Love and marriage Go together like a horse and carriage. Ha Ha Ha! What a joke! To young people, gay people, young gay people, I would say this: Don’t confuse “I love you” with “I want to marry you.” Read more →
Author Archive: Paul Epps
Adventures in Housebreaking
We lead the puppy to the carefully arranged newspaper. He’s four months old now, and to my way of thinking, he should be starting to get the hang of this by now. Read more →
Genius or Geek?
I was explaining to my boy how to generate a web page from a database, so I can display it different ways, add new stuff, and not have to rewrite the HTML . . . “I can see why you’re excited about that,” he said, “but I can’t really get excited about it myself because I’m not a computer gee—genius.” “Did you just say ‘computer geek’?” “Almost.” Read more →
Who Doesn’t?
Italian police seek huge breasted woman — Ananova Read more →
Hideously Uncomfortable
I was making myself hideously uncomfortable by not narrowing my attention to details of life which were immediately important, and by refusing to believe what my neighbors believed. I am better now. Word of honor: I am better now. — Kurt Vonnegut Jr., Breakfast of Champions Read more →
Happy Valentine’s Day
What do you seek, so pensive and silent? What do you need, Camerado? Dear son! do you think it is love? — Walt Whitman, “Starting from Paumanok” Read more →
Profiles in Management: The Tank Commander
In the military, when I was in tank warfare and I was actually fighting in tanks, there was nothing more soothing than people constantly hearing their commander’s voice come across the airwaves. Somebody’s in charge, even though all shit is breaking loose. . . . When you don’t hear [the commander’s voice] for more than fifteen minutes to half an hour, what’s happened? Has he been shot? Has he gone out of control? Does he know what’s going on? You worry. And this is what Microsoft is. These little offices, hidden away with the doors closed. And unless you have the constant voice of authority going across the e-mail the whole time, it doesn’t work. . . . You can’t do anything that’s complex unless you have structure. . . . And what you have to do is make that structure as unseen as possible and build up the image… Read more →
Dead Poets
For after all Humboldt did what poets in crass America are supposed to do. He chased ruin and death even harder than he had chased women. He blew his talent and his health and reached home, the grave, in a dusty slide. He plowed himself under. Okay. So did Edgar Allan Poe, picked out of the Baltimore gutter. And Hart Crane over the side of a ship. And Jarrell falling in front of a car. And poor John Berryman jumping from a bridge. For some reason this awfulness is peculiarly appreciated by business and technological America. The country is proud of its dead poets. It takes terrific satisfaction in the poets’ testimony that the USA is too tough, too big, too much, too rugged, that American reality is overpowering. And to be a poet is a school thing, a skirt thing, a church thing. The weakness of the spiritual powers… Read more →
Wholesome Authority
Then there were the Romans — whose greatness was probably due to the wholesome authority exercised by the head of a family over all its members. Some Romans had even killed their children; this was going too far, but then the Romans were not Christians and knew no better. — Samuel Butler, The Way of All Flesh Read more →
My Favorite Valentine Movies
Most Favorite Annie Hall Casablanca The Graduate Lost in Translation The Music Man Least Favorite An Affair to Remember Ghost An Officer and a Gentleman Titanic When Harry Met Sally . . . Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? Read more →
Atkins Died
Dr. Robert Atkins, who died last year, made a nice living promoting the effects of diet — specifically, a high-fat, low-carbohydrate diet — on health. According to his widow, however, Atkins’ own history of heart attack, congestive heart failure and hypertension was “completely unrelated to his diet.” Go figure . . . Read more →
Lewis vs. Clark
My son is doing a 5th grade research paper on William Clark, of Lewis and Clark fame. “Clark was a much better man than Lewis,” he says. “Why do you say that?” I ask. Read more →
Paradigm Shift
One of the 5th grade girls had a birthday party, to which a select few boys were invited. A boy we’ll call Freddie — who was not invited, even though his best friend Eddie was invited — was overheard to say: This is not right! If Eddie is invited, I have to be invited! It seems like only yesterday — in fact, I think it was only yesterday — that none of these boys would be caught dead at a party hosted by a girl . . . Read more →
Small Consolations
Who possesses the wherewithal for labor or love without small consolations? Who can live? — Jeredith Merrin, “Downtown Diner” Read more →
How Annoying Am I?
“You know how annoying you are, Dad?” “Not really . . . how annoying am I?” “You’re off the flowchart.” Off the flowchart?! Read more →
At the Cotillion
It’s the evening of the Irvine Cotillion for January, and my son is trying to figure something out . . . Read more →
Today’s Text
But now isn’t simply now. Now is also a cold reminder: one whole day later than yesterday, one year later than last year. Every now is labeled with its date, rendering all past nows obsolete, until—later or sooner—perhaps—no, not perhaps—quite certainly: it will come. — Christopher Isherwood, A Single Man Read more →
Lessons From a New Dog Owner
A puppy with something to chew on is as happy as a kid with an Xbox. And when you come right down to it, anything can be chewed on . . . Happy puppy! Read more →
Happy New Year!
Today is Chinese New Year. Why the Chinese can’t celebrate the New Year on January 1st like everybody else, I don’t know . . . According to my wife, Chinese New Year is celebrated by eating good food and avoiding unnecessary work. I try to do that every day! I’m lovin’ it! Let’s party! Read more →
Dogfood
NEW YORK (AP) — Olivia Goldsmith, a best-selling novelist whose book First Wives Club was made into a movie starring Goldie Hawn, Bette Midler and Diane Keaton, has died. She was 54. Goldsmith had been in a coma since last Wednesday after complications resulting from anesthesia during plastic surgery . . . Read more →