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Part I: The Horse Artificial intelligence (AI) is technology that lets machines mimic how humans learn, understand, solve problems, make decisions, and create. AI-powered apps and devices can recognize what they see, understand, and respond to human language, learn from new data, give detailed recommendations, and even act on their own — like a self‑driving car. Full disclosure, I use AI. Sometimes Google Gemini or Venice.ai to generate the images I use in My Mind and Welc

2026, Netflix. Rated R. 1 hour, 26 minutes. Directed by Tommy Wirkola. Starring Whitney Peak, Phoebe Dynevor, and Djimon Hounsou. IMDB summary: When a Category 5 hurricane decimates a coastal town, the storm surge brings devastation, chaos and something far more frightening: hungry sharks. The Plot As Category 5 hurricane Henry strikes Annieville, South Carolina, several residents are trapped in its path. Dakota (Whitney Peak), struggling with severe agoraphobia, refuses to

One day in 1993 or 1994, Betsy and I were about to drive to her mom and dad’s for dinner. I walked out to the van and fell. I didn’t trip, stumble, or lose my balance; I just…fell. What the heck? I didn’t think anything of it at the time, didn’t even mention it to Betsy, who was still in the house. I just got up and got in the van, ready to go. Around the same time, I had gotten an ocular migraine—a shimmery spot in my right eye, which went away after an injection at the ER

“Whatever happened to Fay Wray? That delicate satin-draped frame As it clung to her thigh, how I started to cry Cause I wanted to be dressed just the same” Though best known for her starring role as the ape’s unrequited love in 1933’s King Kong , Fay Wray's acting career spanned nearly 70 years and 127 appearances in film and television. Vina Fay Wray was born on September 15, 1907, in Cardston, Alberta. Her family, members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Sai

Men, did you ever get THE TALK? You know the one. The birds and the bees, and the flowers and the trees, the moon up above, and a thing called love talk? Did you get that from your dad or maybe your mom, maybe sometime in your early teen years? Women, did you get a similar talk? I didn't. Sometime in elementary school, at lunch in the cafeteria, the subject came up, but it was all hearsay and rumor, reported with great confidence by a kid who could barely tie his shoes. "Th

June. A Sunday sometime between 1988 and 1990—I can’t remember exactly, and I’m too lazy to try to find out, but this was when I rented the top floor of a big old house on the corner of Third and Jefferson in Lexington. Wednesday through Saturday, I opened at Comedy On Broadway with Art Divitas featuring and Dennis Piper headlining. My first real stand-up comedy gig. It paid $200. Cash. Sunday was unseasonably hot in a month of unseasonable heat. $200 in my pocket, I decided

Crushes There was a girl back home whom I was truly, deeply, madly in love with, as in love as any boy who had never been in love could be. We had both dated others, were never exclusive, and, looking back, were probably—really—just the absolute best of friends—but that read as love to me. I still have that glow in my heart. That said, college was a revelation. Here was a literal surfeit of NEW girls. Women! Women I had not spent most of 12 years being acquainted with in on

Author's Note: It's been a busy week, so I kind of half-assed this installment. Sorry, not sorry. Pledging continued, and a few guys who didn’t go through the official rush joined during open rush a couple of weeks later. Those of us who were freshmen settled into a new post-high school reality. For most of us, it was the first time we were away from home for an extended period. No parents, no siblings, no pets. Our accustomed safety nets were suddenly anything from a quic

After the mixers, parties, hangovers, and a couple of weeks of normal freshman life on a small college campus, Fraternity Rush was finally winding down, with bids extended and decisions made. I got bids from Sigma Nu and Sigma Phi Epsilon, and I had to make my decision before leaving Dean of Students Gorell’s office. I chose the Sig Eps, and, looking back, I think it was for a few reasons: the Snakes reminded me A LOT of the Omega Theta Pi fraternity in Animal House , and t

Rush. According to Google, rush referred to the practice of fraternities "rushing" to the train station to meet the members of a college’s freshman class and pinning their fraternity colors on the freshmen to identify them as potential members of that fraternity. OK, that sounds possible. If I remember correctly (and that’s a big “if”), I checked a box somewhere saying I was interested in joining a fraternity, and a few weeks later, I got invited to a mixer hosted by each fr

