Whatever, Reader

As an elementary school rascal in Upland, California, I attended the G.A.T.E. program—gifted and talented education. Classes centered around developing pattern identification skills to better draw connections between disparate things or ideas. Was I proud? You bet I was. A young kid among the local intellectual elite. Here, though, I want to write about why my opinion on that has changed. Intelligence isn't an apex trait, just another attribute of the complete human. How do you define intelligence? Street smarts? Ethical reasoning? Imagination? Appeal? Wit?  The geniuses of art make their messages easy to digest. They don't have to be complicated, and even when they are, they provoke emotion more than they bewilder. Albrecht D ü rer's symbolism stirred questions, while Jackson Pollack's splatter paintings introduced a whirlwind in which viewers could find their own place.  Did D ü rer predict the Krampus? In Room 237 , a documentary that explores Stanley Kub

"I don't know if I like it or not," my cousin said after trying a Mediterranean Olive Oil Triscuit . I love this statement. It always rings my Pavlovian bell. Familiar, pleasing flavors are arranged so savorlessly that the taster is shocked into doubt. "I don't know," really means, "I don't like it enough to say I like it." It is flavor without punch, harmony without a melody—rarely does it succeed alone. As a preeminent authority on flavor and opinions, I want to share my findings about the flavorless nature of how I and others discuss stuff today. Perhaps it's always been this way, but I see so much contradiction that occurs on social media. I know, big surprise. The loudest critics police others' appropriate conduct, and violations are called bigoted, misogynistic, idiotic, misinformed, etc. If opinions were bowling balls, these people are the lane bumpers. They hammer out all mistakes until the ball lurches through a random path

My reading list these days suggests that I haven't been all that creative. On my nightstand sits a copy of Introduction to Marketing , Ogilvy on Advertising , Getting to Yes , Interviewing for Journalists , and even Merriam-Webster's Vocabulary Builder to try and remedy my piss poor vocabulary. I bought a new thesaurus. I bought a book on grammar. I even started one of those Bill O'Reilly books my cousin suggested. Didn't last long though. All this reading is in an effort to create better stuff.  Sometimes I sit and watch TV, drink a few beers, and remain in a state of self-sabotage for hours before suddenly, out of nowhere, something of inter-dimensional importance hammers into my thoughts. It could come from a TV ad, the static on the radio, or a speck on the wall. There's a question so profoundly stated back to myself that I feel like I'll erupt if I don't write it down immediately. It's a truth, and I know it, and until tomorrow morning once I

In my copy of The Great Gatsby by F. Scott Fitzgerald, the introduction suggests the novel makes no particular call to action, no inclination to political correctness. There is no clear message advertised through story. Literature, they offer, serves no greater cause than for pleasure, and this novel immortalizes Fitzgerald as a master of such. There is irony here, since the novel comments on, even parodies, the social circles where this kind of reasoning flourishes, and it was within these same social circles that Gatsby generated his legendary esteem. To overlook Fitzgerald's creation of a hero from the vapid, spineless froth whipped up by high society, well, that is where I must disagree with the introduction's conclusion. Jay Gatsby is perpetually blurry to all who experience him. All facts known about his life are muddied by a history that no two characters can get quite straight. His photographs, even, confirm the shakiest of suspicions, and yet nothing is prove

from The Huffington Post As I pause to destroy my technologically faulty keyboard and wireless mouse (my keyboard is a cabled $10 second hand model) for not responding when I click, allowing me to write an entire first sentence without even realizing my keystrokes were lost in the abyss of the inactive window, I am confronted with the obstinacy of nature, and my inability to affect it at my whim. It is frustrating. This reality upsets my comfort, and sometimes I want to scream. I may become angry, and if someone crosses my path at the wrong time, who knows what could happen? My emotions may take over, or maybe I'll suppress them longer, but that is only likely to make me crack, and if I crack, what then? What happens when one's emotions drive him to a place where he no longer feels capable relating to society? This is but one of the many questions raised by Ken Kesey's One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest . Are any of us crazier than the average asshole? Randle

Image property of MLB.com In 2003, I don't remember what the hell I was doing. I was still in high school, in hot pursuit of the American Dream. The important things were good grades, explosive charisma, and whatever extracurriculars I had chosen. I didn't watch baseball. While it appealed to me here and there, I knew little beyond a handful of names on trading cards and a few viewings of the World Series. It wasn't important.  I couldn't distinguish between a sinking curveball and a sailing 4-seamer, let alone when to use either, or against whom. Showboating? Don't b atters just get beaned by accident? I asked, blind to the whirlwind of signals coming from the dugout as the base coach patted his chest, chin, chest, chin, left bicep, right wrist, chin, sweep some dust off the left forearm. No, i f baseball were a food, I was savoring a bag of Mediterranean Oil potato chips in a room full of Italian chefs. It's  an acquired taste, and until you chance