Brick’s Drum Therapy Matrix

It’s time.  All the hours and days of hard work, meticulous preparation, bloody sweat, fighting through frustrations and setbacks, and pushing all the limits to be the best we can be – has all prepared us for this moment.  Now, we’re getting our game-face on.  Now, we’re reeling in our mind to perfect focus, stretching…

It’s Different for Girls

I love being a woman. In fact, given the choice between being male or female, I would choose to be a woman, every time. Even with all the bullshit that comes along with being female–the lower pay, the pressure to conform to traditional societal standards (getting married, having kids, being a “good” wife), the hormones,…

The Legacy of President Donald J. Trump

“You’re fired!” President Trump scowled, “Who do you think you are, coming in here with a question like that? That’s disgusting. You disgust me. I bet you think you’re smarter than me, don’t you… look at him, everybody. He’s a smarty pants. Mr. Know-It-All Reporter. Get out of here… “No, I’m just kidding… but really,…

God is a Concept by Which We Measure Our Hate 

Religion is the exact opposite of reason. It’s like being a child and asking your parent why something “is” and being told, “Because I said so.” It’s such a bullshit, cop-out response and hardly a viable answer. My mother rarely played that card. She almost always gave legitimate answers to my questions, but on the rare occasion that I got the “Because I said so” response, I felt cheated and dissatisfied.

Not the Good Guys

The attacks in Paris and Lebanon this November have this country pumping its collective chest once again – though, let’s be honest, most people don’t know or care about the attacks in Lebanon. But the attacks – horrific, bloody, brutal and plain evil in both cases – are just another notch in a malevolent regime’s belt of…

Echols, Karma, and a New Perspective

Several weeks ago, when I scored tickets to see Damien Echols speak about karma at the Ruben Museum, I had no idea what to expect. Due to circumstances beyond my control, I had missed a few of his appearances since he moved here to NYC, and I was very excited to at last be seeing…

No Cause for Celebration

“I’ll get you a beer on the way back to celebrate…” my friend offered as we were leaving the courthouse last Friday where, just fifteen minutes earlier, the judge “granted” me a divorce. I put “granted” in quotes because the notion that one must grovel before a judge to officially declare the dissolution of a…

We Were Friends, Me and This Old Man

When I was home on leave, we would sit together and swap army stories. We were the only military veterans in my family, with the exception of my paternal grandfather who was a navigator on a bomber in the Pacific theater during WWII. But he died when I was young, maybe ten or eleven.
I called the old man Papo, a name that came from my inability to say “grandpa” as a two year old. It stuck. To all of his grandkids after me, he would be known as Papo. His real name was Richard Lee Wills, Sr.

When I Was Poor

When I was temporarily poor, something awakened in me. I shed the old skin of being a capitalist and feeling that one could just “elevate themself if they weren’t lazy.” I fully understood the evils of corporations that the far-right – for some reason – doesn’t quite understand, nor do they seem willing to try. I…