I recently read Gay Talese’s Unto the Sons. A section of the book covered Giuseppe Garibaldi’s quest to unify the Italian peninsula which is known as the Risorgemento. In the book, Garibaldi’s story is told through the perspective of an enthusiastic late 1800s school teacher relaying the tale to Talese’s father’s class in grammar school. Later, drawbacks of the unification are mentioned by Talese’s great-grandfather and several other southerners. These men thought the Risorgimento held them back from the more ‘respected’ northerners, who the country saw as being better educated and gave preferential treatment to regarding military placement during both World Wars.

In David Gilmour’s The Pursuit of Italy, Gilmour attempts to get to the bottom of whether the Risorgimento was a good thing for Italy after meeting a northern priest who comments that the north would be the strongest country in Europe were it not for the lowly southerners holding them back. Well, as you read in Unto the Sons, the same could be said regarding the south being held back as their great cities of Naples and Palermo are relegated to second-city statuses with Florence, Rome, and Milan getting preferential treatment. It’s definitely interesting. How many Italian men were forced to die for a cause they didn’t truly believe in during the World Wars? Well, over a million Italians died during those wars. The Risorgimento turned the Italian peninsula into the fifth largest country in Europe. Still, how many were forced to fight for that cause while believing that what they were getting out of the deal wasn’t worth the bloodshed?

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What I’m about to say should shock no one. Ronnie James Dio is the best singer Black Sabbath ever had. Wait, he’s the best singer (I’m sorry Billy Corgan) rock music has ever had—ever. I’m serious. You can disagree, but I know I’m right and I know you know I know I’m right. I mean seriously, his songs are epic. Holy Diver is a perfect album and the three Rainbow albums he was on are masterpieces. However, nothing, and I mean nothing, showcases the brilliance that was Dio quite like his time with Black Sabbath. (For the purposes of this piece, I’m counting the Heaven & Hell band as Black Sabbath, which they were anyway.)

I was first introduced to Dio (the man, not the band) when I was 22. I had been a Black Sabbath fan for a few years without ever thinking to venture into their post-Ozzy stuff. The first of his songs I heard was “Children of the Sea” (the first he had written with Sabbath), and I quickly realized that that Ronnie James Dio guy was pretty good. From “Children of the Sea” I discovered a second Dio-led Sabbath song, “I”. No matter how many times I listen to it that song still blows me away. Those two songs quickly became my top two favorite Black Sabbath songs. (Don’t worry, Tony Martin, “The Shining” ironically and then unironically has remained in the top ten.) Still, for whatever reason I had not thought to dive deeper.

Then I got married. Actually, it was two days before my wedding—October 16^th to be exact. I was listening to “Children of the Sea” on my way to work when Spotify gave me a gift. That song ended and majestic acoustic guitar picking flooded my speakers. The smart shuffle feature chose “Sign of the Southern Cross” to randomly come up next and I was completely blown away. It was the first time I heard one of the songs from Mob Rules and the fourth Dio-sung song I had ever heard.

HOLY SHIT was an understatement. Before then, I had jokingly mentioned Dio as having the best Sabbath songs Black Sabbath had to offer, but this gave a whole new meaning to the argument. My immediate response to the discovery was to perform an internet deep dive. I needed to know more. My mind was spinning; that was genius-level stuff. Within a few hours between breaks, chugging away at my desk, I had found out everything there ever was to know about Ronnie James Dio. I liked what I found. How could I not? He was raised in the upstate New York town I used to binge drink in when visiting my friends in college, he was of Sicilian ancestry (which admittedly instantly earned him a few extra notches of respect from me), and the consensus on him was that he was an absolute ROCK GOD.

“Wait, what’s Holy Diver?” I said as I clicked Dio’s (the band) debut album. By the time the last chord was struck on the album’s closer I was a full convert, a Dio-sciple if you will.

Thus marked the beginning of a beautiful relationship between me, Melissa, and the vocalist. I listened to the Holy Diver album six times in two days leading up to the wedding (sprinkled in with Black Sabbath’s Heaven and Hell, Mob Rules, and Dehumanizer). During that time, Melissa and I hadn’t seen each other. She had left her fiancé one day only to unknowingly marry the world’s biggest Ronnie James Dio fan just two days later. Then Holy Diver became the soundtrack of our honeymoon. I think we listened to the album thirty times front-to-back across the entire road trip. If you haven’t heard it, go listen to it now and report back. If you don’t have time for the entire album, may I suggest the holy trinity?1

Anyway, the point is this. The Black Sabbath albums with Dio singing are their best—by far. It makes sense, too. After Ozzy got fired from Black Sabbath in 1979 the band was at a crossroads. Enter Ronnie James Dio. Because of the sheer greatness of Dio’s voice, Tony Iommi and Geezer Butler could do nothing but push their own performances to new heights to match the level of power that came barreling out of their new singer’s throat.

In my Dio-laden stupor, I stumbled across an interview with him from the late-ninties. During the interview, he was shown covers of albums he was a part of to get him to comment on them. When his Black Sabbath albums appeared, Dio shook his head and said they blew the chances of, “the best band that ever could have been.” I couldn’t agree more. Seriously, songs like “I”, “Die Young,” “Heaven and Hell,” “Bible Black,” and “Sign of the Southern Cross” easily beat any of the Sabbath hits with Ozzy Osbourne fronting.

Dio’s resume is impressive. Throughout his career he fronted the bands Elf, Rainbow (whose albums stand up to any Led Zeppelin albums of their era), Black Sabbath, Dio, and Heaven & Hell (consisting of the lineup from the Mob Rules/Dehumanizer era Black Sabbath). He was the guy that made the horn hand gesture popular in heavy metal.

Fun fact: he picked up the gesture from his Sicilian grandmother’s use of the corno (horns) which is used to ward off the malocchio “evil eye,” which my family and I still do to this day in case we sense some bad vibes coming our way. (Like right now to any haters reading this. Nice try, Melissa.) But as impressive as that resume is, I can only imagine how much greater it could have been had he, Iommi, and Butler been able to look past their differences to keep making incredible music. They broke up after only two albums in the early eighties and reunited briefly for Dehumanizer in 1992 before disbanding again. Oh, what could have been. I mean, “Bible Black” was their last single together and that song is epic. Their final reunion, which was supposed to last forever, was equally short-lived as Dio tragically died of stomach cancer in May 2010, two months before a new European tour was supposed to have begun. Dio was just 67 years old at the time of his death.

My obsessive fandom aside, I was really bothered to find out that Dio’s life was cut so short, right as it seemed like all the pieces were falling back into place for him. His star had faded a bit in the early 2000s, and Heaven & Hell’s massive tour and success had them planning a second album to be recorded in 2010. Meanwhile, Dio had plans for at least two more Dio albums. How much great music did we miss out on from him being taken from us so early? It was a travesty! I couldn’t get over it and found myself saying what a shame it was that he died so young almost every time I listened to one of his songs.

That’s when it hit me. On Thinking Man, some of you may know I have made mention of my grandfather (my mom’s dad) who has passed away a few years ago. But I shamefully rarely have mentioned, if at all, my grandmother (my dad’s mom) who died when I was 13 in May of 2010 just a few months after she had turned 68. Does that sound familiar? It should. Ronnie James Dio and my Nonna Maria were both born in 1942 and died seven days apart from each other in May 2010. While the rock world mourned the loss of an icon, my family mourned the loss of a matriarch. I’m sure I saw the news mention his death during that tumultuous time, and I’m sure there were people at my grandmother’s wake (she had a big one) who at the very least knew who Dio was and that he had just died. Thinking of this sent my mind off the rails a bit. As a new Dio-fanboy, I couldn’t get over the fact that my grandmother and him were both: Sicilian, born in 1942, died in 2010, and both used the horns on a daily basis. The only difference being that I thought his death was tragic and had thought Nonna’s was to be expected. What a POS, right?

Don’t get me wrong. I have great memories of her, and many of her weird quirks were passed down straight to me, for better or worse. What gets me is this. My grandmother had been in poor health for as long as I could remember. I’m sure that at the time my little thirteen-year-old brain thought of her as being an old lady. As sad as it was for her to have passed, it was what happened to old people, right? Wrong.

The tragedy of losing Dio so young has kind of convoluted my brain. If Dio was planning new albums and tour dates at the time of his death that meant he was certainly not old when he died, which means neither was Nonna, which means that 67 isn’t old. So, when does someone get old? Maybe never. Life is weird like that. You could be making albums at 70 or knitting blankets for your kids at 55 or writing books in your late eighties. You could be here one day and gone the next. All this means is one thing; dying, no matter what age, is always a tragedy. I say all this as I sit at Nonna’s dining room table, watching her 87-year-old husband who just came home from the hospital after we almost lost him. He’s still kicking; Dio and Nonna aren’t. All this tells me is that we just have to appreciate the time we have with whoever we have. When they are gone, be thankful for what they left behind, be it great music or great memories.

So yeah, I might have gotten a bit off track, but that’s the story. Dio is the best Black Sabbath singer, and due to some insane cosmic coincidence, his music reminds me of my nonna, which I’m sure isn’t something either her or my dad would be particularly happy about.

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On this week’s The Deep End, I haven’t much to offer. Last week was a fun one. We talked about morphic resonance and the things that might be lurking behind the shadows of NYC skyscrapers. This week, well, I got nothing. Melissa and I have been finding it hard to keep up with our writing schedule here with the amount of shit going on in our lives. We’re getting married in less than a month (GULP), she recently started a new job (YIKES), and I started going back to school while still maintaining my own full-time gig (HUH?). So, yeah, it hasn’t been easy.

I haven’t mentioned it to my dear readers (or you) yet, but during the summer I spoke with a professor at a CUNY institute who urged me to pursue an MFA in Creative Writing to help bolster my writing contacts. After many discussions based on deciding whether this degree would be worth it or not, I chose to take the plunge. This culminated in a busy end to the summer of me applying to the school, getting accepted, and commencing a few undergraduate courses to test the waters before applying for the MFA program this winter. As a NYC resident I’m eligible to attend colleges in the CUNY system without hurting my wallet, so it’s not like I will be taking much of a financial burden on. In other words, fuck it. What’s the worst that can happen? I guess the worst thing that happens is I slip and fall on my way to one of the classes and die with shit leaking out of my underwear as I’m mocked by all my classmates. Besides that though, the worst thing that would happen is my life staying the same. Well, it would’ve stayed the same whether I did this or not, so why not give it a shot?

This isn’t going to change the person you may have come to know through my posts on Substack. Going to get a piece of paper doesn’t have to warp your beliefs or mold you to think or act a certain way. I’m stronger than that. Honestly, as crazy as it sounds, the Terrence Howard v. Eric Weinstein episode of the Joe Rogan Experience helped spur this decision. I’m not saying I believe a single word that Terrence Howard said in either of his two JRE appearances. But what he says is interesting to say the least. During their “fierce” debate, Weinstein urged Howard to pursue a legitimate university degree in physics if Howard truly wanted to ever have the hopes/chances of being taken seriously. Weinstein explained that he understood where Howard was coming from regarding the establishment being ignorant and hateful towards new ideas, but nevertheless would need the piece of paper if he ever wanted to be heard. Basically, if Howard gets the degree and still believes what he believes, at least he can show he was classically trained and not just some random self-taught psycho.

This hit a theoretical nerve in me. I’ve queried two middle-grade paranormal mystery novels without success. Some of you may be reading my novel Picking Stones which I’ve been uploading by the chapter on here (I was too chicken to let something so close to my heart be rejected by the unpaid assistants of agents so went with the middle-grade novels since I could stomach them being rejected).

Hearing Weinstein urge Howard on getting a degree made an image form in my own poorly constructed mind: the unpaid intern reading the query for my middle-grade novel. “Hi there, I’m John, a random unpublished guy who works in the construction/engineering field and wants to sell books for kids!” The next image that formed was that of the intern laughing all the way to the recycling bin of their laptop, deleting me and my query from his underdeveloped brain.

