They always tell me, “do your own research.”
Actually, it’s usually, without punctuation, “its lies wake up America dont listen to the experts do your own research.” Or something like that.
So I did. I did my own research. It turns out that if you want the economy to get better, you can’t just start drilling for more oil and assume the price of everything will go way down. Continue reading
Readers, I want to thank you for reading this blog for over a decade. I started this blog in 2012. Originally it was a blog about being a father, but I realized the platform could be useful, and so I kept at it for twelve years.
I’ve covered topics from religion, to politics, to parenting, to literature, to the different ways to describe Tom Waits’s Voice.
In all this time, the blog, of course, has been free. And I intend it to stay that way.
And while I believe in free resources and I don’t like asking for money, I’d like to give readers an opportunity to support the work of this blog. Writing takes work. And when it comes to doing research, that work can sometimes take hours.
Not to mention that I’ve had work published outside this blog, and believe it or not, some journals don’t pay their contributors. But I try to provide links to them anyway.
So if you have found this blog enjoyable, useful, or even tolerable throughout the years—or maybe you just feel the urge to support another “starving artist” in this world— today you have the opportunity to give a little something to help support that work. At your discretion.
So if you feel so inclined, here are three venue options through which you can support a hard-working writer.
Paypal
@CGuard
Venmo
@Caleb-Guard
Cashapp
$CCGuard
God bless you all. And God bless Robin Hood!
You can accuse mainstream outlets like MSNBC of being “state-run” all you want, but the proof is in the pudding.
In WW2 A newspaper owned by a U.S. President would be bad, but a newspaper owned by Hitler would be worse.
Tucker Carlson has always been and always will be an opportunist who has no problem capitulating to a dictator rather than engaging in journalism that serves We the People.
And men like Putin know that he would only be useful until he needs to have them executed, because men like Carlson will always go wherever the wind blows them.
The popularity of such a “news” personality should concern you greatly. If Russia ever successfully invaded the U.S., Tucker Carlson would be among those who would gladly shake hands with a dictator and volunteer to be his personal spokesperson. Because he already has.
So if he’s bad for our country, and we want to be a healthy democracy, our solution is to refuse to watch him, and address the serious problem of those who do watch him. That is why one should never apologize for ridiculing, mocking, and exposing fans of his material. This isn’t about opinion or taste in television. It’s about duty to your fellow man.
As to John Stewart, John Oliver, or Stephen Colbert, whether you like them or not, they excel at reminding us the emperor has no clothes.
Men like Tucker Carlson will bend over backwards to tell a naked king, “what fine threads you have.”
Even more than last year. I’ve been really at it in the satire field. Meanwhile, some fiction, poetry, and non-fiction continues to appear. I appreciate all the reader support during this time.
A couple weeks ago I received some exciting news.
It turns out that an essay I had written in 2021 and published in 2022 was featured in 2023, making my name appear in bookstores everywhere, including the great chain Barnes and Noble.
This felt like a great milestone. I had to celebrate.
So folks, while I have yet to have an actual work of my own appear in the shelves of such a conglomerate book peddler, rest assured, you can find me there, in a way.
If you’re curious, the essay is titled “In Maggie’s Shadow,” and appeared in issue 71 of Potomac Review. Here is a link to a snippet of it.
You can order a copy here.
The essay gained recognition in the 2023 volume Best American Essays. The essay does not appear in the book, but the editors gracefully selected it as “notable.” I’m blushing.
A couple Sundays ago my 11-year-old told me that he learned about the war happening in Israel and how he wanted to pray for them.
Then he said, “And God will always take Israel’s side, right?” Continue reading
It’s true, I think about the Roman empire a lot. There are a few reasons.
I’m a male.
I’m American.
I’m Christian.
But one of these things makes me think about the Roman empire in a very different way than the other two.
This month I have a new short story appearing in Mystery Tribune online:
Click here to read “Cherokee Knives”
And this month’s satires:
It’s Me, First Watch: Stop Referring To Me as the Instagrammer’s Cracker Barrel in Greener Pastures
I, Herman Melville, Ask That You Please Stop Teaching My Bloated Whale Encyclopedia to High Schoolers in Jane Austen’s Wastebasket
Album Names For Your Dad’s Bluegrass Cover Band in Weekly Humorist
It’s a new month, and summer has been productive. Here’s an update on the writing that’s been coming out from Caleb Coy Industries—a thing that I just made up.
My latest personal essay out in Change Seven. “Neighbors Now” Take a look!
My first publication in a sci-fi journal, 365 Tomorrows. A flash fiction piece called “A Thousand Tiny Steps” Take a look!
A short article, “What Kurt Vonnegut Taught Me About Writing For a Living” in Writing101
And here are some of the recent satires:
“Help Me: I Am Vehicle Illiterate” in MuddyUm
“I, Male Director of This Film, am Excited to Flesh Out This Female Character, Who is On Screen For Three Minutes” in Greener Pastures
“A Sitcom In Which Putin and Trump Share a Prison Cell, Starring Only Actual Things They’ve Said”
in Doctor Funny
“German Words For Complex Emotions You Didn’t Know About” in Slackjaw
“T.S. Eliot Reviews The Little Mermaid” in MuddyUm
“National “Weed Your Garden Day” Is Now National “Weed Garden” Day” in The Haven
“Diaries of a Dying Jellyfish That Has Just Been Discovered By Two Third Grade Boys”
in MuddyUm
“We’ve Run Out Of Ways To Make a Message Self-Destruct” in MuddyUm
“Other Things To Try In a Small Town: A Tourism Guide” in The Haven
CALEB COY 