I'm not sure I can define 'hip.' I'm pretty sure I've been 'hip' occasionally (once in 1980, for about a month in 1994, and there might be a weekend in the early 'aughts when I pulled it all together), but I've usually only acquired 'hipness' by being… Read full post »

And so, I’m living in Bemidji. Oh wait—I just realized that with the way my mind works, you might be missing some details that would explain why I’m here.

I had a really primo writing gig until a couple months ago, at which point I was laid off. It seems… Read full post »

I found a screw on the floor today. Thing is, I don’t think anything I own that’s held together by screws is missing any of its screws. So what could this mean? Is it a clue—some sort of omen? What kind of ‘Lost’-inspired sign is this? Of course, if my life… Read full post »

Jokes might be my stock in trade, but music is my passion. In fact, if I’d realized how much music means to me years ago, I might have tried to make a living at it (because if the comedy business has been inconsistent, unfair and unpredictable, leading to a struggling, hand-to-mouth… Read full post »

For the first time in five years, I’ll be teaching again this week. Before you start congratulating me for re-entering this most noble of professions, it’s not like I’ll be teaching about the towering figures in modern literature, or advances in higher mathematics, or, really any… Read full post »

When did I become that guy?  Seems I was this…other guy for a lotta years. But now I’m that guy. And it’s not like I miss being that other guy, the guy I was in my thirties and forties, it’s that I don’t even recognize him—it’s hard to… Read full post »

Since being laid off from my paid writing gig, my situation has become kinda precarious.  Maybe not Jack Bauer precarious, but certainly at least MacGyver precarious.

I feel like one of those plate-spinners you would see on the Ed Sullivan Show--juggling job-hunting, payment arrangements on… Read full post »

Short version--I’ve recently been laid off by the company for which I’d been writing. Now when I signed up for a creative career, I was under the impression that I would be able to avoid the realities of the real working world—including things like ‘downsizing.’ But, it… Read full post »

So, I’m browsing around the web looking for fodder, and the headline at MSNBC says “Pope To Pray For Chile.” Now, I think it’s great for Benedict to take a break from repressing women and spreading misinformation about AIDS, my problem is that it was a headline. As if it/… Read full post »

Two months from now, despite my best efforts over the last twenty years to prevent it, I will turn fifty years old. Since my body feels seventy, and my mind feels thirty, if you split the difference that seems about right.

The best thing about approaching fifty is the amount of… Read full post »

I consider myself a spiritually-minded man, even if I’m only occasionally religious. Now I believe that God CAN be everywhere, but I’m not sure God SHOULD be everywhere. Or wants to be. Sometimes I think it’s useful to think of the universe as a big company, with God as more of… Read full post »

Weird name, Elmer. It probably sounded old-fashioned a hundred years ago. But I knew an Elmer once, only thirty years ago. He was my step-dad.

I never knew my biological father, and I deliberately use the word ‘biological’ and not ‘real.’ The man who was ‘really’ m… Read full post »

 Whew. Writing again. Every time I go longer than a couple weeks without posting something, I worry I’ve been stricken with an incredibly specific type of amnesia, one which only erases that part of my brain that knows how to write eight hundred word humorous essays.

“I’m sorry

… Read full post »

I haven’t posted anything lately, because I’ve spent the last three weeks on a much needed…nervous breakdown. And while I was in the middle of it, I didn't feel particularly funny.

This wasn't my first time dealing with anxiety. Several years ago, I called a friend because I was… Read full post »

We are a nation of immigrants, and we have made great strides toward inclusion, but there is still work to be done. For too long, one group of Americans has been ignored despite its contributions, either marginalized or ignored. I’m referring, of course, to Danish-Americans.

A million and a ha… Read full post »

This fall, I’ve been watching the two new science fiction dramas on network TV—Flash Forward and V, and after a few episodes of each, I’ve reached a carefully considered critical opinion—blah. If there were a superlative form of the word ‘blah,’ I would have used t… Read full post »

Apparently, I was confused. I thought Christmas celebrated the birth of Jesus (which, from what I’ve read, was a one-day event), but my local Walgreens is under the impression that we’re celebrating Mary’s last trimester. That’s right; their Christmas items have been on the sh… Read full post »

I have never been what you would call an athlete. My high school sports career consisted of one practice with the junior varsity basketball team. It’s not like I didn’t learn the value of teamwork, though. I was a key member of the Quartz Hill High School Math Team—talk about dealin… Read full post »

During an appearance on Oprah Winfrey’s show, President Barack Obama today resigned from office, claiming he had become “tired of dealing with knuckleheads.” What follows are excerpts from the surprisingly frank hour-long interview:

Oprah: This week is the anniversary of your elec… Read full post »

I’ve never been all that into Halloween. Not sure why, but as a kid I never did the dress up ‘trick or treat' thing, probably because even when I was very young, I was a nerd. I started playing the clarinet when I was ten years old. Instead of, say, learning… Read full post »

I’ve never thought of myself as simply a ‘food writer.’ That’s because prior to September 8^th, I had never written about food. But I sense dozens of  readers clamoring for more, so here’s a companion piece to “Meatloaf Muffins.”

 Yesterday, I had a… Read full post »

Ah, the middle of October, when thoughts naturally turn to ghoulish pumpkins, crunching leaves, and drunk Germans. Unless you live in Minnesota, where we got our first snow a few days ago. Granted, it was only a couple inches, but THAT”S NOT THE POINT! I  want to have burnt sienna tinted… Read full post »

It was inevitable. The backlash had to happen. First, the dominant culture is afraid of the marginalized outsiders. Then, they embrace them, intellectuals praise them, Hollywood makes movies about them. Finally, the overexposure causes the outsiders to resent all of this, criticizing a culture that h… Read full post »

Every so often, a particular word or phrase, something that would not normally bother me, becomes as irritating as a pop-up ad for a Scott Baio marathon. This weeks winner is that old euphemism for dying, when someone says “I lost my mom this week.”

 My mom died… Read full post »

I’ve never been a particularly linear thinker. My mind has never worked that way. And, I might have ADD. This is a challenge if I’m writing, because when people read something, they usually expect it to be in some sort of order. But frankly, sometimes I just have a whole… Read full post »