So, screw it. I’ll try and get this MFA. Maybe it’ll even help. Or maybe it won’t. But that won’t matter—at least I did something. I find that you always gotta do something. Otherwise life gets all weird and crusty and stale and depressing and you suddenly feel like you’re going to die next week in this weird fast-forwarding haze on life where you realize that you’ve been living on autopilot for six months straight. Been there, done that. I don’t want to live like that. I hate living like that, and I’m sure you do too. It’s fun to take chances and for me this degree is a pretty safe one.

Moral of the story: If there’s any chances you want to take, take them. If you want some positive encouragement, message me. I always try to push people to do crazy shit. Even if it’s ziplining over the St. Lawrence River in Montreal, which sounds awesome so go for it! I for one will not be doing any ziplining, but I’ll shout words of encouragement from the ground as you sail overhead and have the time of your life.

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“Alright, Robert Jordan said to himself. Only I am not having any. I’ve known a lot of gypsies and they are strange enough. But so are we. The difference is we have to make an honest living. Nobody knows what tribes we came from nor what our tribal inheritance is nor what the mysteries were in the woods where the people lived that we came from. All we know is that we do not know. We know nothing about what happens to us in the nights…”

The above quote is from For Whom the Bell Tolls by Ernest Hemingway. It’s a book I’m halfway through reading. No matter! In typical Thinking Man fashion (I’m talking about you, Melissa), I’m here to post my thoughts.

Anyway. So far, Hemingway’s book has been excellent. For anyone that hasn’t read it, the book is about an American volunteer named Robert Jordan, who is a dynamiter working with a Republican guerilla group during the Spanish Civil War. For anyone that has read it, no spoilers please! I’m on page 261/470 at the time of this writing. The piece you’re reading now (mine) really doesn’t have much to do with the titular novel, but the quote I started with did provide the inspiration for it.

It’s quite interesting. My entire life has been spent in the New York City boroughs of Queens and Brooklyn. I’ve known nothing else. Rewind two generations and all four of my grandparents were born in remote towns on an island called Sicily. Rewind further and further and the drastic differences between then and now are so far removed, it’s as if we have no relation at all to any of the people whose sperms and eggs contributed to the life we’re all living.

I’m not saying what I’m writing right now is a novel idea. It’s not. The differences between the generations is something I’ve written about before and has always been rather fascinating to me. I’m always drawn to this example: My grandfather was one of the most influential people in my life, yet with a gun pressed to my head, I wouldn’t be able to pick his mom in a three-woman lineup. Then consider his mom’s mom. I could literally care less who she was—not in a mean or nasty way, but it’s just the truth. I’m getting somewhere here, I promise.

Have you ever heard of morphic resonance? It’s a theory proposed by Rupert Sheldrake in his 1981 book, A New Science of Life: The Hypothesis of Morphic Resonance. According to Sheldrake’s website, morphic resonance is “the idea that memory is inherent in nature.” This could suggest that memories may be passed down through DNA, which could mean that if my great-great-great-great grandfather was a huge asshole who made fun of little Sicilian donkeys and the like, it could make me more likely to mock poor unsuspecting donkeys at petting zoos.

I’m not saying I believe this. However, I’ve noticed that I tend to have the same reactions to certain things that my dad and grandfather do. Is it morphic resonance? Or do we have similar traits because I’ve observed the way they act and act accordingly?

Morphic resonance is a fun and fascinating theory. Therefore, like all fun things, it must be destroyed. Sheldrake’s theory has been shat on by the scientific community since it first came out, even though it shares some similarities to Carl Jung’s theory of a collective unconscious. That’s an easy one to explain: Carl Jung is cool. Rupert Sheldrake is, evidently, not cool. Sorry, Big Rup.

Let’s get back on track here. Remember the quote from the beginning? After reading it, the first thing that came to mind was a woman that a friend of mine met. In his conversation with this woman, she explained to him that she was a witch, having gotten her magic passed down to her from her family for thousands of years. There were several examples she gave him which seemed believable, but I’m not getting into them here. I’m sure she’s a very nice woman, and if her ancestors have been practicing magic for thousands of years, some of that practice must be embedded into her.

“Nobody knows what tribes we came from nor what our tribal inheritance is nor what the mysteries were in the woods where the people lived that we came from. All we know is that we do not know. We know nothing about what happens to us in the nights…”

This woman knows where her tribe came from. Most of us don’t. What if my tribespeople also dabbled with magic, which explains why I’m prone to picking up on strange coincidences or feelings or energy sometimes, like that time Cormac McCarthy died. What if your ancestors were constantly running from Banshees in the countryside of Ireland, or hiding from the shit-stain inducing scary things in the ranches in the American Southwest?

Like I said earlier, I’m a resident of NYC. In this city, most of us live in a cut-and-dry world where we wake up, work, stuff food and drink into our gullets, and sleep. This cycle is to be repeated ad infinitum until the washing machine that is our lives finally ends its spin cycle and shuts off. Here in the city there are no woods, no forests, no magic. But what if there was magic in our blood at one point? What if the blood of your Scottish ancestors attracted of the bean-nighe who came for them in the moors of Scotland six thousand years ago, and that same bean-nighe still wanted that sweet Scot blood coursing through your veins?

What if something like this happened, and you didn’t even notice. You’re on the train late at night and you think you see a face look back at you through the smudged glass. But there’s nothing there. A shadow spooks you in the corner of your eye, but you turn and see a mom and child where the shadow had been. A bony hand touches your own as you grab the railing when the train screeches to a halt. Your hand reels away, but there was nothing there. On your walk home you duck and dodge through the crowds, swearing you’re being followed. You see something in the shadows. You finally run into your apartment and slam the door shut just as the ghostly hand reaches to get you. Inside your apartment is a cross. You do the sign of the cross. By the time you’re sitting on the couch watching TV with dinner and a drink, you’ve all but forgotten it. But whatever evil spirit that wanted you is still out there, and it will wait as long as it needs to before it gets you.

Crazy stuff. Maybe it’s real, and maybe it isn’t. Somehow, For Whom the Bell Tolls brought me here. I wonder if that’s what Hemingway would have wanted. Thanks for reading!

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Hard-Boiled Wonderland and The End of the World, by Haruki Murakami

Blood Meridian, by Cormac McCarthy

The Passenger/Stella Maris, by Cormac McCarthy

Tender is The Night, by F. Scott Fitzgerald

The Plague, by Albert Camus

For Whom the Bell Tolls, by Ernest Hemingway

The Natural, by Bernard Malamud

The Godfather, by Mario Puzo

My Brilliant Friend, by Elena Ferrante

Before the Coffee Gets Cold, by Toshikazu Kawaguchi

You, by Caroline Kepnes

White Noise, by Don DeLillo

Ulysses, by James Joyce

The Silence of the Lambs, by Thomas Harris

One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest, by Ken Kesey

House of Leaves, by Mark Z. Danielewski

Stranger in a Strange Land, by Robert A. Heinlein

Voice of the Fire, by Alan Moore

Jerusalem, by Alan Moore

The Simulacra, by Philip K. Dick

The Three Stigmata of Palmer Eldritch, by Philip K. Dick

Confessions of a Crap Artist, by Philip K. Dick

Radio Free Albemuth, by Philip K. Dick

A Scanner Darkly, by Philip K. Dick

The Divine Invasion, by Philip K. Dick

The Transmigration of Timothy Archer, by Philip K. Dick

Galactic Pot-Healer, by Philip K. Dick

Ubik: The Screenplay, by Philip K. Dick

The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick, by Philip K. Dick

The Poseidon Adventure, by Paul Gallico

Magenta, by Warren Fahy

The Great Train Robbery, by Michael Crichton

Eruption, by Michael Crichton & James Patterson

Eaters if the Dead, by Michael Crichton

Timeline, by Michael Crichton

Lolita, by Vladimir Nabokov

Foundation, by Isaac Asimov

Foucault’s Pendulum, by Umberto Eco

The Prague Cemetery, by Umberto Eco

If on a Winter’s Night a Traveler, by Italo Calvino

A Confederacy of Dunces, by John Kennedy Toole

On Writing, by Steven King

Slaughterhouse-Five, by Kurt Vonnegut

This is Your Mind on Plants, by Michael Pollan

Stew Leonard My Story, by Stew Leonard

America Before, by Graham Hancock

Visionary, by Graham Hancock

The Cosmic Serpent, by Jeremy Narby

The Road to Eleusis, by R. Gordon Wasson, Albert Hoffmann, and Carl Ruck

The Sacred Mushroom and the Cross, by John M. Allegro

Food of the Gods, by Terence McKenna

Stalking the Wild Pendulum, by Itzhak Bentov

Tides of War, by Steven Pressfield

The Virtues of War, by Steven Pressfield

36 Righteous Men, by Steven Pressfield

The Artist’s Journey, by Steven Pressfield

Nobody Wants to Read Your Shit, by Steven Pressfield

Bird By Bird, by Anne Lamott

The Master and His Emissary, by Iain McGilchrist

The Hero’s Journey, by Joseph Campbell

The Hermetica, by Hermes Trismegistus

The Way of Zen, by Alan Watts

The Untethered Soul, by Michael Singer

Becoming Supernatural, by Dr. Joe Dispenza

The Power of Now, by Eckhart Tolle

The Bible, King James Version

The Tibetan Book of the Dead

The Egyptian Book of the Dead

Tao Teh Ching

I Ching

Infinite Jest, by David Foster Wallace

Devils, by Fyodor Dostoevksy

The Karamozov Brothers, by Fyodor Dostoevsky

Think and Grow Rich, by Napoleon Hill

A Clergyman’s Daughter, by George Orwell

The Managerial Revolution, by James Burnham

The Prince, by Niccolo Machiavelli

Point Counter-Point, by Aldous Huxley

Crome Yellow, by Aldous Huxley

World Without Cancer, by G. Edward Griffin

The Myth of Sisyphus, by Albert Camus

Don’t Bullshit Yourself, by Jon Taffer

Leaves of Grass, by Walt Whitman

Chaos, by Tom O’Neill

Genghis Khan and the Making of the Modern World, by Jack Weatherford

The Wager, by David Grann

Mutiny!, by Edmund Fuller

The Hidden Life of Trees, by Peter Wohlleben

Blink, by Malcolm Gladwell

The Black Swan, by Nassim Nicholas Taleb

The Hike, by Drew Magary

Cosa Nostra, by John Dickie

The Devil in the White City, by Erik Larson

Rich Dad Poor Dad, by Robert T. Kiyosaki

The Emperor’s Handbook, by Marcus Aurelius

The Art of Living, by Epictetus

How to Be a Stoic, by Massimo Pigliucci

Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance, by Robert M. Pirsig

Zen in the Art of Archery, by Eugen Herrigel

Man’s Search for Meaning, by Viktor Frankel

Republic, by Plato

Symposium, by Plato

The Iliad, by Homer

The Odyssey, by Homer

How to Die, by Seneca

These are all the books on my shelf that I want to read before I die. Yesterday it hit me that I’d most likely never be able to accomplish this. There are too many books, and the list will only grow from here. Something compelled me to go through all of them and write down the titles. The number of books is 105.

Going through books, jotting down the titles of the ones I want to get to before my life will end brought about strange emotions. I imagine it a lesser feeling than that of writing one’s will, but in the same realm. It wasn’t sad, but surprisingly peaceful. It put things into perspective. Out of these books, which are the ones I need to make sure I read before I die?

It’s the way you should always live your life. The amount of time we have in this world is finite and extremely short. I can feel time sweeping by any time I do anything. Days, months, and years pass. Our loved ones grow older. Friends come and others drift apart. People we hold dear can be gone in the blink of an eye. Things can change at the drop of a hat. We’re here this moment and gone the next. Find out what is important to you. See who you want to see. Do what you want to do. And read what you want to read. We only have so much time.

Thanks for reading. Feel free to share your own list—I could always use a few more book recommendations.

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Feeling generous? You can also buy me a coffee (or a book).

