“Time is like a roll of toilet paper. The closer it gets to the end, the faster it goes.” — Andy Rooney Preserving the past is like herding cats in a wind tunnel—chaotic, noble, and almost always covered in dust. But when I stumbled over a box in the attic labeled “Old Stuff – Maybe Important?”, I didn’t find junk. I found treasure. Faded photographs. Forgotten faces. And one particularly blurry image that looked like Uncle Al photobombing his own wedding. It all started with a love story. Kenneth Victor Smith, a wide-eyed soldier from Los Angeles, stationed in Liverpool at the tail end of WWII, met Peg—a Liverpudlian firecracker…
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From Rock Gods to Goat Farms The weird fate of classic album covers
Once upon a time, a band could slap a blurry Polaroid on a CD case, doodle their name in Sharpie, and call it an album cover. Today, those charmingly rough edges have vanished into multimillion-dollar CGI extravaganzas, using drone fleets, underwater film crews, and NASA-led lunar photo shoots. But amidst the glittering absurdity, a newer, stranger trend has emerged. Original artists who famously blew through their fortunes are now cashing out by selling their iconic album cover rights. And, surprisingly, their biggest buyers aren’t music labels or nostalgic fans. They’re farmers and zoo keepers. Once-legendary album art now adorns llama barns, goat cheese packaging, and alligator feed bags. That psychedelic…
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Trump Trades and Tirades The breakfast flakes, cigarettes, and canned catastrophes of America’s first infomercial couple
Viewer Discretion Advised The following presentation includes emotionally intense moments drawn from a lesser-known chapter in the saga of Donald J. Trump. The glossy, ink-smudged era of the 1950s and 60s when dignity was irrelevant and his face was plastered across print ads with all the authenticity of a mannequin having a midlife crisis. Throughout this presentation, you will encounter real-life examples of emotional hardship and hair shellacked to within an inch of its life. Behind the confident smirk and frozen posture lies a man financially cornered into endorsing products that had all the appeal of a tax audit on Christmas morning. Ads where the copy sang lies like “he…
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The Wrinkled and the Reckless A fellowship of old fogeys redefines thrill-seeking one orthopedic mishap at a time
“You don’t stop laughing when you grow old—you stop laughing when you bend over and something snaps.” —George Bernard Shaw In a world where society gently nudges most ninety-somethings toward recliner imprisonment, emerges an anarchist battalion of geriatric gladiators hellbent on turning retirement into an extreme sport. Forget benign visions of visiting the Grand Canyon, or alphabetizing the spice rack. These senior insurgents charge full-speed ahead, wrinkles flapping in the wind, off to escapades that make action-film stunt doubles consider early retirement. Imagine scaling Mount Everest, clutching nothing but a handful of Werther’s Originals and sass sharper than their bifocals. Picture them swapping tales of swamp-wrestling alligators in the Atchafalaya…
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Chronicles of Discomfort My Life with the World’s Weirdest Emotional Support Animals
Most people, when faced with emotional turmoil or the existential hollowness that can accompany a breakup, life change, or midlife cheese crisis, turn to traditional emotional support animals (ESA). The kind you can walk on a leash, teach to fetch, or post about on social media without having to explain yourself to the FBI. Dogs. Cats. Occasionally, a snake. But I am not most people. My emotional healing journey took me down an alley behind the pet store of reason and into the black-market reptile tent of chaos. My ESAs weren’t just unusual. They were the kind of creatures that require reinforced enclosures, legally binding waivers, and, in several cases,…
