I have never been a local—never the native. I’ve always been the transplant, the visitor, the outsider, the interloper. I have met people who have never left the town they were born in and everyone they’ve ever known resides within 50 miles of their home, but I have never been that guy. I have always been from somewhere else.
The Flyers Are The Team Philly Fans Need Right Now
When you’re a city with a reputation for being a tough, scrappy underdog with a chip on your shoulder, finding yourself as the team to beat can be disorienting. Philadelphia has never been one of the big dogs. No legacy of championship eras here. We’ve never been the San Francisco 49ers of the 80s and 90s, or the Yankees with 27 World Series titles to their name. No one has ever mistaken us for “America’s Team.” We’re Philly. We’re lucky if all our players are out on bail in time for the game.
A Spring’s Day Is Never Done
A diary entry on the seemingly endless requirements of a full spring day.
I Guess I’ll Know When I Get There
When I was around seven or eight years old, I became fascinated by the guitar. I had a toy model with plastic strings that I would strum along to the radio, believing that at least some of the time I was in tune with whatever I was listening to. This was the instrument of choice of both John Denver and Johnny Cash, two revered artists in our household, but it was my uncle Newell in Oklahoma who first allowed me to hold a real guitar and attempt to make it sing.
The Taste Of A Dream
Before today, I couldn’t have told you what dreams tasted like. I could have told you what they smelled like. They smell of freshly mowed grass, sweat, oiled leather, dirt, stale beer, pine tar, and chewing tobacco. They sound like the crack of a wooden bat hitting a tightly-wound ball of string and leather, and the corresponding roar of the crowd as they cheer you round the horn.
The Disturbing Lack Of Young People At Protests
Anecdotal evidence suggests that young people are not protesting America’s growing fascism because they don’t know anything else.
It’s Really Bad, And It’s Never Gonna Be This Good Again
Most Americans are clueless as to how bad our current crisis is and how much worse it’s likely to get Originally published in June, 2022 It’s likely to get worse, maybe a lot worse, before it gets any better. This is often what we’re told when the situation looks grim.…
The American Revolution, Part II
Crossing the protest threshold of 3.5% to avoid a civil war and induce regime change through peaceful revolution.
How They Ruined Toto’s Africa For Me
The social media mob that tries to promote progress by negating that we evolve, keeps trying to rewrite history.
Can The 3.5% Rule Save America?
In 2013, political scientist Erica Chenoweth proposed the 3.5% rule, which argued that according to historical data from 1900 to 2006, whenever nonviolent protests against an authoritarian regime reached the tipping point of 3.5% of a country’s population, that government was almost always certain to fall. There was something about that number that created a tipping point that would go on to engulf the entire country and eventually cause regime change.