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The inspiration for this post takes us back to Westbury, New York, on a very special occasion: the grand opening of PDQ, an all-American fried chicken sangwich place that came roaring into existence after the heat that was the Popeyes chicken sandwich craze. Melissa and I were eager to try the artery clogging sangwich for ourselves, and ended up at the right place at the right time—PDQ on the day of its grand opening. I swear this wasn’t an orchestrated event that I crafted in order to dupe Melissa into eating bad food, although it had all the ingredients to the standard recipe.

We had gone to Old Westbury Gardens for the day, and afterward were trying to find a Staples nearby where I could print out the first draft of a middle grade dark fantasy novel that I’ve been querying into oblivion ever since. Out of sheer luck, the aforementioned Staples was located directly next to PDQ! We’d seen the construction take place over the past few months and couldn’t believe we got there just when the gates were finally opened. We ordered, got the goods (chicken sangwich and strips), and ran off onto the traffic-jammed highway to get back to the city and to dream of the grease of chicken’s past.

You might be asking: 1) Why did I click on this article? and 2) What does this have to do with koalas? I’m getting there damnit.

In the euphoria of post-chicken indulgence, our minds were racing at the potential meaning behind the name PDQ. What did it have to do with chicken? Turns out, nothing. A quick Google search brought us to their website, and after a brief second or two of Melissa trying to navigate said website, we found our answer: it stood for People Dedicated to Quality.

People dedicated to quality? More like people dedicated to Koalas!

Get it? We sure did, and proceeded to think that was the most hilarious thing ever. Two years later, we still use the word koala as a stand-in for the word quality. For example: “Now that’s, koala-T,” Melissa said Friday night after tasting the delicious meal I had made. Suddenly our world was never the same. PDQ, unknowingly had changed our lives and brought us closer to koalas than we ever though possible.

Hi. It’s Melissa. Now, I know what you’re thinking. “What are you doing here? It’s John’s day. Bring him back.”

I don’t really have a good response to this, so imagine me slowly backing away with my hands in the air as if retreating from an aggressive koala during mating season.

John recounted this story perfectly, all the way up to that excellent (ahem, koala-T) meal that he cooked on Friday. Now I really know what you’re thinking. What was the meal? If I told you now, that would ruin the suspense for the rest of the post, so please be patient.

Anyway, we feasted, and afterwards, John went out, leaving me home alone with koalas on the brain.

Turns out, there’s an absolutely riveting two-part docu-series on Paramount Plus called The Secret Life of the Koala. It’s a good show. If you’re interested, watch it (although I’ll probably spoil the juiciest parts of it for you now).

Turns out, koalas are awesome. They’re also extremely weird, and more than a little gross. (It’s John again. She’s lying to you. They’re horrifying and downright disgusting!)

The first episode of The Secret Life of the Koala was titled “Mating Season” (this is a show that knows what its audience wants), and it delivered what it promised. Koalas during mating season are absolute savages. Although they’re normally solitary animals, during mating season, male koalas travel through the eucalyptus trees they inhabit in pursuit of females, diffusing their stench throughout each branch that they traverse by rubbing against them with the built-in scent gland in their chests and letting out little dribbles of urine.

It's not an attractive image, is it? The female koalas must not think so either, because koala sex can only be described as rapey. Male koalas initiate breeding by savagely attacking females, often several times before the female finally stops fighting them off and decides to just let it happen. There’s a reason for this—apparently the first rape (erm, copulation) attempt is what stimulates ovulation in the female. (“Jesus Christ!” -John)

It’s all very violent and kind of grotesque. It’s no wonder that about one in five koalas that are taken from the wild to be studied by researchers ends up being treated for chlamydia. Yes, there’s a koala-specific strain of chlamydia, which researchers are currently working on a vaccine for. Isn’t science wonderful?

Then there are the joeys.

Yes, to the disdain of all men named Joey everywhere, baby koalas are called joeys. I say disdain because they’re all shit-eating little pests, and I mean that completely literally. In order for young koalas to wean off of their mothers’ milk and onto their harsh diet of eucalyptus leaves, they need a special type of gut bacteria that they get from a special type of poop called ‘pap’ which they drink directly from their mothers’ buttholes. Yum.

Anyway, I’m being harsh on the koala. They’re actually kind of cool. Koala joeys are super cute, female koalas are very dedicated mothers, and they’re all very agile climbers. They have to be. They live in trees, after all.

They’re also the only species of animal in the world that can eat eucalyptus leaves, which are extremely poisonous to most animals. This makes them impervious to most predators—since they absolutely wreak of toxins, they’re not very appetizing.

You might be thinking “Melissa, this sounds like another negative.” In some ways, it is. They’re very unappealing animals, as we’ve established. But they’re so unappealing that apart from Me-Too (erm, mating) season, the life of a koala is actually pretty sweet.

Seriously. No one bothers them. They live all by themselves, and all they do is eat, poop (sometimes in their babies’ mouths, and sometimes on the tourists and koala researchers walking around below them), and sleep. Since they spend most of their energy digesting their ultra-poisonous diet, they sleep for 80% of the day.

Fun fact: koalas have one of the lowest brain-to-body ratios in the animal kingdom, and the highest intestine-to-body ratio in the animal kingdom. They’re designed to eat and be lazy, and they’re way too dumb to care. Doesn’t it sound blissful? They actually have a special cartilage strip on their asses designed so that they could sit on tree branches more easily. It’s absurd!

Anyway, I hope you learned something, and I’m sorry to have taken you away from John this Sunday. In case you’re still burning with suspense, the meal was pasta with chicken in tomato sauce. Phew. You can all relax now.

We promise this post wasn’t a paid advertisement from PDQ. (Although we wouldn’t turn our nose up at the opportunity—Hey, PDQ! If you’re reading this, we love your chicken and we love sponsorships! How does the honor of being Thinking Man’s first PAID sponsor sound?)

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(All of the information in this post is courtesy of The Secret Life of the Koala and this YouTube video:

It’s about time I told you that I’ve been in mourning. Ever since yesterday, to be exact. The reason for this deep sorrow is not over the loss of a life, but from the reading of a book. The book in question: Gates of Fires by Steven Pressfield.

It’s by far the best book I’ve ever read, which usually isn’t saying much. If I’ve read a book, there’s a good chance I claimed it to be the best thing I’ve ever read. BUT, this time, I believe I really mean it.

It’s a work of historical fiction about the Battle of Thermopylae—the famous battle of the 300 Spartans who defended their country to the death against the attack under the Persian king, Xerxes. This battle has been in the mainstream since 2006 when Zack Snyder’s film 300 was released. 300 was based on a graphic novel of the same name by Frank Miller that was released in 1998—the same year Gates of Fire came out. I guess The Muse really wanted the battle to be retold that year. Although Gates of Fire hasn’t had as much commercial success as 300, it’s by far the better of the two. Trust me on that one, bro.

Pressfield’s storytelling was incredible. As soon as the book starts, you learn of the Spartan defeat—the battle was a suicide mission from the outset. It is a triumph to immediately reveal everything that will happen while still absolutely wrenching the reader’s gut with each turn of the page. The tale of the Spartans as told by the narrator Xeones was so vivid, it was a constant surprise to see an American name at the top of the pages that were detailing the story of Leonidas, Dienekes, Alexandros, and others. I couldn’t put it down until the final heartache-inducing end.

I’ve gone on record before stating Steven Pressfield’s genius. This book is the most clear example of the genius penned by his hand. My first introduction to him was from The War of Art, which is the book we plan on discussing for this week’s Thinking Man Book Club post. The book helped me achieve my dreams. The Muse, which is his version of Julia Cameron’s “Great Creator”, or God, or the Universe, or whatever YOU want to call it, has told me what to do every step of the way of my journey through life since I decided I wanted to pursue writing again—and it hasn’t been proven wrong yet.

Since reading The War of Art, I’ve said that Pressfield was born to write that book. I was wrong. He was born to write Gates of Fire. Don’t get me wrong, The War of Art is amazing. Its small contents are packed with more life lessons and spiritual revelations than anything else of its kind. For years I thought it was his magnum opus, a work that will stand the test of time and keep Pressfield’s name in ink until time immemorial, and that’s still probably true.

After reading a book I like, I usually look up all there is to know about the author, trying to get an idea of who is behind words I read. Once I finished The War of Art, I was surprised to see that Pressfield’s body of work consisted mainly of historical fiction novels—which are not my thing. I shrugged and went about my life, praising Pressfield while never giving any of his other books a chance.

Last year he released his memoir, Govt Cheese. After sitting on my shelf for a year, I finally picked it up in December and was promptly floored by the journey Pressfield endured in order to follow his dream of becoming a writer. The book followed him from his mid-twenties up to the publishing of his first book The Legend of Bagger Vance at the age of 52. In the time between he supported himself as a trucker, oilfield roustabout, apple picker, and screenwriter—the last gig saw him achieve his first taste of success as co-screenwriter of King Kong Lives, admittedly not his best work. During this time, he wrote more than ten novels, never finding a buyer for any of them.

Govt Cheese led me to one of his newer fiction novels, The Knowledge, an action-packed thriller recounting his time as a cab driver in New York City in the 1970s. It was a lot of fun, and I finished it a few days after picking it up. “So, his books are actually fun to read!” I presumably told myself, “Too bad the rest of them are works of historical fiction—plus the one that became a movie starring Will Smith. Yeah, no thanks.”

Eventually I caved and read The Legend of Bagger Vance. I was shocked. It was amazing, you should read it. My shock was from the fact that I had just read The War of Art as a work of fiction. Hidden inside what appeared to be a book about golf was every single lesson and spiritual teaching from The War of Art—only better. This book, released in 1995, predates The War of Art by seven years. It made sense. Pressfield wrote The War of Art as a quickie to get everyone who wasn’t down to read and dissect his novels to still be able to get the life changing ideas behind the books. I mentally tipped my cap to him and once again ended my reading of all-things Pressfield. Or so I thought.

If I like something, I shove it down everyone’s throats until they’re at the point of suffocation—just like you are as you read this! Outside of Melissa, I only have one friend who reads, and unlike me, this friend loves historical fiction. Once I got within earshot, I started my barrage of Pressfield-worship. I told him how great this guy was a hundred times in about a minute, once he tapped me on the shoulder and told me to calm down, I took a deep breath and resumed talking about him in a slower, more relaxed pace.

Dan ended up looking into Stevie Boy’s body of work and told me Gates of Fire seemed right up his alley. I had a copy of it at home that I had never read, happy to clear up space on my crammed bookshelf, and gave it to him. Dan quickly finished the book and told me how great it was. “Like a top three book, bro.” I was happy to hear that I converted another unsuspecting victim into the cult of Pressfield but told him he’d be on his own. I just couldn’t read historical fiction, especially one based on a battle.

“But it’s not even about that. It’s about life, it’s about being a man,” he said.

Hey, I like being a man! I thought. Finally my mind was changed. I mean, this was Steven Pressfield after all, it had to be decent, right?

Gates of Fire is not decent, it’s not good, it’s not great.

IT’S A F*CKING MASTERPIECE.

I read the last 300 pages in the span of 2 days. The whole book spun before my eyes playing out like a movie in my mind. Once I read the last page and shut the book I was stupefied. I didn’t know what else to do. I lit a freaking candle in its honor for god’s sake.

Like The Legend of Bagger Vance, behind the veil of this story are the same lessons one could read in easily digestible form via The War of Art. I read yesterday that after Gates of Fire was released in 1998 George Clooney’s production company acquired the rights to turn it into a film. Production ended up stalling and once 300 came out the film adaptation was finally scrapped. Who knows what might have been had this film been made. If it was released before The War of Art was written would it have ever seen the light of day? Maybe not. I’m positive Gates of Fire as a film would be an Academy Award-winning blockbuster. If it would have happened in the early 2000s it would have launched Pressfield’s career into an entirely different direction. Instead, his path has led him on the road of praised historical novelist, and changer of lives.

With the odds stacked against him in the almost thirty years of trying to get a novel published, Pressfield could have quit any number of times. He didn’t, and because of that we all get to reap the benefits of his willpower to succeed. I’d like to thank him for that one day.

Anyway. I don’t really know what else to say. Gates of Fire is amazing. Go read it. Bye.

