63.2% of Statistics Are Completely Made Up

Racism Vs. Prejudice

Warning: I expect to stray from the central thesis a lot in this article. A while back, I was obliged to explain the difference between racism and prejudice, after a fairly disturbed friend (not mentally, she was just upset) reported that she was called a racist during a casual dinner out with her husband and his raucous Coast Guard buddies. Although the explanation can easily be summed up in one or two sentences, I’m going to flesh it out a bit because it's way slow at work and I forgot to bring my Kindle with me. We’ll start with the official definitions. The Oxford English Dictionary defines “Prejudice” as: 1. an opinion that is not based on reason or experience; 2. dislike or unfair behavior based on such opinions. “Racism” is defined as: 1. the belief that each race has certain qualities or abilities, giving rise to the belief that certain races are better than others; 2. discrimination or hostility against other races. Back to my friend. Picture it: Benihana at ...

Carole is Beautiful

Carole King is beautiful. She is majestic and brilliant and talented and legendary and she has great hair. I was still young and living in the city the first time I listened to “Tapestry” all the way through. I had already heard every song a thousand times, except “Beautiful”; this was the first. It is positive, upbeat, motivational; it’s fake it ‘til you make it; it’s see it and be it. It was the worst song I could have listened to back then. New York City will always be glamorous and exciting to anyone who has never lived there. Everyone needs to see it, at least once. Every Long Island kid needs to live there, for a least a year. In short, New York City is necessary. It also sucks; it is depressing and it sucks. Consider the city from the perspective of someone who can just barely afford to live there. Your small studio apartment is nothing more than a box; it is a small box within a large box. (I never actually did the shoebox studio, but work with me on this one.) You wa...

About John

On November 23 rd , 2018, the day after Thanksgiving, John Vincent Kaplan took his own life. He was 43 years old. I met John in September of 1993 when I was 17 and he was 18. We had been set up by a mutual friend, upon whom he had a massive crush. Said friend basically just wanted to get him off her back. John was exactly what my silly adolescent mind considered to be perfect boyfriend material: he was beautiful (vaguely resembled Jim Morrison, his idol); he had the soul of a tortured poet; great singing voice, with a rock star swagger to match; we had the same taste in music, movies and books; we shared the same sick, inappropriate sense of humor. Needless to say, my dumb ass was smitten. We were doomed. It took more than two years for me to realize that I had to end our relationship, and another year and a half before I mustered up the courage to actually end it. By then I was 22 and not the same person I was when I was 17. At 23, John hadn’t changed since the day I met him. I...

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