It was a call I had dreaded my entire life. With effort I could push the lingering fear out of my thoughts, a Zen-like meditation exercise to return me to tranquility, contemplating the vastness of the billions…
Tip #29: Getting off High Horses and Checking Your Privilege
Pleasant undulations. Pleasant undulations between my legs. Crisp air and greenery overhead, high-fiving its arboreal friends from the other side of the crimson dust road. I didn’t expect it to be pleasant. I had seen it on TV,…
Tip #28: So Help Me God, I Will Roar
God really broke the mold when he made humans, according to the Abrahamic faiths. It goes a little something like this: Let Us make man in Our image, after Our likeness, and let them have dominion overrrr…damn, I can barely…
Tip #27: The Ultimate Cockblock
Let me tell you about this one dickbag I met. OK, honestly that was crass, but so are many things about this story and its title. I swear, I tried to name this something a bit more civilized,…
Tip #26: Big Hustle in Little China
For such a stereotypically cultureless place, the United States sure has a lot of cultures in it. Disregarding the 90% of the country where tractor tires flank the entrance to the dirt path that takes you to…
Tip #25: Holding onto Your Butt (or Kissing it Goodbye)
In my imagination, it happened like a movie. A sunny, summer day near some golden wheatfields in the middle of the Czech Republic. Grasshoppers making that characteristic, dry, whittling sound, like someone was holding a knife at…
Tip #24: When Having a Pet Doesn’t Teach You Responsibility
It was only after a few days that I learned Nadia had killed someone. As forceful as that sentence is, believe it or not, it is not as bad as it seems. One day she had been driving, surprisingly sober,…
Tip #23: A Mack Don’t React
I am a dirty, crusty, unwashed, patchouli-stank hippie. Given my blonde dreads, my penchant for roots reggae, and my total desire to understand, but complete ignorance of, the black man’s struggle, most would call me…
Tip #22: Grieving Vicariously
I’ve tried, at times, to count how many human beings I have truly interacted with in my short lifetime. Besides those who I’ve ordered a burger from, picked up my dry cleaning from, or simply said “Excuse me,” to on…
Tip #21: Howdy, I’m a Haole…and Other Things to Never Say in Hawaii
Prejudice is a bitch; and I’m white. I think everyone would agree that the black and native populations around the world have experienced prejudice to the most extreme degree, enduring centuries of persecution, systemic discrimination, and often genocide. Nevertheless it…