Let me know if there’s any books that changed your life in the comments!

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It’s Memorial Day! This weekend has always been huge for blockbuster movie releases, so what better way to start what may be the first of many editions to a series of stabbings I take on movies that beat their book counterparts? What can I say, The Deep End is light on ideas of late. The idea for this post came to me from, you guessed it—Thinking Man’s latest book club pick: The Name of the Rose! (Hint, you were supposed to read that in a voice similar to a game show host revealing the new car you just won. Hint #2, you didn’t win a new car.)

Anyway. After finishing the book on Saturday, I went into my usual deep dive on the internet, trying to see what others had to say about Eco’s book. The main takeaway I found was that there are quite a few humans who believe it to be a masterpiece, and that the movie based on it was great, too! Some went as far as saying the movie was even better! I had to indulge myself, much to Melissa’s dismay.

With an all-star cast featuring Sean Connery, a young/steamy (not my words) Christian Slater, and F. Murray Abraham playing the second Italian in as many programs as I’ve seen him act (see White Lotus Season 2), I figured these internet folk must be right.

Wrong. I should’ve known better not to listen to anyone on the internet.

The movie was fine. I couldn’t imagine anyone following along that clearly without having read the book, and I was left with a similar feeling of dissatisfaction once it was over. Also, just like in real life, Melissa only got through half of it before giving up and going to sleep. This wouldn’t have been that shocking to me had I not read the hundreds of positive things being said about the movie and how much better it was than the book. Which got me thinking:

What movies actually are better than the books they’re based on? For this piece I’ll go with the first few that come to mind:

Jaws, Dune Parts 1 & 2 (2020-2024), and honorable mention They Live.

I’ll go in reverse order here. First off, They Live is an awesome movie. It’s based on a short story by Ray Nelson called Eight O’Clock in the Morning. You should read it. Here’s a link to the story. Nelson was a friend of Philip K. Dick, who I wrote about last week. I’m feeling link-happy today, so here’s another one to read that post on PKD. Nelson and Dick teamed up to write The Ganymede Takeover in 1967. The inclusion of They Live on this list is to get some of you to give Mr. Nelson some credit. He died in 2022 and was an important member of the sci-fi community, but likely won’t be remembered outside of being the writer of this short story. A fun fact about him, which he also said was his best bet at being remembered: he claimed to have invented the propeller beanie as a 10^th grader. Hats off to him.

Shameless second plug of our book club aside, Dune the novel was not our thing. However, the two new movies based on it were absolutely incredible. The cinematography was outstanding and squashed any hope I had of still being able to be halfway decent as filmmaker and editor (I used to do that in a different era, now lost).

I won’t spend much time here, either. Final consensus on this, the new Dune movies are awesome, the book isn’t, and the David Lynch film from the 80s is sooooooo bad we tried to watch it four times and still haven’t been able to get through more than fifteen minutes of it at a clip. I don’t think we’ll ever finish watching it. How was that from the same guy who created Twin Peaks?

This brings me to the final punching bag of the day:

Jaws.

When I was growing up, Jaws was far and away my all-time favorite movie. I watched the film hundreds of times. My first email address even had the name Hooper in it as an homage to my favorite character in it. I was like eleven, give me a break. I was a diehard fan. You name it, I had it. DVD’s of all the squeak-quels, video/board games, and any nonfiction shark education books in existence.

Basically, I did everything there was to do as a Jaws fan—outside of reading the book the movie was based on!

I’ve wanted to be an author for as far back as I can remember, really. It’s in my eighth-grade yearbook for god’s sake! So, for me, Peter Benchley was a legend. His name graced the opening credits twice, as the author of the book and for the screenplay. Benchley wrote the initial script for the film—which was then rewritten about a hundred times and worked on by Howard Sackler before finally being changed almost entirely again by Carl Gottlieb. 

For whatever reason, even at the height of my fandom, I never read the book. I guess I knew that it wouldn’t have been appreciated by my still developing brain. So, I decided to wait until semi-adulthood before giving it a proper reading.

The time to finally read it came a few years ago. To put it politely, I was horrified. None of the camaraderie of the men aboard the Orca was a thing. In a book chock-ful-o unlikeable characters, Hooper (my aforementioned favorite character) was the most unlikeable character in the entire book! Woe was my old email rolling in its grave at the discovery of this. Half of the book was Hooper banging Brody’s wife behind his back. Thank God that storyline was abandoned for the movie.

In other words, I did not like the book at all.

Whether or not I liked the book, I still saw why Spielberg and co. thought it could be a blockbuster. The story of a killer shark wreaking havoc on a New England town has been timeless. In preparation for beach szn starting in a few days, what better way to ring it in than reminding everyone that sharks exist and not to go in the water unless you want to be a buffet for them.

Since reading the book I haven’t even been able to rewatch the movie. Hopefully that day will come again. I did get a chance to see The Shark is Broken on Broadway this past year, which was a great play.

So, yeah. That’s what I have for today. I might expand on this list further. Another fun one could be me discussing what movies based on books were ruined by the fact that I saw the movies first, only to read the book, find it amazing, and then have that completely ruin the experience of the movie I once loved after seeing what could have been. Jurassic Park anyone?

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For your viewing pleasure, here’s some AI images Dall-E created when I asked it to create a movie poster combining Jaws and The Name of the Rose. Enjoy.

The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick.

Has anyone ever read this thing? I haven’t, but the purpose of this post is to hopefully push me to one day read it AND be able to discuss it with all you lovely people.

In March of 2023 I gave Melissa a ring to signify our engagement to be wed. A few days later she gifted me The Exegesis of Philip K Dick as a token of her gratitude for said ring. I considered it a fair trade at the time and have kept the book on proud display on my bookshelf ever since—while also never cracking it open even once. Hopefully I live to read it, but that won’t be until I deem myself worthy to.

My admiration of Philip K. Dick all started back when I read Valis in late 2022. Since then, I have heralded him as one of the greatest geniuses of our time. This is a statement which could be argued as true (depending on who you ask). Once I finished the book I proceeded to try to convince everyone in existence to read it (to no avail). Then I went out and bought his entire bibliography—of which I’ve read only a few books. So far, Ubik is my favorite of his novels—I’ll explain why it isn’t Valis.

To me, Valis is ineffable. It isn’t so much a novel as it is an amalgamation of Dick’s intense search for the meaning of life, which he then tried to turn into somewhat of a story in order to get it published. The first ¾ of the book is Horselover Fat’s (PKD’s third-person schizophrenic self) attempt to try making sense of several experiences he had between February and March of 1974. This included the real-life instance of him being told his infant son had a life-threatening hernia which required emergency surgery. Dick and his wife rushed the baby to the hospital where he was examined and thought to be fine. Dick pushed them to inspect further, and they ended up finding the hernia and saving his son’s life. Crazy.

Here's a great comic strip by R. Crumb which illustrates the experiences Dick had called The Religious Experience of Philip K. Dick.

 As someone searching for the truth of what the hell we’re doing here, this novel cut deep. Like I said, Valis is more of PKD’s borderline psychotic quest to understand his own religious/supernatural experiences than it is a book with a coherent story. As someone who’s also had experiences with “the other side,” I was floored by Dick’s book putting into word some of my own psychotic beliefs. I’ve had experiences which have made me believe there’s way more to life than we understand. So did Dick, except his experiences were like mine if they were on a rocket ship blasting straight to Jesus’s house in the next galaxy.

What I’m saying is, as batshit crazy as Valis may read to some people, it made some sense to me. As I read the book, I experienced a strange sense of relief, although I’m not sure if that was Dick’s point. For me, I think I was just happy to see that there was someone else who shared this same “understanding” of the universe as me—even if this meant sharing in the understanding that it is absolutely insane.

Through his search, Dick really goes off the deep end (going too far in some areas), which could have caused a negative impact. I believe it’s why he died so young. He passed at 53, just a few months before Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep was released as Blade Runner and before he got to reap the benefits of the financial kingdom his work has become as so many of his novels and short stories have turned into blockbuster hit after hit. (In my opinion, God had other plans for him. Perhaps the money would have tainted his mission.)

All throughout the reading of Valis, I felt a bizarrely deep connection to Dick. Every time I picked it up, the book made me feel like I was toeing the line between our physical reality and the one we can’t see. For whatever reason, I really felt like I was meant to read the book. Like it had a purpose in my life.

VALIS stands for Vast Active Living Intelligence System. It was Dick’s best way of explaining what he had discovered the universe to be. This reminded me of a quote from Marcus Aurelius’s Meditations, “You have functioned as a part of something; you will vanish into what produced you. Or be restored, rather. To the logos from which all things spring. By being changed.”

Is the logos that Aurelius describes the same as Dick’s VALIS? It’s a concept I’ve only scratched the surface of attempting to understand, but I think they were talking about the same thing.

After I finished reading Valis, it stuck with me for a while. This led to a fateful conversation between Melissa, her mom, her uncle Matt, and me one Sunday afternoon in her grandfather’s kitchen in Brooklyn. I was doing my typical sales pitch of pitching the latest thing I was into, i.e. Valis, and was initially falling on deaf ears—until Uncle Matt overheard the conversation and the concept I was trying to get across. As you can see, I’m really bad at trying to explain this stuff.

Before this conversation, Matt and I rarely spoke outside of hellos and goodbyes. It made sense. I was the douchebag boyfriend of his niece and usually sat in silence during my visits. There was never really a need for either of us to speak to each other. That day changed everything. Something made me decide to speak up about Valis and how it hit on some things I believed to be true. This led Matt and I to discover that we had much more in common than either of us had previously thought.

While I was poorly explaining my idea of what happens after we die, he came through and finished my thought process in a much more coherent way than I ever could. It turned out we both believed in the same thing. In essence it’s the belief that all of us are connected to each other whether we know it or not. We existed together before we were born into this physical world. We are all from that place, let’s call it the logos. Once we die, we’ll return to the logos from which we came. We’ll still be here, there, and everywhere after we’re gone. Just like we were before we were born. It’s actually quite peaceful and a beautiful thing.

It isn’t every day you meet people who have the same understanding of reality as you do. It takes certain life experiences and hardships to get you to search for it, and a willingness to let go of your preconceived notions in order to hold such a conversation.

 It’s why reading Valis was such an intense experience for me. By reading the book, it brought me to the conversation with Matt, which has since left an indelible mark on me. For that alone I am grateful.

Matt had been diagnosed with cancer a few months prior, and would be gone a few months after our discussion, but his certainty on what lies ahead was truly admirable. It takes a superhuman to hold strong in their belief with the end in sight. In this world experiences and relationships can set you on completely different courses. If it wasn’t for Valis I never would have had the desire to speak up that day and Matt would have never decided to divulge such personal beliefs in front of me. Instead, I read it, and it led me to having a conversation that will stay with me for the rest of my life. If that isn’t proof of something else being out there, I don’t know what is.

Anyway. That’s why I want to read The Exegesis of Philip K. Dick. If Valis brought me this, I can’t imagine the shit I can unlock from that behemoth. It was written from 1974 until Dick’s death in 1982. Almost all of it was written by hand in the wee hours of the night. In total there were 8,000 pages (the final printed copy has almost 1,000). As Jonathan Lethem, one of the editors of it said, "absolutely stultifying, brilliant, repetitive, and contradictory. It just might contain the secret of the universe."

Well, that’s exactly what I’m trying to find out. I know Matt already did.

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Anyway. This brings us to the subject of this week’s Deep End. He’s one of the greatest comics of all time. I’m talking, of course, about Sam Kinison.

If you ask any stand-up comic who the greats are, Kinison will usually be included in their list. Joe Rogan, who I’m mentioning for the third post in a row, usually brings him up when discussing the art of stand-up with most of the comics who appear on his podcast.

Sam Kinison killed audiences with his intense bits and his famous scream. I’ll give you a bit of background on him quick. Surprisingly, his first stab at a career wasn’t in comedy. He initially started off as a preacher. I guess the guy was in tune with God, which we’ll get to shortly. Most of his sermons were spent with him screaming about fire and brimstone. When that didn’t work out, he switched to the next best thing: stand-up comedy.

