Wayne's World

She lay in my lap, every inch of her 5-foot frame tensed. You have to keep pushing, I said. You have to get him out now, she said. After a relatively quick 7 hour labor, here we sat. Her body stuck into my lap on the bathroom floor. The midwives sitting at the other end, waiting for the baby to arrive. Our baby, still an abstract thought to me, becoming more real with every second. His head was halfway out but now stuck in the canal. We need you to push harder than before, we sang in unison. A chorus of sirens beckoning her towards the rocks. I can’t, I can’t, she said as she pushed harder than before. The quick labor was followed by an unbelievably tough delivery. It turns out the baby was asynclitic transverse with a nuchal arm. Basically that means his body was in a super fucked up position with a elbow curled up next to his face. My wife was trying to push out the Tasmanian Devil from those old Looney Toons cartoons. And then she did it. With a ferocity and strength I’d never ...

This was taken from another blog I have since deactivated... I found out I was going to be a dad on my birthday. At six in the fucking morning. Sleep-deprived and still a bit bourbon-soaked from the night before, I had planned to sleep in until the sun shining through the window (and ringing in my head) woke me up. My wife, and the little mutant growing in her uterus, had other plans. She yelled - more like yelped - at me. That's very disconcerting for a completely asleep and fairly drunk person. I shot up from the pillow in a cold sweat (that's just a turn of phrase because the Arizona summer heat and the alcohol in my system actually resulted in a very warm, sticky and altogether unpleasant sweat that's not nearly as thought provoking). My first thought was "What the fuck is happening!?" The worst ran through my head. Home invasion. Or, my knock off Macbook charger exploded and the house is burning down. Or, FX cancelled It's Always Sunny in Philadelphi...

 Originally published by Modern Times Magazine on June 29, 2016 Prolific author and current Phoenician James Sallis is best known for creating hard-boiled crime fiction like the Driver and Lew Griffin series. His latest effort, Willnot , shares many similarities with those works, but it is also a departure for the author. Less a gritty and in your face crime novel, Willnot is more of a complex amalgamation of science fiction, bildungsroman and, yes, crime fiction that challenges the reader’s preconceptions about what it means to be normal and humanity’s stomach for violence. Much like Sallis’ previous works, Willnot is a technically proficient novel in which the author wastes few words as he creates the town of Willnot, a fictional place that feels because of Sallis’ knack for establishing place. Anyone who’s read Drive or the Lew Griffin novels knows what I am talking about. Sallis has the unique ability to accurately describe his landscapes in a way that truly b...

Originally Published by Modern Times Magazine on June 5, 2013 DBA Press and the Center for Media and Democracy recently released Dissent or Terror an 88-page report illustrating a complicated network of law enforcement agencies and large corporations working together to stifle Occupy Phoenix and similar protests. The report — which is supplemented by over 1,000 emails, communications and other documents in the appendix — highlights the ways in which local and federal law enforcement and large corporations cooperated with one another through the use of “fusion centers” and other means, especially in the Phoenix metro, to limit the impact of activists that could adversely affect the corporate business community. The document primarily focuses on “fusion centers,” information-sharing communities made up of local and federal law-enforcement agencies. The centers were originally created in a “counter-terrorism/all-hazards” capacity. According to the document, the centers, ...

Originally published by Modern Times Magazine on Feb. 6, 2012 Which 19th century German is the latest philosopher to infiltrate mainstream cable? Perhaps not shockingly, it is not Arthur Schopenhauer. Nor is it Ludwig Feuerbach, Bruno Bauer or Max Stirner. It is not even Karl Marx — everyone knows he infiltrated cable TV a long time ago. It is the ubermensch of philosophy, Friedrich Nietzsche, and he is coming to a television near you by way of the FX network and It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia . This ‘depraved’ and hilarious comedy that recently received a three-season contract renewal to extend the series to an unprecedented tenth season — employs more than a few passing nods to the German iconoclast. The main characters in It’s Always Sunny — Dennis, Dee, Mac, Charlie, and Danny DeVito's Frank — make up the "Gang," a group of self-centered individuals that run a Philadelphia bar — Paddy's Pub — and work with every fiber of their being to avoid wo...

 Originally published by Modern Times Magazine on Dec. 24, 2016 Over the past decade, The Elf on the Shelf has quickly become a Christmas tradition of sorts alongside leaving out milk and cookies for Santa or drunkenly arguing with your dad at dinner. But the seemingly whimsical tradition — in which parents leave an elf doll in various spots throughout the house during the holidays — may not be all fun and games. In fact, the Elf’s detractors argue that it is marketing disguised as tradition and ultimately conditions children to blindly accept intrusive surveillance. The Elf on the Shelf tradition is based off of the 2004 children’s book The Elf on the Shelf: A Christmas Tradition written by Carol Aebersold and Chanda Bell. The book follows scout elves that work for Santa Claus by visiting homes and reporting good and bad behavior back to jolly old St. Nick. Nowadays, parents can visit the Elf on the Shelf website to find stores that sell merchandise, project ideas ...

I'm a Phoenix-based journalist, writer and editor who is currently managing editor for Scottsdale Progress, a weekly newspaper in Scottsdale, Ariz. I spend most of my time chasing down leads, holding local government accountable or otherwise pissing people off. This blog is a repository for some of my older writing that is at risk of disappearing from the Internets.