at my desk, writing or reading or even daydreaming, and this son of a bitch will haul off and slap me. And if I slap him back, he’ll resort to scratching or biting, as if we’re in the yard at San Quentin.

And I don’t even get it the worst. Ed really goes after Mr. Thunder Jones, our poor, put-upon ten-year-old pussycat. Thunder will be taking a nap near a window, getting his vitamin D, doing nothing to nobody, asking nothing from the world but a little peace and quiet, and Ed will run over and smack Thunder right upside the head.

Like I said, Ed’s a dick. And, yeah, yeah, yeah, I get it, I hear you—the same way I hear my wife who has been all too quick to point out that Ed is a kitten. “He’s just a baby,” my wife says.

Yeah, he’s a baby dick.

To be fair, my character analysis of Ed (whose full name is Reverend Eddie Pussington) is colored by an experience I had with him a couple weeks ago. As is so often the case when things go sideways in my life, my wife was out of town (for evidence of this claim, I refer you to Exhibit A). She was in Salt Lake with my daughter at a volleyball tournament, and I stayed back with my son, our dogs, our cats, our chickens, and Reverend Ed—the baby dick.

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Ed had been staying in my daughter’s room. He’s her kitten, and the quarantine was essential since Ed seems to have triggered the prey drive of our basset hound, Captain Banjo Butterbuns. Miss Millie Butterbuns, our 150-pound Newfoundland, and our cats—Mr. Thunder Jones and Sister Lightning Jenkins—are annoyed by Ed, but they don’t seem to want to commit any capital crimes against him (though he has certainly shaken that tree). Banjo, however, seems eager to read Reverend Ed his last rites. Which is hilarious because Banjo has the athletic talent and violent capabilities of an octogenarian water aerobics instructor. Anyhow, Ed had to be moved to my son’s room while my wife and daughter whooped it up in Utah.

That night I went to sleep with Banjo and Thunder at the foot of the bed, Millie on the floor, and Lightning sprawled across the windowsill. I never sleep all that great when my wife is out of town—twenty-plus years of marriage cuts some deep grooves—and I slept even worse that night because I kept hearing bells. And not the sweet, charming sound of bells you might be imagining. The bells I heard were the Edgar Allan Poe variety: “…the moaning and the groaning of the bells.”

I stirred awake and tried to remember if Lightning had a bell on her collar—she’s the only one who stalks the house at night. Nope, wasn’t her. Lightning was still on the windowsill. I sat up, and Banjo was wide awake, too, looking right at me. He’s a dog, so he can’t talk, but the look on his face said this:

“You hearin’ this shit, Norm? Because I hear it. It’s time to defend the castle, mother fucker! Are you with me?!”

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And with that, Banjo drooped off the bed (he’s not made for leaping or jumping) and galumphed up the stairs (he’s not made for running or really anything that requires speed or agility).

Once up the stairs, he started barking. Banjo’s bark is the only violent thing about him. He’s purebred Basset Hound, and when he really throws his dome back and bawls, you can feel it in your femurs, hips, and backbone. And when it’s three o’clock in the morning, those tidal waves of sound hit even harder.

The barking was what woke me up and made me realize that the dick, Reverend Ed, had escaped my son’s room to take an after-hours tour of the living room. Banjo had chased Ed under one of our recliners, and all I could hear was a cataclysm of death barking and SOS meows that sounded like “more, more, more!”

Dig it!

I got a hand around Banjo’s collar, which stopped him from barking. I was about to take him to his crate so that I could deal with Ed, but the sudden quiet seemed to convince Ed that this was his opportunity to make a play.

He darted out from the recliner and ran up my leg. I was hunched over because I had a fistful of Banjo’s leather dog collar, but Ed’s scurrying up my leg startled me—I let loose of Banjo and wrenched my back so that I was standing straight up. I must have looked like a switchblade snapping open.

Speaking of switchblades, once I was standing at full attention, Ed had free-solo climbed up and was now clinging to my boxer shorts, which is all that I was wearing, so there wasn’t much protection from Ed’s razor-wire claws. I tried to grab him, but Banjo started barking again.