He launched his comedy career in 1978, and by 1985, after appearances on Late Night with David Letterman and an HBO comedy special, he had gotten his break. Sadly though, at the height of his fame in 1992, Kinison was killed in a car crash when he was just 38.

Let’s take a moment of silence on our part and watch him perform one of his more famous bits in remembrance of the man.

After I’ve been engaged for a little over a year, I have to say, listen to this man at all costs! Alright, alright. I’m finished…for now.

Anyway. In his passing Kinison left us with some outrageous stand-up comedy, and an outrageous death to top it off. I’ll explain.

Kinison and his wife of six days were on their way to Nevada for a sold-out gig. While they were driving to the gig, a pickup truck driving the opposite direction attempted to get in front of a slow driver—crossing over into oncoming traffic and crashing head-on into Kinison.

After the crash, Sam looked fine, with just some minor scratches, but his head had hit the windshield since he wasn’t wearing a seatbelt. He got out of the car and sat down on the side of the highway where he died. After an autopsy it was found that he had dislocated his spine and torn his aorta and other blood vessels. His wife survived the crash with only a concussion.

Now to the point of this article.

Once he had sat down on the side of the road, Kinison is said to have looked up to the sky talking to “no one.” This is the play-by-play:

Kinison to the sky, “I don’t want to die. I don’t want to die.”

The sky…

Kinison, “Why now?”

The sky…

Kinison, “But why?”

The sky…

Kinison, “Okay, okay, okay.”

A few moments after that he relaxed and passed on to the next life.

Crazy right? He legit had a conversation with something that relaxed him enough to settle into the arms of sleep—er, death.

It’s a chilling thing to think about, but in all honesty, it makes me feel pretty hopeful. Like I said in the beginning, I tend to think about what’s next a lot. I don’t like doing it, but I can’t help it. 4/7 nights out of the week, just before my head hits the pillow, I think: what if I don’t wake up? Fast forward three hours later, unable to sleep with my eyes glued to the Substack app while I wish I had just gone to bed and not scared myself silly again.

I’m a pretty spiritual person and have had more than a few instances in my life that lead me to believe—and say for a fact—that there’s more to this whole life thing after we die. But even when I say it with certainty, the idea of it being just a bottomless black pit of nothingness makes me feel dizzy.

Ugh, I hate that. Give me a few seconds here.

Whatever Kinison saw or heard made him completely relax into the next phase. I really think it was God or someone close to him telling him to chill. “It’s all gonna be okay, bro,” said Jesus.

I wonder if anyone else has heard similar stories to Sam’s. I don’t want to research that right now; this post is about him. If you have some stories you’d like to share to help me feel better, please do. And don’t forget to always wear your seat belt!

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In 2019 the New York Jets updated their logo and uniforms for the first time since 1998. Their fanbase had clamored for a change and were hoping to bring back the badass logo/uniforms of the 1980s Sack Exchange-era. What the team ended up releasing was an abomination and slap in the face to every poor bastard Jet fan in existence. The only thing worse than the uniforms was the coach who was picked to oversee the players donning them: Adam Gase.

This week the New York Jets updated their uniforms, five years too late, to the ones fans had been hoping for back in 2019, wiping away the stench of the Gase uniforms and hopefully bringing a new beginning to the team.

I bring this up because, like the Jets, we’ve recently changed our logo.

Here at Thinking Man, we like to keep full disclosure with our dear readers. We’re like a family here on Substack, after all. For those of you that have been here a while—hi and thanks for the support, it means a lot. To newcomers who have subscribed since the advent of our new fig and mushroom logo, we hope we’ve been everything you hoped we’d be and more.

April 2024 marked a new age and beginning for our publication. When Melissa first conceived the idea for Thinking Man, the logo she chose to welcome this work was inspired by Rodin’s The Thinker. It was a good logo and served the publication well.

Then one day, everything changed.

Growing up, figs (fico in Sicilian, which I had only known the fruit as until I got to college) were a staple in my life. My Nonno Sal had a beautiful fig tree in his concrete enclosed garden in Queens since the 70s. The tree supplied plump, sweet green figs to my family ever since he first planted it.

When Nonno passed in 2022, something told me I needed to take up his mantle. It’s been a task I’ve failed miserably in attempting ever since, given that he was a shoemaker and spent his life working with his hands. Everything in my grandparents’ house had been built or repaired by him, so me filling those shoes was basically off the table.  

His other field of expertise was gardening. The 6x8 garden he built in the alleyway behind his home produced vegetables for our dinners at least six months out of the year. My undertaking of gardening was also a bust. Overplanting resulted in massive crowding that ate up a bunch of my free time and bore little fruit—literally.

I was at a loss. With his audience looking down at me from the sky above, I needed to act fast. I couldn’t afford to fail at everything I had apprenticed under him my entire childhood. There was one thing left to try: I was going to plant my own fig tree.

The investment was minimal. A big pot, filled with compost, would house the little sapling. Unlike my gardening, I decided to research the ever-living hell out of how to actually make this work. This time, I was certain to have gotten it right. Once finished, I set the pot up on my parents’ brick porch, and the soon-to-be tree was left to do the rest of the work itself. Shortly thereafter Melissa aptly named the tree Sal, after my grandfather.

One morning, over a year after its initial planting, something caught my eye as I glanced over at the tree before leaving the house. A mushroom had sprouted up from Sal’s pot. I was floored. There the pot was, sitting all by itself up on the porch. Somehow a mushroom spore was able to float its way there, taking up shop in Sal’s home. It was beautiful.

When you see a mushroom, you may not realize that it’s the fruiting body of mycelium—which is basically the fungus’s roots. Mycelium does some pretty amazing things. In forests they act as a network, connecting trees to one another—helping them share water between each other and forming a means of communication amongst the forest. In essence, they help the trees grow.

In conversation with Melissa and myself when discussing how to move forward with Thinking Man, we decided a new logo would go well with the new structure of the publication. Figuring out what the new logo would be had been difficult, until it hit me.

Like the potted fig tree named Sal, people grow. We act and learn and live life, expecting to grow—in this case, into a regular old fig tree. Until one day a spore—an idea—comes floating your way. Suddenly that idea plants itself inside of you and takes you on a very different path. The roots may take hold, connecting you to others and opening you up to new things you may have never considered. You’re still the same you, but you have a new idea—a new thought that wasn’t there before. It may not change the way you look or act, but it could change the way you think, just from being there.

That’s us. We’re the spore. Hopefully we can help each other grow, too. Thanks for supporting.

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One of the most shocking experiences of my life happened this past weekend.

The shock was this: I heard a Steely Dan song for the first time—and it was fantastic. “Do It Again” was playing on a random Instagram reel I stumbled (mindlessly scrolled) on. The caption read, “If Nirvana Was Actually Good.” The jazzy opening groove of Do It Again was edited over Nirvana’s unplugged performance on MTV to make it look like the band was actually playing the song.

Lowkey insult to Nirvana aside, I needed to know who was actually responsible for the tune.

Steely Dan.

I was shocked. A quick Google search then proceeded to turn my entire world upside down.

My whole life has gone by with my only understanding of Steely Dan being in name alone. Maybe I heard a few songs as I floated through the years, but I never took notice. I always imagined Steely Dan as a rail thin guy with no teeth and a giant beard that shredded a steel-string banjo ripping through insane redneck anthems.

Surprisingly, Steely Dan is a New York based band whose founders met at Bard College in upstate New York. Walter Becker was the guitarist, bassist, and co-songwriter. Donald Fagan is lead singer, co-songwriter, and keyboardist. Becker grew up in Queens right near where I’m from and Fagan is from Jersey. (Fun fact: Chevy Chase was the drummer for the band during their early days at Bard College where he was also an alum.)

With guitar, keyboard, strings, and a smooth and grooving musical style, they’re everything I could ask for in a band. How did it take me this long to find out about them? Actually, it’s pretty simple.

Hearing the words “Steely Dan” immediately makes  me think of the southern banjo player that I described earlier, probably named that from a few of his drinking buddies after hammering back a bucketful of PBR’s.

Forget the drunk hillbilly—what I’m saying is that the name doesn’t correlate to what you hear in the music, and I can’t be the only person who thinks that. Is the band name the reason why the younger generations haven’t discovered their music? I think so, and I say that while also knowing I could be totally wrong. My brother tells me rich young kids with a penchant for yachting are fond of them. So maybe it’s my lack of yacht that kept me from discovering them, not their terrible name. For what it’s worth, it turns out they named the band after a steam-powered strap-on dildo featured in the book Naked Lunch by William S. Burroughs.

My favorite band is The Smashing Pumpkins. Billy Corgan (everything) and Jimmy Chamberlin (drums) are musical geniuses. I will go to my grave standing by that statement. I love the name. But I have heard people complain that it’s not a good one. I never understood it—until now.

The band name is important, it can be the reason why people will or won’t connect to the music. And sometimes an ‘inside joke’ of sorts can be fun. Similar to the, um phallic origins of Steely Dan, the word ‘smashing’ in The Smashing Pumpkins has an unlikely origin. It isn’t a reference to Billy and co destroying pumpkins. It’s the British version of smashing—The Excellent Pumpkins, in other words. Anyway. The Smashing Pumpkins resonated with me and I was hooked from the beginning. But someone else may think the name is ridiculous and write them off before they even get a chance to shit on Billy’s angelic voice.

This same thing goes for Steely Dan. The only time I ever heard them referenced has been with a raised eyebrow and high pitched tone from someone mocking 70s music as being old. “Yea, this guy listens to Steely Dan…”

We’ve heard the euphemism not to judge a book by its cover. I’m going to have to delve into some other bands with ridiculous names and see what else I’ve been missing. If you have any other suggestions let me know! In the meantime, I’ll catch up on a lot of Steely Dan music I’ve missed out on.

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As a kid, I was fascinated by magic. I was the proud owner of countless useless magic sets that were obviously fake and didn’t work. They were great; enough fun to last a kid for—well, about fifteen minutes, which was just long enough for the seven- to ten-year-old to realize that the plush “magician’s” hat in the box set wouldn’t pass as a real hat for a number of reasons, including that it was barely big enough for a rabbit to wear let alone fit inside of.

Now that the obligatory intro is done, I ask you to stop for a moment and ponder. Think about magic. When you’re done thinking, please, come back. The leash I have on this column is very short. Melissa is just about ready to give me my walking papers.

Okay, so you thought about magic for a bit, yes? What did you think of? Witches? Harry Potter? The Orlando-based basketball team?

Maybe, but chances are that at least one of you thought of Harry Houdini (hopefully). I know he’s what comes to my mind, and it isn’t because of the Six Flags ride inspired by him (although it is my favorite ride in the park).

No. I think of Houdini because he’s the epitome of magic. At least to me.

Growing up, I was always entranced by stories of his daring feats, and often believed him to have actual magical powers. As is usually the case, I found out later that his accomplishments stemmed from some serious hard work, dedication, and thousands of hours of practice—which, as an adult, I believe is even cooler than actually having magic powers.

Let’s introduce him first. The year was 1874. The man who would become known to the world as Harry Houdini was born Erik Weisz in Budapest. His family moved to the United States four years later, settling down in Wisconsin and changing the spelling of their last name to Weiss. In 1887 the Weiss family moved to good ol’ New York City.

1891 was the year Erik, now known in the magic circles as Harry Houdini, began his career. His initial career was met with little success. The problem? Houdini branded himself as “King of Cards” and tried to make his magical name stand out by performing card tricks. This move placed the young Houdini at the end of the shit-talking stick in magicians’ circles—meaning his magical peers didn’t think he was all that talented. Apparently, neither did the public. This meant one thing: Houdini needed to rebrand himself if he wanted to become the man that he aspired to be. That’s exactly what he did.

Enter Houdini’s escape acts. Harry was able to entrance the country with feats of escape. He wowed audiences as he performed show after show doing the impossible. Freeing himself from chains, handcuffs, being buried alive, ropes hanging off buildings, and of course straitjackets (which was an escape stunt first invented by Houdini’s fellow magician and brother, Dash Hardeen).

