What just happened?
I am as shocked as anyone else about the closeness of the 2020 election. The fact that Donald Trump has nearly 70 million votes is appalling. While I wasn’t necessarily expecting a landslide Biden victory, I was not prepared for this.
Media outlets failed the Left. “Expert” pollsters fucked up miserably. Vox and the Washington Post embarrassed themselves when they called “shy Trump voters” a myth — not because the rest of us had any clue, but because it is literally their job to have a clue.
Even if Biden wins the election — and it really is looking that way — I am still deeply disappointed about how things have manifested. …
It’s time for servers to redirect their angst.
After coming across an article on the 10 Archetypes of Tippers, I decided it was time to put an end to servers’ intransigence about Tipping Culture.
Most servers will say “If you don’t tip, you’re a jerk”; “If you tip under 20%, you’re cheap” — that article above defines a 15% tip as paltry; and “If you argue about this, you’re a complete douchebag.”
In other words, according to servers, whenever you go out to eat, whatever you were planning on paying — including taxes — expect to add 20–30% to that bill.
Anything else is immoral.
Did You Know: Your Employer Doesn’t Respect You
I’m gonna break it down as simply as possible, ready? …
Consider this my Ode to Nietzsche. Here are twelve original aphorisms — in no particular order — bringing 2020 to a close and making space for 2021.
- I refuse to live a life that can justify — to itself — the use of a microwave.
- If you don’t go on any adventures, you won’t have any stories to tell.
- I’m addicted to checking my email, even though nothing’s ever there — “and that nothing, it gazes back at me…”
- The Political Left is so afflicted by pacificism and pride that it can’t see that the Climate Crisis is a war on the Fossil Fuel Industry — when will its means complement its ends? …
“P E G A S U S T H O T Z” is the title track from the EP of the same name by Bay Area freak-folk musician Kevin Patrick, aka field medic.
It is fitting that I should begin this series reviewing one of kev’s analog-folk masterpieces, because it was kev whom I first met in San Francisco, at a Dios de Los Muertos Parade at 24th & Mission, several years before Sunroom Recordz & Salon ($RZ&$) would ever go public.
We talked for hours, walking 1 mph, surrounded by painted faces and humongous papier-mâché skeletons — I think we shared some almonds from a tiny Ziploc® baggy at one point; I don’t remember who had supplied them — , and we definitely traded pairs of boots by the end of the night: my original boots can be seen in the P E G A S U S T H O T Z EP album cover. …
- we don’t know how it will end & we will never get to know
- our understanding of beginnings & ends is so narrow, it is utterly unreliable
Success As A Music Artist Isn’t Magic. It’s Cause And Effect.
These words serve as a Mission Statement, bannered across the top of TheMusicBusiness.com, an artist development company founded by Hannibal Brumskine III.
Brumskine III started off as a consultant for service-based businesses and corporations in his area — helping them get more customers. He eventually migrated towards his passion for music and began to help artists get more fans, using the same tools and strategies that he used on small businesses.
Brumskine III saw the level of dependence aspiring artists put on record labels and realized that what record labels did to grow the careers of their artists, he’d been doing to grow businesses in his area for years. …
This week, another member of the media was fired for using hateful, bigoted language when he thought the mic was off. Thom Brennaman, an announcer for the Cincinnati Reds — a Major League Baseball team in Ohio — was caught shamelessly using a homophobic slur. (I will let you follow the link and have a listen for yourself.)
(Nearly) worse than his remark — though of course not actually — was his soon-after, carefully constructed apology:
“I made a comment earlier tonight that, I guess, went out over the air that I am deeply ashamed of. I don’t know if I’ll be putting on this headset again. …
Sometimes we can get so caught up in our daily grinds that we forget the foundational wisdoms that have led us to here. Our world was not made by accident. Our world is manufactured. But remembering to see through the artifice of our societies, to the sources of our knowing, is good for our health — both mentally and spiritually.
What follows is 5 Lessons I have derived from 5 Philosophers (not necessarily in the classic sense) who inspire me to recenter my movement through this busy world. Reading these lessons daily and trying to embody their truth helps me step outside of the constructed-ness of our world and access the deeper meanings that flow beneath the surface. …