Ed heard this, but he may as well have heard a starting pistol. Up he went, this little kitten-shaped cutlery set clambering up my torso, my chest—the baby dick managed to wedge one claw in my left nipple—my shoulders, all the way to the crown of my goddamn head. Imagine if someone turned a wireless blender on puree and then put it on your head like a hat. Thankfully, I’ve been letting my hair grow a little longer. If I hadn’t, I may have needed to have a series of skin grafts.

I spent the next minute or two trying to get him off my head. All the while, Banjo is barking, Ed is screaming, and the little silver bells are dinging. If you die and end up in hell, I’m guessing this is the soundtrack the demons play while you assemble Ikea furniture for eternity.

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When I finally dislodged the furry little psychopath from my head, I noticed his eyes. He was still in the throes of Banjo-induced terror. I could have driven a Mack Truck through his dilated pupils. Yes, he was still a baby dick but a little more relatable. Nothing like a trauma bond to forge a new relationship.

I held him by the scruff, got Banjo in his crate, and returned Ed to my daughter’s room. I couldn’t risk another twilight escape story. I gave him a few pets, got his motor running, and placed him in his little cat bed. By the time I closed the door, he was already screaming: “More! More! More!” What a dick.

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All Kinds of Funny and Other Serious Matters, Volume 1 is available in paperback and hardback! Click this link or the image below, and get your copies now!

If you like Elmore Leonard, Joe Lansdale, or the Coen Brothers, you’ll dig my novella, DIG. If it makes you laugh, cringe, or question your moral compass—do me a solid and leave a quick rating or review.

Get it at this link or click the image below: Dig: A Dark Crime Comedy

Many thanks to everyone who has contributed to the Cobles. If you haven’t yet, please watch their story and consider chipping in. They’re one of the most fun families I’ve ever met, and I just love them.

Shortly after Lori came out of her first surgery—meant to treat an aggressive form of brain cancer—she looked at her husband, Chris, and said, “This is bullshit. I love you.” This was one of the most endearing things about Lori. She recognized the absolute absurdity of life and followed with love all the same.

Lori passed away last Wednesday, January 21st at 9:25 p.m. There have been articles online about her story, and most of the comments have been kind and loving (a few of them have been stupid to the point of cruelty, but I’ll refer you back to Lori’s recognition of the absolute absurdity of life). I also noticed that several people characterized Lori’s life as tragic, and I want to address that. Lori’s life was decidedly not tragic.

I’m a writer and a storyteller, and I know a thing or two about how stories are organized. A tragedy hinges on a character’s fatal flaw, a weakness that reverses fortune. Lori had the opposite of a fatal flaw. She endured the most difficult challenges this world hands down, and she and her husband chose love anyhow. In circumstances that would have corrupted the most pious and virtuous among us, Lori chose joy. Again and again and again.

I understand most people use the word tragic more broadly to mean sad, and death is sad. But Lori was not. In my experiences with her, she was joyful. These past few days, memories of that joy have run through my heart like a montage.

Hanging out in a hotel room full of volleyball players and parents, everyone engaged in a sing-along of “Shallow,” nobody singing louder or smiling harder than Lori.

Toasting wine, toasting margaritas, toasting beers at barbecues, restaurants, and bars.

Watching Lori encourage my daughter after tough losses.

Seeing Lori irreverently shake her bootie in the face of a grumpy person with a stick up his ass (he had it coming).

My wife sitting beside Lori on a Florida swamp tour, each of them taking turns to hold a baby alligator.

Lori and all the volleyball moms huddled under blankets on those cold, aluminum bleachers, talking life and watching our girls grow up.

Hearing Lori dote on her husband and my good buddy, Chris, bragging (rightfully so) on his wit, his charm, his kindness, his fun spirit—she talked about him the way all great husbands want their great wives to talk about their virtues.

And the one memory that really sticks with me is the last time I saw Lori. We were in Orlando for a tournament, and we stopped by to visit her in her hotel room. As we left, she threw her hands up to give me a hug. I tried to deflect. Orlando is Orlando, and I had just worked out and told her I was a little schvitzy. “I don’t give a shit,” she said, and she threw her arms around me.