Houdini would practice his act like a madman, becoming an expert at breaking out of anything. He could usually perform his escape stunt within minutes, which obviously wouldn’t sell tickets. Instead, he would keep his audience on the edge of their seats, taking upwards of an hour on some of his stunts to truly captivate them. And it worked. You don’t get a Six Flags ride named after you for nothing.

Anyway. I’m done boring you with his origin story. It’s time to get to the good part.

Growing up in Queens, for as long as I could remember I’ve heard that Houdini was buried in a cemetery “right here.” Now that I think of it, it goes pretty far back in my lore. Honestly, hearing the bragging that we lived near Houdini’s burial plot was likely my first introduction to the fact that people die. Poor young Johnny.

Houdini is buried in Machpelah Cemetery in Glendale, a stone’s throw away from my old neighborhood. The cemetery is right off the Jackie Robinson Parkway (Queens residents know that as the worst, most horribly traffic jammed parkway in existence). Houdini’s grave—which is headlined by his head, or bust—can be seen right from Cypress Hills Street as you drive up toward the Jackie.

Whenever we’d drive near the cemetery, or I’d bring up my interest in magic, someone would mention Houdini’s grave and a blurry image of the dead magician buried six feet under would percolate into my imagination. Of course, once I got to driving age, one of the first stops was to the infamous grave.

It's actually really cool. The plot consists of the graves of nine family members. This includes the aforementioned magically inclined brother, Dash. Sadly, it doesn’t include Houdini’s wife Bess who wasn’t Jewish and had to be buried away from her husband in a cemetery in Westchester.

When you walk up to the grave, you’re greeted by the great bust of Houdini himself, likely judging your magical aptitude upon walking in. Below the bust is the crest of the Society of American Magicians, which Harry was president of from 1917-1926. Under that is a crying woman, probably Bess, and then the single stones which represent his siblings and ones literally marked Mother, Father, and Grandmother. No names included. Talk about injustice.

Since my first encounter at the site, I’ve been back a few times. People sometimes leave burnt playing cards, flowers, or coins on Houdini’s grave marker. I haven’t left more than a stone and don’t plan on ever going beyond that.

Overall, it’s a pretty cool thing to check out if you’re in the area. One thing you may not realize when visiting the grave or thinking about Houdini—which I’m sure you do a lot of—is the subject of his death.

I know I know. You’re probably thinking the same way I did. Grandiose death. Some zany final act that even the great Houdini couldn’t keep up with. Drowning in tank with his arms tied to his balls or some other genius escape idea, perhaps.

I’m here to tell you that if that’s what you were thinking, you’re wrong. Houdini, besides claiming to be an excellent escape artist (which he was), claimed he was able to withstand another dramatic feat: being able to take basically any punch to his stomach without pain.

Huh? Exactly. The day was October 22^nd, 1926. Houdini was in his dressing room at the Princess Theatre in Montreal. Now 52, Harry was still at the top of his game. A student from McGill University entered the dressing room. He approached Houdini and asked about the arduous claim regarding punches to his stomach.

Houdini, unfortunately, said yes.

“Well of course I can, pal!” in a Transatlantic accent maybe.

Cue the student, boxer Jocelyn Gordon Whitehead, viciously swinging furious punches straight to Houdini’s stomach without warning. Typically, the way this trick worked, Houdini would have been extremely prepared for the blows and had a way to tighten his abdomen to act like a shield—and then just take the punches as best he could. This time the young boxer took Houdini completely off guard and basically killed him.

Literally. A few days later in Detroit on Halloween night, Houdini died. A fitting day to go, to say the least. It’s up for debate whether those dressing room punches were really the cause of the great magician’s death. I think they are. The official cause of death was listed as swelling of the abdomen, which was possibly related to appendicitis, which could have been aggravated or hidden by the brutal punches he had received.

Either way, he was gone, and went down in history as one of the greatest performers ever. His work ethic and desire to become great were the driving factors for his success. I admire the guy. And judging by the stuff people still leave at his grave almost one hundred years since his death, others out there do, too.

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Opening Day is upon us. In just a few days, the New York Mets will put cleats to dirt at Citi Field and commence what is already shaping up to be a pretty bleak season for everyone’s favorite team based in Queens, New York (unless you’re partial to New York City FC II, who also play in Queens—if you are, please leave).

Anyway.  If you were born in New York City and had any inkling of a spine, chances are you would become a Mets fan. The Mets are the team of the people. The lovable losers who you can always count on to break your hearts right as you finally believe the tides are going to turn.

Growing up ten minutes from Shea Stadium/Citi Field meant all of my friends shared the passion of supporting this franchise with me. With the Mets comes the Jets, too. In other words, our sports fandom was completely and utterly f*cked from the beginning.

We’ve come close, but sadly none of us have ever had the chance to experience a championship victory. Here are some moments to spark some PTSD for my fellow Mets and Jets fans:

-       In 2006, when I was nine, I remember crying after Carlos Beltran looked at a called strike three without moving a muscle. This happened during game seven of the NLCS, and propelled the St. Louis Cardinals to the World Series while poor David Wright and co. got a head start on their offseason golf training.

-       In 2009 and 2010, Rex Ryan AND Mark Sanchez and the Jets came one win away from reaching the Super Bowl for the first time since the 1968 season.

-       In the 2015 playoffs the Mets were scorching hot. Sadly, their sweep of the Chicago Cubs to get into the World Series meant they got a chance to cool down while waiting almost a week for their opponent to be decided. This led to the Kansas City Royals coming in hot against the cold Mets. The Mets stood no chance, getting steam rolled by the Royals four games to one. Ouch.

Don’t even get me started on Carmelo Anthony getting traded to the Knicks and decimating a team jam packed with talented players like Danilo Gallinari, Wilson Chandler, Timofey Mosgov, and Raymond Felton.

In other words, sport hasn’t been kind to us. And why do they need to?

Back when sports weren’t fiercely influenced by legalized gambling, there was a grittiness to the game which is now lost. Fans of the NBA, MLB, and NFL (I believe hockey is exempt from this, but more hardcore fans may disagree) must admit the passion, heart, and soul of the game has been wrecked by dollars—salaries, merchandise, stadium costs, advertising, and much more. Teams were obviously in it for the money. But now they really don’t care to hide it.

This is why the Mets, Jets, Knicks, and honestly all other New York teams will never win another championship. The Mets, Jets, and Knicks are synonymous with losing. It’s what they do best. Yet, they are consistently ranked as the most valuable teams in their respective leagues and the world. Why?

Because they play in New York City. There are enough people here that the money is going to be made no matter what. It doesn’t matter if the team is winning—they don’t need to produce a perennial winner like the Kansas City Chiefs do in order to be at the top of the revenue heap. The Jets do it while making a consistent mockery of themselves—which only boosts their bottom line.

So, do I believe the Mets have a shot this season? Yea, no. They won’t accomplish much. The only high ranking the team will get is in the Forbes list of most valuable sports franchises.

Frankly, I’ll probably never see a Mets or Jets championship in my lifetime; there just isn’t a need for it. The leagues need the small market teams to reign supreme to help spread the wealth, while us New Yorkers will continue forking over dollars regardless of the product on the field.

Anyway. Maybe I’m wrong. Maybe the Mets will be good. But we’ll have to wait till Thursday to find out.

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The man who helped make New York City what it is today froze to death. Have I gotten your attention? Good. Now allow me to explain.

The year was 1609. The Dutch East India Company was eager to find a captain to commandeer a ship that would set sail on a journey to discover a new route to Asia through the east. Their intentions were clear: find a sailing passage north of Russia, through the Arctic Circle, and to the Pacific Ocean that would get them to Asia. This route would save time, money, and (most importantly) prevent any pirates from looting their vessels when on the hazardous journey around Africa.

The Dutch’s choice: Henry Hudson.

It was no wonder why they chose Henry, either. Hudson previously captained two separate voyages for the East India and Muscovy Companies in England. And both voyages had also set sail to find a northeast passage to Asia.

Unsurprisingly, both voyages ended in failure. As the saying goes, third time’s the charm…right? Obviously, the Dutch East India Company truly believed in the old proverb which meant one thing: Hudson was the perfect man for the job.

The Dutch pounced on the Englishman and slapped him aboard the Half Moon (Haelve Maen in Dutch). He assembled his crew and set sail towards Russia.

Shockingly enough, once the Half Moon reached Norway, Hudson and the crew found the passage blocked by ice. For reference, the other two failed voyages he had led had also failed after ice blocked the way through Norway. However, this time was different. This time those massive chunks of ice ended up changing the course of history forever.

Hudson had strict orders from his clog-wearing bosses. Search for a northeast passage. If it was found to be blocked, return to the Netherlands, and resume the status quo of eating bitterballen and perusing the red-light district (or whatever else they do in the Netherlands). Unfortunately for restaurateurs and the nice women in De Wallen, Hudson had other plans.

Disobeying orders, and presumably much to the chagrin of his crew, he decided to reverse course and head west in search of something no one had ever hired him to find: the famed “Northwest Passage.”

This attempt took what the layman today may describe as balls. Have you ever seen videos of huge ships out in the open ocean during a storm? Go ahead, I’ll wait right here. Ready? Okay cool. So now you understand, it’s absolutely terrifying. Besides, the Half Moon compared to a modern-day ocean vessel is like comparing a Tonka Truck to a fire engine. So, yeah, these sailors from back in the day had some serious huevos on them.

Hudson and his crew wound up sailing from Norway to Newfoundland. From Newfie, the ship slowly sailed along the east coast of North America, first arriving at Cape Cod, before finally arriving at an estuary (known today as Upper New York Bay) previously discovered by Giovanni da Verrazzano.

In his 1522 voyage to the New World, Verrazzano had believed this estuary was a large lake. Hudson had found that it to lead to a river, dubbed the “North River” at the time. The Half Moon promptly sailed up this river.

Originally the stretch of land along the river (and the river itself) had been deemed inhospitable. But Hudson found it bountiful—aside from losing one crewman to a Native American arrow. He was able to trade for beaver pelts with several of the native tribes all the way up to Albany. Oh, come on, what’s one sailor’s life compared to getting an exquisite beaver-pelt coat? That’s what I thought.

Anyway. Hudson took note of the lush forests along the river that teemed with life. This information was brought back to the Dutch, who presumably slapped him on the wrist for disobeying orders, thanked him for the furs, and sent his ass back to England.

This set into motion two things:

1) The Dutch decided to make a settlement in this lush island of animals and forestry.  

2) Henry Hudson would go on to captain another ship for the English—this one bound for the New World in another search for the Northwest Passage. But this time was different, sort of. Instead of failing to find the passage and returning home, Hudson’s ship was frozen in ice trapped in Hudson Bay, Canada. This led to his crew mutinying against him, and Henry and his son likely freezing to death stranded in Canada.

So, Hudson froze to death and the Dutch got to work settling what is now Manhattan thanks to his findings. Hurray for the clog wearers!

Now, if New Yorkers are reading this, I’m almost positive you’ve heard of the Hudson River. (It’s the one running along the west side of Manhattan.) Maybe you’ve even heard of the Hudson Valley. Perhaps you’ve seen a few streets with the name littered around the city—no they aren’t named after acclaimed actor Ernie Hudson. They’re named after the hero of today’s story, Henry Hudson!

The “North River” Hudson traversed is known today as the Hudson River. Him trading for all those sweet beaver furs was the catalyst that led the Dutch to settle New Amsterdam on the island of Manhattan.

Of course, New Amsterdam eventually got taken over by the English and turned into New York, which is why the esteemed skateboard brand Zoo York isn’t Zoo Amsterdam (now that’s an idea!). In other words, here we are, reaping the benefits of that beaver-pelt trade all these hundreds of years later.

And that’s the story of how New York became what it is today (sort of). Now you understand the story behind the introduction to this post, which is totally true. Henry Hudson wanted greatness. He wanted immortality. And he achieved it, just not the way he thought he would. Ice and a mutiny ended his quest for the Northwest Passage, but his name is still etched into history thanks to the famous river which bears his name. Also, it’s possible that his corpse is still completely intact, frozen somewhere off the coast of Canada up near Hudson Bay…but we’ll get to that story and the whole mutiny next week on The Deep End.

