Visitation Day - I was not even born yet when the world stopped turning, twenty years ago. It is hard for me to imagine that moment, though I have heard the tale many times, for I have never seen the light of the moon or a sunrise
We hear about Tiger Woods as a prodigy at three years old. For every Tiger Woods, there are thousands of kids who never want to touch a golf club again.
Letting go. Everyone talks about it like it's the easiest thing. Unfurl your fingers one by one until your hand is open. But my hand has been clenched into a fist for three years now; it's frozen shut.
In a perfectly designed world —one with no history— we would not have to suffer everything from hemorrhoids to cancer.
Why is an actor's unintentional giggling called a 'corpse'? It seems to me quite the opposite. It proves that he's very much alive, and can still tell how silly this all is: him dressed up as someone else speaking words written by a third party.
Researchers measure that the average major-league pitcher puts 40 pounds of pressure on his shoulder by cocking and releasing the baseball. Curious how much more the body could take, those same researchers tested cadavers. The shoulder broke apart at...
I had to ride my bike to and from their god damn plant way up north in the high-chemical crime district, and reachable only by riding on the shoulder of some major freeways. I could feel the years ticking off my life expectancy as the mile markers st...
… a slave mentality which had been built into him by years of carrot-and-whip grading, a mule mentality which said, “If you don’t whip me, I won’t work.” He didn’t get whipped. He didn’t work.
For my birthday this year, my girlfriends - who knew I'd just inherited my dad's turntable - gave me a carton of albums like 'Blue Kentucky Girl,' by Emmylou Harris, and 'Off the Wall,' by Michael Jackson. It's all stuff we grew up with. I mean, you ...
When I think of the future, I think a lot of Quincy Jones and how he is an inspiration. Look at the quality of his work over so many years. He didn't even make his best record, 'Thriller,' until he was 50. That gives me something to look forward to. ...
When I came to the CIA in the mid-'90s, our graduating class of case officers was unbelievably low. Now, after years of rebuilding, our training programs and putting our best efforts to recruit the most talented men and women, we are graduating more ...
You know, if you are kind of rich, the best thing is that you don't have to think about money. The best thing you can buy with money is freedom, time. I don't know how much I earn a year. I have no idea. I don't know how much I pay in taxes.
We've been at war for 10 years with this generation of Marines. We've seen women do a whole lot of things between the war in Iraq and the current war in Afghanistan. The fact that I'm sitting here making sure that we continue to put out the best youn...
For the last five years, we have been presented with the idea that Barack Obama is superhuman. Barack Obama is unlike any of us or anyone else. And he isn't. In fact, he's much less achieved and much less accomplished than most who have gotten half a...
When I was younger, I did my first audition at 'Eurovision.' I was about 17. After my first audition, I blacked out; I was just like, 'I can't do this.' I'm not knocking it or anything - it's been around for years. I'm just very, very happy I made th...
I started out doing improvised voices when I started working in a program where I read for kids in schools. I had some kids and they asked me if I would mind doing it. I was very happy to do it. That's where I got my training before I went to the pub...
Prior to working for Fox, I worked for ABC and NBC, spent a lot of time at CNN, and almost ended up at CBS. I worked for a bunch of local stations in Los Angeles and had a talk-radio show at KABC for six years. In other words, I'm fortunate enough to...
If four years of university can increase your effectiveness of what you can do for others in the name of Christ, it is the best investment that you can make. But if the education is simply to get a job to make a lot of money, you have to raise the qu...
What a horrible feeling that is, to know that if the disease [AIDS] had primarily affected PTA presidents, or priests, or white teenage girls, the epidemic would have been ended years earlier, and tens of thousands, if not hundreds of thousands of li...
In Bio last year, I learned that blood is actually a dark maroon when it's inside your body. It's the exposure to oxygen that turns it bright red. And there must have been a lot of oxygen in my bathroom, because that blood was bright, bright red.
I have prayed for years for one good humiliation a day, and then, I must watch my reaction to it. I have no other way of spotting both my denied shadow self and my idealized persona.