Anthony and I were friends long before KWC. My family lived next door to his when we were babies, but sometime during my first year, my dad moved us to another neighborhood, so Anthony and I didn’t really know each other. Later, we went to the same junior high and high school, and although we didn’t plan to attend the same college, once we found out, we decided to room together there. On move-in day, I spent hours lining the wall on my side of our dorm room with pages of the

"Dullsville" is on hold for a bit. I'm not happy with the progress so far, and I owe it to my collaborator on the original screenplay and myself to do it right. Serializing it was a bad idea, and painted the story into flimsy boxes that wouldn't hold up. That said, I'll be returning with new stories, and having used up my backlog of previously written tales, they'll be truly original. Stay tuned, and thanks for reading.

One minute to air, and Bale Dilweg and Angela Kirk sat patiently as the crew finished positioning cameras and adjusting microphones. Well, Angela sat patiently while Dilweg continued trying to talk her into dinner and drinks. The bastard just couldn't take "no" for an answer, even after being shut down on each of his four appearances on her show. "You know, as a Councilman, I can help you move up to the affiliate job in Spokane, or even Seattle if you play your cards right,"

Chapter 1: On the Road (continued) Not even an hour later, and the tickle was already starting up again. Of the many things that arrived with Daphne's pregnancy--morning sickness, insomnia, swollen ankles, tender breasts--the absolute worst for her was the frequent need to urinate. Well, that and the barely concealed judgment she felt from the medical "professionals" when they found out the father was a former circus freak, a real one born without legs. Honestly, Edwin's bi

Author's Note: A little less than 10 years ago, my friend Darryl and I wrote a screenplay submitted it to a competition sponsored by the Sundance Institute. It chronicled the lives of a community of sideshow performers, the essential stars of the traditional circus. Darryl and I wrote with respect; we wanted to show that, despite being ridiculed and considered outsiders, these performers were ordinary people doing their best to overcome physical and financial hardships. We

It’s all about rules. If you follow a few simple rules, you won’t have a problem. The first rule is essential. Don’t ever make it personal. As soon as you know anything more about a subject than who it is or where they’ll be at a given time, you have the potential for it to become personal. And when you take the type of jobs I do, it’s even more important that it never becomes personal. Don’t get me wrong. Know your subject’s habits, what they’re wearing, who they hang with,

It’s his funeral, for God’s sake. I’m supposed to mourn. I’m supposed to cry. I’m supposed to wear black. So I do. I’m doing pretty well, actually. I introduce Jenny as my friend. Those who don’t know better don’t care anyway, and those who know the truth pretend not to. I hear my Aunt Betty, my favorite aunt, whispering to a family friend whom I don’t recognize: “It’s such a shame. I don’t know what could have happened to make her that way. No one else in the family is a ga

I stop the truck in front of Jeri’s house and wait while she walks out and gets in. She smiles a little as she comes out the front door of her pa’s little house, but she looks down at her feet for most of the walk to the truck, so I know something is wrong, or maybe just not right. A breeze out of the west, off the reservation, out of the past, blows Jeri’s long red hair across her cleft chin and cupid’s bow lips, and I remember why I love her. Jeri opens the door of my old

“Is that red tide?” The fat woman in the black one-piece bathing suit was standing in front of me, pointing at the long skeins of dark red seaweed washed up on Turtle Beach by a hurricane far out in the Gulf. Her daughter, a pretty girl of maybe 20 who was not thin but showed few signs of inheriting her mother’s weight, smirked and kept walking. She had succeeded, accidentally, in siccing her mother on an innocent bystander. I was that innocent bystander, but I was in a good

If a guy takes a dump in a museum, is it art? I’m in the lower-level men’s room in the Hirshhorn Museum when this thought occurs to me. After viewing the Warhols (a quadruple self-portrait and umpteen screen prints of Marilyn Monroe’s lips in various colors), several works by Mario Merz (constructions of neon tubes, photographs, and other objects based on Fibonacci sequences), and the ultra-realistic sculptures of Ron Mueck (a super-sized, sullen, hairless man; a just-slight