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Let’s play Wheel of Fortune!

Everyone knows the game. It’s been around since the 1970s and has been a mainstay in the American lexicon since the evening program starring Pat Sajak and Vanna White first aired in 1983.

You know the rules: spin the wheel, guess the letters, and win prizes. Wheel of Fortune was invented by Merv Griffin, who you also know as the creator of Jeopardy!. The game (Wheel of Fortune) is based on the even more classic game, Hangman—which may be based on an even older game called Birds, Beasts, and Fishes. The game is pretty simple. You guess letters that fill out a phrase. If you get the letters (and eventually the phrase) correct, you win.

It’s ingenious! And it has captivated viewers for decades. Wheel of Fortune is one of those things that you can’t even remember not existing. After all, the game show has been around since its inception without much change. It’s been the same wheel, studio, and hosts since the beginning. Pat and Vanna are just a tad bit older than they were when they started working on the thing (although Ryan Seacrest is set to take over for Sajak in September of this year, ending his splendid run that lasted over forty years).

What I’m saying is: you can’t fault yourself for feeling like Wheel of Fortune has been around forever. In fact, it actually has been around forever. I’ll explain.

Let me introduce you to Fortuna. She’s better known as the Roman goddess of fortune, luck, and fate. Her Greek counterpart is Tyche. Daughter of the god Jupiter (Zeus), Fortuna was conceived—let me stop. No one cares about the historical (and gross) familial banging that went on in the ancient Roman and Greek heavens above.

Fortuna was the goddess of luck, as I just mentioned. Depictions of her are famous for showing the drip she usually hauls around with her. She’s typically seen carrying a gubernaculum (whatever the hell that means), a cornucopia, and a wheel.

Did you catch the thing I mentioned last? Yep, a wheel. Fortuna carries around a wheel.

Now. Allow me to introduce to you: Rota Fortunae, or the Wheel of Fortune. The Rota Fortunae is an ancient symbol of fate. The Wheel of Fortune was the metaphor’s medieval counterpart.

As the name goes, the Rota belonged to Fortuna. In the depictions of the Rota Fortunae,  Fortuna is blindfolded. She spins the Rota blindly, which illustrates the random chances of fortune and misfortune that people are met with over the course of their lives. No matter how unfair it might seem, some of us could strike gold at the drop of a hat, while others who deserve better are left with nothing due to their unlucky lot in life.

Rota Fortunae was popularized in the Middle Ages as the Wheel of Fortune after the release of The Consolation of Philosophy, by Boethius, a senator and philosopher who lived in Rome from the 5th-6th century. (Can I just mention his full name is Anicius Manlius Severinus Boethius. Manlius!? That’s pretty cool. Also, he’s actually recognized as a saint by the Catholic church—even though he wasn’t a priest or anything of the sort.)  

The Consolation of Philosophy was written in 523 AD while Boethius was imprisoned and awaiting execution for treason against the Ostrogoth King. In case you didn’t know—and trust me, I didn’t, either—the Ostrogoths ruled Italy before the Lombards turned it into a kingdom in 563.

The Consolation of Philosophy is written as a conversation between Boethius and “Lady Philosophy.” The book discusses such topics as happiness, suffering, and evil’s existence in a world ruled by God. The Wheel of Fortune is discussed in the second “book” in the book. Here, the author and Lady Philosophy talk about living in a world where good or bad luck may strike you without a moment’s notice. They claim happiness can still be had—by pursuing wisdom! If being named Manlius didn’t already sell me on this guy…

So, what’s my point here? I think it actually might be that Boethius is a complete and total badass! I mean seriously, his life sounds really cool, even with the whole being executed on orders of the goth king at the age of 44.

The goth king pictured here.

The Consolation of Philosophy was heavily inspired by Plato’s dialogues and stoic philosophy, and is said to be the last great work of the classical period. The book is also considered one of the greatest works to ever be written in prison, so there’s that.

Some of Boethius’s career achievements include reaching the status of senator by age 25, becoming consul by 33, and being chosen as personal advisor to the king that would ultimately sentence him to death. Sweet. Oh yeah, and he’s a saint. Somehow, he is considered to have died a martyr of the Catholic faith. Resources explaining why a Roman senator and philosopher’s politically-motivated death would grant him sainthood have been hard for me to find…

Anyway. My boy is still heralded as one of the all-time greatest thinkers. He’s been called “the last of the Roman philosophers” by Edward Kennard Rand (whoever that is). And he’s been mentioned in famous books like Dante’s Divine Comedy and John Kennedy Toole’s A Confederacy of Dunces.

Here’s another reference to Boethius you may have heard (this one being unrelated to the hit game show Wheel of Fortune). It’s the concept that history is a circle. “The Boethian Wheel” is his concept that history is like a wheel, always repeating itself.

As the wheel spins, some will rise from the bottom, while others fall off as it comes around on the other side. Wars will come and go. Kingdoms will conquer and die out. Men may go from starving to powerful. But in the end, we all end up dead in the soil with a new group of people taking our place and repeating the same mistakes we did.

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Seriously, though, if you love Boethius, the goth king, and/or Thinking Man, check out our merch store, linked below. Happy shopping (I mean… Sunday)!

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Ah, Long Island, New York. Home of the only two New York City boroughs that matter. It’s got everything: sandy beaches, wine trails, horrifically overpriced homes, Roosevelt Field Mall, and areas so rich you may be shot on sight for trespassing if you aren’t a resident.

Yes indeed, it sure is something.

Each corner of Long Island gives you something different. There are homes nestled in the woods with scenic trails to rocky beaches lining the North Shore, while the South Shore has way too many white fences and strip malls. The city encompasses the western front, and multi-million-dollar homes make up the exclusive Hamptons area on the eastern tip.

The north and south sides are split by the Long Island Expressway. There’s also the Northern and Southern State, the Grand Central, the Belt, and the Cross Island parkways. Dare to embark on any one of these highways between the hours of 5am and 8pm and you’ll be guaranteed to find yourself stuck in a traffic logjam.

Most residents don’t ever feel the need to leave and go somewhere else (except Florida twice a year). Why go anywhere when you have all this at the drop of a hat? I’ll tell you why. You simply can’t go anywhere else—without sacrificing serious daylight sitting in traffic, that is.

On a serious note, though, you really can’t escape. Even if you wanted to. Which brings me to my point.

In order to get to the mainland United States from any point on Long Island you have limited options. There are three options by car and two by ferry. For this exercise we aren’t counting anything that goes through Manhattan—and forget even thinking about Staten Island. (The amount of traffic getting through either Manhattan or Staten Island is so appalling they really are a complete waste of time discussing.)

There’s the Whitestone, Throgs Neck, and RFK bridges for an “expedited” approach to exit, and the Cross-Sound Ferries departing from Port Jefferson and Orient for a more scenic option. In reality the ferries are basically non-options. They have limited space and are really only good for those travelers who like to sightsee (myself included).

That leaves the only real means of exiting the island being the three bridges. Those three bridges are usually stocked to the gills with commuters, which is another reason why Long Islanders don’t typically choose leaving said island.

Did I mention that the island is home to a little over eight million people? Wouldn’t it be funny to imagine if all eight million suckers decided to up and leave at the exact same time? Well, no need to answer that, as I’ve arrived at my much-anticipated point.

If some sort of cataclysmic event were to take place that directly impacted Long Island—everyone would die!

There are a few options for what could happen:

•          Bomb strike.

•          Shutdown of the power grid.

•          Tsunami.

•          Zombie apocalypse.

Think about it. If you were notified of a bomb strike happening, how do you think your chances are? There’s way too many people living here for there to even be a remote chance of escape.

Even if you lived in Whitestone with direct access to the bridge, try and stop to collect toiletries or your dog’s food bowl before you leave—now there’s a forty-five-minute wait to get on the bridge. All in a two-mile stretch. In other words, you’d be a sitting duck.

Now how do the options sound the further you get from the bridges? Anyone living in Garden City or Long Beach would be toast. Forget the eastern end of the Island. The only hope of escaping from there is having a boat. Sure, there are some regular people with boats, and maybe they’ll make it. Besides them, there’s a bunch of millionaires and billionaires living in the Hamptons and on the shores with their own yachts. But even for them, there’s no chance of making it when their captains are stuck in bumper-to-bumper traffic in Hewlett trying to escape themselves.

Right about now you may be thinking: a bomb isn’t going to get dropped on NYC. You may say to yourself that a zombie apocalypse is ridiculous. And the power grid won’t go down; allowing that to happen would mean losing too much money than the government would ever be willing to.

Sure. But there’s one other option I listed in the aforementioned list.

TSUNAMI.

Yea, yea. Tsunami. Crazy, right? Maybe, but also maybe not.

Ever heard of the Canary Islands? They’re an archipelago out in the Atlantic Ocean. The islands are an autonomous region of Spain, and 62 miles west of Morocco (that’s in Africa, for anyone still reading).

“Wait!” You say, “Africa is, like, really far.”

“That it is,” I would answer.

“So why would we care about what happens there?” You say again.

“Stop interrupting me so I can explain,” I respond angrily.

Allow me to introduce you to the island of La Palma.

It’s the most northwesterly island of the Canary Islands, and home to Cumbre Vieja—an active volcano on the island.

There is a risk, however small, that an eruption of Cumbre Vieja could cause a landslide on La Palma—causing 500 cubic km of the island to fall into the Atlantic Ocean. If this drop would happen all at once, the magnitude of the landslide would cause a mega-tsunami to hit the east coast of the United States.

That would mean that, technically, Long Island is a ticking time bomb.

There would be some time to prepare for this mega-tsunami before it hit here. A few hours or so. But the chances of escape would be slim to none for most folks. You’d have a couple hours to say goodbye to loved ones or stick it to your high school bully one last time before the entirety of the island would become an oceanic all-you-can-eat buffet for sharks to feast on the remains of all our corpses.

Hold on, there’s hope yet!

As scary as it sounds, it’s a stretch. Everything would need to be completely perfect for this mega-tsunami to occur. The portion of La Palma that’s in danger of falling into the ocean after the eruption would need to basically break off in one clean piece and drop in all at once.

So, in other words, it is possible—just really unlikely. But, like I said, Cumbre Vieja is an active volcano. Its last activity was recorded in 2021. That wasn’t that long ago. How much longer till it comes to blows… get it?

Anyway. That’s the deal. If you’re on Long Island, you’re there. Stuck, and stranded with no hope of escape.

If you’re reading this from the comfort of your own bed tucked away somewhere on the island, know that right now, as you read, something could happen. If it does, you’ll have no choice but to tuck yourself in tighter, because there’s really no hope of escape. Now, get out of the house and get to one of the beautiful shopping malls littered across Long Island. Money isn’t going to spend itself! Happy Sunday.

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I recently finished watching Nathan Fielder and Benny Safdie’s The Curse. I think you should watch it. Let me explain why below.

The show takes you along on the journey of a young married couple moving into a new town. That’s the most polite way to put it. The couple—spearheaded by the ambitious and downright delusional wife portrayed brilliantly and excruciatingly awkwardly by Emma Stone—show us just how dirty gentrifying a poor neighborhood can be.

The show starts here: Emma Stone’s Whitney and Nathan Fielder’s Asher are in the midst of shooting a reality TV series. The series follows them moving into the “up-and-coming” town of Española, New Mexico. I put up-and-coming in quotes because, in reality, Española is an underdeveloped poor town. Whitney and Asher have bought property and turned the houses into “passive-homes” to promote green living—while attempting to sell them for top dollar. The plan behind their realty show is simple: make the dangerous and rundown Española appear hip and exciting. This will drive up the prices of the properties the couple is buying up for cheap, so they can sell for maximum profit—all at the expense of the residents who can barely afford living expenses as it is.

