“People worry about kids playing with guns, and teenagers watching violent videos; we are scared that some sort of culture of violence will take them over. Nobody worries about kids listening to thousands – literally thousands – of songs about broken hearts and pain and misery and loss. The unhappiest people I know, romantically speaking,Continue reading “On mental illness for Scott Hutchinson’s 40th birthday”
Author Archives: Brian
Weather in PV, a short poem
November-May: Perfect! June: It’s starting to get hot and humid now. A little rain but it’s nice! July-August: Good lord, this is a lot of rain but at least it cools things down a bit! September: How is it still this hot and humid? October: HOW IS OCTOBER THIS HOT!
Our first hurricane
One of the nice things about living in Las Vegas is that you’re largely immune from natural disasters. There is the risk of earthquakes, but nowhere near the same risk that exists in neighboring California. No major, destructive earthquake has hit Las Vegas since being settled by Europeans in the mid 1850s. Of course, nowhereContinue reading “Our first hurricane”
Man, it’s a hot one (extreme Rob Thomas voice)
Suppose I should address the elephant in the room and explain why it’s been months without a post except I really have no good explanation. Like all things in life, it’s a little bit of this and a little bit of that. We travelled all around the country for the better part of a monthContinue reading “Man, it’s a hot one (extreme Rob Thomas voice)”
Things I miss, an incomplete list
In most respects living in Mexico is not very different from living in the United States. This will disappoint many people, but the physical and cultural proximity to the US — much more pronounced in a resort town like Puerto Vallarta — means if you squint your eyes and don’t think about it much there’sContinue reading “Things I miss, an incomplete list”
Semana Santa
You’d be forgiven for thinking that I may have vanished off the face of the earth, especially after I realized my last post detailed occasional struggles with transitioning to life in Mexico. I’m not paying a great deal to have this here site hosted, but it’s certainly not the best use of my money toContinue reading “Semana Santa”
Pushing through the six-week blues
I’ve been silent here for quite awhile for a variety of reasons, all of which I’ll eventually try to get into. We’re still trying to settle in and running into bumps in the road here and there which are frustrating me and which I need to get over. The most recent involves trying to getContinue reading “Pushing through the six-week blues”
Checking in after one month in Mexico
With a month living in Mexico now under our belts thought I’d just share some of the unique things we’ve found living south of the border. Street dogs It’s pretty rare in the US to see a dog just walking around without an owner near it, but you’re apt to see several here any timeContinue reading “Checking in after one month in Mexico”
Reading Reaganland and the slow-motion death of America
I’ve been reading Reaganland, the latest volume in Rick Perlstein’s incredible series of books (Nixonland, The Invisible Bridge) that serve as not only a history of conservatism in the 1970s, but also as a pre-history of the modern conservative political movement. If you’ve ever wondered how we got to a place where the Republican PartyContinue reading “Reading Reaganland and the slow-motion death of America”
Talk about your all-time backfires
In the 1996 cult classic Happy Gilmore our hockey-obsessed eponymous hero gets a date with the girl of his dreams, the PGA PR director Virginia Bennett portrayed by Julie Bowen and decides to take her on a romantic ice skating date. This is a very, very young Julie Bowen (above), presumably before she was defiledContinue reading “Talk about your all-time backfires”