Status Update • 28 March 2023

This is a photo of me, circa 45-ish years ago. For the past few weeks it’s been my cover photo on my personal Facebook page, but I had to take it down. I got tired of getting email and private messages from (mostly) women telling me how cute my butt looked in tight Levi’s. Sorry, folks. It’s been a long time since I could squeeze into size 32x34 jeans.

When I look at me in this photo, though, what I see most clearly is my wallet in my left rear pocket. Maybe that’s what writers see when they look at me, too. 

This photo actually is relevant to Stupefying Stories and what’s been going on around here lately, and I’ll get back to it in a minute, but first, I’ve had more than a few people ask what I thought of the Wired article on Brandon Sanderson. Truthfully, I haven’t read it, don’t feel highly motivated to read it, and have no opinion. I long ago consigned Wired to the same cognitive trash bin where I put Rolling Stone back when I used to care about music. It’s a notch above Tiger Beat, yes, but only a very thin notch. There’s lots of glitz, buzz, and highly emotive writing about personalities, of the sort produced by groupies who aspire to be journalists or at least to get invited back to the hotel for the concert after-party, but very little meaningful substance. Ergo, I don’t read it.

My God. Tiger Beat still exists. I had no idea. I had even less care.

For the past two-plus weeks we’ve been in condition Lawyers, Guns and Money around here as things have suddenly broken loose as regards settling Karen’s estate. Someday I’ll probably have lots of incisive satire to write about the drama of dealing with banks, courts, investment brokers and pension funds, but right now, all I can say is that when you’re in the middle of the swamp, all you can see are the—

 

Oops. Out of time. Spent too much time on Adobe Stock trying to find a good photo of f**king alligators. Guess I’ll have to explain the relevance of that photo of me and the pile of synthesizers in my next post. 

Cheers,
~brb