In this world—particularly this world right now, with all of its ugliness and misery—Lori’s life exists in my heart as a lighthouse. Though the waves crash and the sharks circle, it’s the pursuit of joy that will bring us home.

Lori, this is bullshit. We love you.

Below is something I wrote shortly after Lori’s cancer diagnosis, and it includes a Go Fund Me link. Cancer isn’t cheap. Neither is raising three teenagers. If you can help Lori’s family through their grief by chipping in, however little, please do.

Fuck Cancer

About four years ago, my daughter swapped competitive rock climbing for club volleyball. Just before her first game, her nerves got the best of her. I could see it on her face. She was terrified.

When she climbed, all the pressure was on her—and just her. Which was its own kind of terror. Now she had teammates, a dozen other little girls who she felt compelled to fight with and for. A different, new kind of pressure.

I did what I always did just before she competed. I looked at her, made sure she was looking at me, and I pointed my fingers at her and then at me. You’ve seen the move. Show ‘em, Ric:

The difference? I would point back at my own face and draw my fingers in a wiggly fashion down my cheeks. This was a code, something to remind my daughter what the most important thing was about competing. No, it wasn’t to remind her to have fun or play hard. It was to remind her that the goal was to make the girls on the other team cry.

Well, one of my daughter’s new teammates saw me doing this, and asked Charlee, “What’s your dad doing?”

Charlee explained our little ritual, and instead of saying, “That’s weird” or “Your dad is a maniac,” this little girl looked at me with 100-mile-an-hour intensity and returned the gesture. I thought, I need to know who raised this little girl because they are my people.

And we did meet them. And they are our people. And chances are, if you were a fan of The Oprah Winfrey Show, you know who they are. They made news for the most tragic and most mysteriously beautiful reasons you can imagine. Here’s a quick summary if you’re unfamiliar:

A semi plowed into their minivan. In the minivan were the mom, her mom, and their three babies.

Only the moms survived.

The dad had to go to three separate hospitals to learn that all of their babies had been lost in the accident.

Amidst their grief—and in an unimaginable showing of faith, courage, and love—they got pregnant again.

Triplets.

Two girls and a boy. Same genders as the babies before them.

We met them, learned this, and I’ve since been knocked over by their joy—again and again and again…The dad has become the kind of friend I can have a real conversation with, about anything—politics, religion, mental health, all the topics most people avoid—and in a quick about-face, we’ll pivot to dick jokes and laugh ourselves silly. I’m hardly a sage, but I don’t know what else you could want from a friendship.

Except maybe this:

I want him to be okay. And I want his family to be okay.

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Seems simple enough—but right now, they are not okay. The mom has just been diagnosed with an aggressive bout of breast cancer and brain cancer. Reread that. Read it a third time. Really feel it.

For most people, two simultaneous cancer diagnoses would be the worst thing that could ever happen to them. Not this family. This family has already had much, much worse. Even Job from The Book of Job looks at this family and is like, “Shit, that blows.”

I know this is All Kinds of Funny, and this week’s post doesn’t really bring the house down. But hear me out: “fun” is the root of “funny,” and it’s fun to do things that feel good. This family needs financial support to pay medical bills. If you can chip in anything, do it and feel good.

If you need me to tug harder on your heartstrings, know that I asked permission to share this from Chris, the dad. This was his reply:

First, know that Chris is going to read this, and when he gets to the phrase “If you need me to tug harder,” he’s definitely going to snort. He’s a crazy smart guy, but he knows the setup to a good dick joke when he hears one.

Second, if you read All Kinds of Funny, you can be confident that Chris Coble is also your people, and if you don’t support your people, then really, what kind of a person are you? Probably an emotional tumbleweed, I’d guess. The moral equivalent of a scrotum full of dry rocks. A moist towelette, twice used by someone with a dozen OnlyFans subscriptions.

Don’t be that person. Be fun. Feel good. Give a little. Click this link or click the image below, and give what you can. They’ve had an Old Testament run already, they’re wonderful people—the very best of all of us—and anything you give will be an investment in the most profound love you can imagine.

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