The Kind-Hearted Smart Aleck

Ever have a dream where a person you haven't seen in 10-20 years makes an appearance and you wake up asking, "WTF?!?" This happened to me recently, where a high school friend of mine I haven't seen in 15 years appeared and I was wondering why. Granted, in the Facebook age, I have to think it's more common today than it was in yesteryear for a friend from 10-20 years ago to make an appearance in a dream. No matter how long ago it was you saw him/her face-to-face, they're seemingly always on your Facebook newsfeed. The last time I saw this person was roughly 15 years ago, so we'll say 2004. I was 23 years old, a year removed from brain surgery, about to earn my bachelor's degree, with a world of possibilities ahead of me. He and I were fairly close between the ages of 17 and 19, but then he kind of disappeared on me. I had never known why. While we lived different lives - me invested in school and him invested in partying - we still managed to have fun...

I'm really not one who likes to brag, which is probably a big reason why I'm continuing to struggle making a lot of money writing. But in any case, I just heard a story the other day I felt the need to share. In the wake of the tragic San Bernardino mass shooting last week, I wrote a blog entitled, "Still too soon to talk about this?" which can be read here: http://thekind-heartedsmartaleck.blogspot.com/2015/12/still-too-soon-to-talk-about-this.html After sharing this writing on my Twitter account, I received notification from a high school teacher in New York that she shared this very writing with two classes of her's (including an AP class), adding that it prompted an interesting discussion, and I won some new fans along the way. So, as The Dude might say, I thought that was pretty cool.

So, I was reading through some comments on a music messageboard and had to chuckle some. The conversation centered around the feeling of embarrassment when others became cognizant that they liked a particular musician or started singing the lyrics to one of their songs. My first thought when reading these comments was, "What is this, high school?" Granted, it appeared that most of these people were in their upper-teens to mid-20s, but still... Who really cares? I've never been a fan of boy-bands, country music, or most rap, but when I hear someone else listening to it, I don't think to myself, "How can they listen to that out in public like that? They should be so embarrassed! " As the saying goes, "To each their own." This is why I sometimes disregard reviews by music critics, because if a critic hates a certain musician or genre of music and is forced to review that particular band or genre, the chances run high that he or she won't care fo...

I read a Facebook post today which made me simultaneously shake my head and laugh, as I can't help but be dismayed by what many consider to be news nowadays. Brian Williams may have exaggerated or outright lied about a major story several years ago, yet a recent study also showed that Fox News exaggerates the truth or outright lies 61% of the time, not to mention that bumper stickers and online memes are passing as facts for many people anymore. As for the before-mentioned article which was posted on Facebook, it's titled, "'The difference between high school in 1970 and 2015' couldn't be more accurate," by Joshua Riddle of Young Conservatives . He didn't write the original "piece," but like many other right-leaning sites, has decided to spread the word from the anonymous author. Rumor has it Snopes.com  is conducting an investigation on the matter as we speak (or I type). Here's the article. I'll be sure to make some lovely remar...

From using illegal substances to domestic violence to driving under the influence and beyond, it seems that not a week goes by where I don't hear about or read a story regarding an athlete getting into trouble. Just last night, I read such a story, but this was a much different story - one which greatly bothered me. Apparently, North Andover (Massachusetts) High School senior volleyball player Erin Cox has just recently been suspended five games and stripped of her captaincy for picking up a friend of her's who was too drunk and taking her home. When Ms. Cox went to pick up her friend, the police were already on the scene, arresting several people for underage possession of alcohol. Boxford police officer Brian Neeley vouched for Ms. Cox's sobriety, but even that wasn't enough to reverse the school's decision. Erin's mother - Eleanor Cox - said the following on WBZ-TV in Boston: "She did what she thought was right, and I'm very proud of her."...

Shortly after Hurricane Sandy struck the northeastern part of the country, Republican nominee Mitt Romney canceled a campaign rally in the critical battleground state of Ohio - the city of Kettering to be exact - and held a disaster-relief event in one Kettering, Ohio instead. At this rally - I mean, disaster-relief event - Romney shared a story with Ohioans which showcased that he is just as capable of leading in the wake of a natural disaster as President Obama when he illustrated this in the aftermath of Hurricane Sandy. According to Romney, his own Hurricane Sandy went as follows: "I remember once we had a football field at my high school. The field was covered with rubbish and paper goods from people who'd had a big celebration there at the game. And there was a group of us there assigned to clean it up. And I thought, 'how are we going to clean up all the mess on this football field?' There were just a few of us. And the person responsible for organizing the ...

No, I'm not getting married, not yet anyway. I JUST read this article about the tradition of asking a woman's father for permission to marry his daughter. The gist of the article was to see if that very tradition has lost some steam through the years. Now, I admit, I'm not much of a traditionalist. I think some traditions are grand for the simple fact that they can bring families together, but at the end of the day, I think many of them are, for lack of a better word, silly. Given that, I got to thinking about the tradition of a man asking his father-in-law to be for permission to marry his daughter and yes, I'm going to say it - I think it's stupid. Mark it down. Quote me. Fathers of single daughters between the ages of 21 and 41, blacklist me. I'll give you some time. Given how old many of you are, I suppose I'll continue with this piece. The telegraphs should arrive at some point in the future. Okay, before you bash me for being disrespectful to a wom...