It’s painful, awkward, brutal to sit through at times, and downright hilarious at others. Nathan Fielder is in one of his best roles yet—really bringing his deadpan humor and abrasive personality to anyone that has the displeasure of speaking to into him. Emma Stone deserves an award for her portrayal of Whitney. I don’t think a character has made me cringe more—bringing back memories of run-ins all over New York with women just like her.

Of course, there’s a curse mixed in, but the real brilliance of the show is capturing the real stresses and financial ramifications of gentrifying an area as down and out as Española.

It’s really relatable. Why? Because it’s literally happening. Everywhere.

Right now, I live in Brooklyn—smack in the middle of Greenpoint and Williamsburg. It’s an area that’s been gentrified. I’ve heard stories from residents, former and current, who talk about life here when you couldn’t walk out of your apartment at night without risk of getting robbed.

Now it’s different. Now you can take Emma Stone’s character and plop her smack in the middle of any coffeehouse, teashop, hot sauce bar, skate shop, recycled underwear store, or jean depository and she’d fit in like a glove. Fake friendliness, misguided attempts at trying to fit in with the locals while simultaneously forcing them out. The show is so spot on with this that you can’t help but laugh.

Here in the areas of Brooklyn and Queens I’ve lived in, the Italians and Irish that used to dominate the landscape in the 80s are now treated as caricatures of themselves. See a guy with a strong “New York” accent and it’s cute—a novelty of the time before. It’s also perceived as a sign of lower intelligence to the newcomers, just like what The Curse is portraying with Española.

Other things have changed, too.

Dangerous areas along the waterfronts of Brooklyn and Queens, where factories once stood, have traded their shady underbelly for people searching for Lululemons, Warby Parkers, and astronomically priced apartment buildings—that I may or may not have been involved in the construction of. There’s even a Hermes going up on one of the blocks off Bedford in Williamsburg. That means one thing: big bucks are coming. Like bigger bucks than either one of us could possibly imagine.

Talk about a 180.

From not being able to walk down the streets to not being able to afford rent anywhere close to some of these areas. Instead, the former residents talk about their favorite restaurants and hang-out spots that once stood there, and the current ones are clamoring to get away from the never-ending drove of hipsters—only to sell their homes to rich developers that will price out any future generations of former residents from ever living there without sharing space with three or four roommates.

Where I come from in Queens, the same thing is occurring in a more residential sense. A place once meant for working class families, is now so severely price gouging home buyers that no one’s kids have the chance to raise a family in the same neighborhood they grew up in.

My parents have a dream: for their kids to buy a house in the neighborhood they live in. Keep the tradition going. Raise grandkids and give them the life we gave you—if not a better one. The only problem is it makes absolutely no logical sense. To buy a house in this city now means being house poor for anyone who could even qualify for a million-dollar loan.

There are other problems with the influx of new residents. Everyone’s heard of how rude and nasty New Yorkers are. Right? In my opinion, it’s wrong. For the most part, native New Yorkers don’t fit that bill. Most of us are just trying to scrape by as best we can. Implants come here, hearing stories about how brutal New Yorkers are, and think they need to fit that mold to fit in. They couldn’t be more off base.

Yesterday, Melissa and I went to a diner at the corner of Nassau and Manhattan. The place was packed—only two tables left in the place. “Sit wherever you like,” a waitress said. We shuffled over to the two remaining tables which happened to be right next to each other. The first one had coffee spills on it and a few bucks left for a tip, it hadn’t been cleaned off yet. “Well, I guess we’ll sit here—,” I motioned to toss my jacket into the only clean table in the restaurant, when another patron bolted into the seat.

I never saw anything quite like it—a real NPC type. Carhartt beanie on. Fuzzy red jacket. Rolled up jeans. Sunglasses on with no intention of being taken off. AirPods glued firmly into his earlobes. He threw his used backpack on the other side of the booth and sat, staring in complete stillness, having just stolen our table. He didn’t even look in our direction, let alone address us. AirPods never left his ears either. He just sat there in emptiness, waiting for his order to be taken.

The waitress came over and apologized on the stranger’s behalf that our table was stolen and quickly cleaned the other one off for us. We sat. My back to the NPC’s. His presence reeked of Boise. How many times had he rehearsed that in his closet apartment?

It’s strange times we live in. People don’t care about their neighbors and the people around them. You know why? Because they don’t have to. They’ll go from one town to the next, leaving high rents and used jacket stores lying in their wake. Just like the couple in The Curse.

Anyway. My point is this: I recommend you take a chance at watching The Curse. It’ll set you back one Paramount Plus subscription, but let’s be real—you and I both know you already have one.

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What makes a story?

It’s a question most writers face when they are trying to come up with their latest bit of slop to sell to the consuming public. A story could be a lot of things, and anything could be turned into one story.

An incident between you and a strange woman at Target could be twisted into a tale your grandkids are repeating to their kin in a hundred years.

The thing that happened to you at work after someone accidentally left an unsettling stain on their ergonomic chair.

A memory of you as a kid or teenager that randomly plays back in your brain.

Reflections on a better time, or a hopeful dream for the future.

Life advice columns.

Sometimes they’re words that popped into your brain seemingly out of nowhere, that can only be explained by divine intervention.

I’m currently in the process of writing my fourth and fifth books.

Book One was a prove it type deal, blending the strange and the paranormal with some wit tied together by a narrator hoping to find himself in a sea of uncertainty.

Book Two is a wacky adventure tale with elements of time travel, historical fiction, all being brought to a head by a seemingly deadly love triangle.

Book Three (which as of this article is being read by a literary agent) is a middle-grade paranormal mystery book that could be the first in an anthology series.

Now here I am, writing Book Five in the wee hours of the morning (before 6am), and Book Four after a long day of work.

Book Four is set to be the second installment of the middle-grade paranormal mystery series. It’s lighthearted, with a group of kids off in the woods on an adventure. There’s a concrete beginning, middle, and an ending. It was already shaped out under the guidelines I created to help me pen the series. In other words, I know how the story is supposed to go. Pretty much down to all the events mounting to the epic climax.

Book Five, which follows the writing guidelines of Book Two, is being written without a single ounce of a plan. I have one element that I plan on incorporating, but so far pen has been put to paper with nothing being done in terms of planning on what to write that morning. I’m simply pulling the antenna from out of my brain and hoping to latch onto whatever beacon fate sends into me and out of my fingers to create this story.

Book Two easily followed this method. It was a zany and downright ridiculous premise that was fun to write and had endless possibilities to help fill the page.

Book Five is anything but this. It’s the closest thing to real that I have ever written. No paranormal elements, no adventures, no time travel. Just a guy telling his story in the most real way I could write it. Written solely from my past experiences, it’s a story only I could tell, and because of this, I’m worried about how I can possibly fill the pages of it. Why? Because there really isn’t much of a story to tell.

People like reading about adventures, and love triangles, and ghosts. But what happens when I write an entire book about something a real person is experiencing just as I type away at this article? Am I wasting my time, or will someone find it interesting? What makes a story interesting to you? Is it the thrill of adventure that could never happen in your regular day-to-day life?

Can the mundane reality of life fit into a story, causing the reader to reflect on their own life in a way they never would otherwise? The story in question could be seemingly uneventful—an amalgamation of events in a specific time frame in someone’s life.

You have a story to tell right now. Even if you think you don’t. Every few months is another book. Small things happen. They may seem uneventful, but they still happen. The little things that change you from January 1st to March 31st. You changed in those three months, even though you may not think you have. In it is a story to tell. Hopefully mine is worth reading.

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Growing up, one of my favorite hobbies was watching TV while sitting on the antique couch in my grandparent’s living room—a room better fit for a Sicilian-American Immigrant’s Museum than a place to watch TV with your eyes glazed over at the age of thirteen.

My favorite thing to watch would be the old true crime TV shows on the E! Network. Don’t worry, this isn’t a paid advertisement for E! (That doesn’t mean I’m not open to the idea. If you happen to be a member of the E! Network, hello!)

Stories of killer clowns, the Son of Sam, wives driven to kill, and unsolved murders were always fascinating to me. Typically, I seemed to gravitate to the unsolved crime facet of the genre.

The Zodiac Killer and Jack the Ripper are among my favorites and have always captured the hearts of true crime fanatics. But for me, one tale stood out from the rest. It’s one of those stories that spellbinds you, makes you wonder, sticks with you, pops up in your head from time to time, and has you thinking of what could have been had things ended differently. Most people wouldn’t necessarily agree with that last part. I’ll explain why in a bit.

I’m talking of course, about the mysterious case of D.B. Cooper.

On November 24th, 1971, a man boarded a plane from Portland to Seattle. The man looked to be in his mid-forties and wore a business suit, white shirt, black tie, black raincoat, and brown shoes. He carried a briefcase and a paper bag. The man sat in the last row of the plane and ordered a bourbon and 7-Up to get things rolling. This story may seem ordinary enough, but that’s because I haven’t gotten to the good part yet.

Shortly after takeoff, the aforementioned man (whose ticket read Dan Cooper) handed one of the flight attendants a note. Thinking it was another desperate middle-aged business man’s digits, the flight attendant left him on the 1971 version of read and dropped the note in her purse without reading it. Cooper, surely offended by her not accepting his advances, urged her to read the note.

The note read: Miss—I have a bomb in my briefcase and want you to sit by me.

Now that’s a pickup line worth trying. After the flight attendant read the note, she approached the man. The pickup line worked! Cooper calmly explained his plan; showing her the bomb in question and promptly demanding $200,000 (around $1.5 million in 2024) or else the plane would go bye-bye.

Our faithful stewardess brought this matter up to the cockpit. Suddenly the crew of Northwest Orient Airlines Flight 305 realized they had a hijacking on their hands. The captain contacted their flight operations on the ground to relay the demands Cooper was making in order to save the plane and its passengers from being all exploded over the runway.

The demands were:

⁃           $200,000 in 20s.

⁃           Four parachutes.

These demands were required to be met on the runway of the Seattle airport in order for the passengers to be safely released from the plane. Cooper’s requests for four parachutes meant he planned on taking hostages, forcing the authorities handling the situation to make sure all the parachutes actually worked…aw shucks.

The flight to Seattle continued without a hitch. Cooper was said to be “calm and rather nice.” When asked by flight attendant, Tina Mucklow, why he chose to hijack Northwest Airlines, he laughed and said it had nothing to do with the airlines. Cooper actually tried to give Mucklow some of the ransom money once it was received. He really did seem swell!

The plane landed, the ransom demands were met, and the passengers were released. However, Mucklow, the pilot, the co-pilot, and the engineer were to stay on the flight. He needed a few hostages, after all—oh yea, and someone to fly the damned thing.

Cooper ordered the plane be refueled before embarking on the destination of his choosing: Mexico City. To get there, he also demanded the plane’s landing gear to remain deployed, the wing flaps to be lowered fifteen degrees, and the cabin to remain unpressurized. To meet this new set of demands, the plane would need a stop in Reno, Nevada to refuel. This was fine with the man carrying a bomb in his briefcase, so they took off.

The plane was en route to Reno from Seattle with the crew gathered together in the cockpit. Cooper had remained in the rear of the plane by his lonesome. Somewhere along the way, he opened the plane’s exit door and lowered the stairs. Shortly thereafter, the plane’s tail section popped up. Dan Cooper had jumped out of the plane and parachuted somewhere in the wilderness between Oregon and Washington.

He was never seen again.

It’s a fantastic story and one of the most famous unsolved cases in the history of the FBI. To this day they haven’t been able to figure out who Dan Cooper was or what ended up happening to him. Nor were they ever able to track down where any of the money was spent (they had recorded the serial codes for all 10,000 20s he had been given).

The D.B. Cooper story is a fun one. The initials “D.B.” came into the equation after a questioning of a Dan B. Cooper by the FBI. Dan B. Cooper had nothing to do with the incident, but for whatever reason his initials have stuck with the case ever since.

The alleged Dan Cooper who hijacked the plan had the entire plot extremely well thought out. He had advanced knowledge on exactly the right circumstances needed to jump out of an aircraft, and almost certainly survived.

Which brings me to my point.

I’m sure you all have heard of the Mandela Effect by now. In case you haven’t here’s a little rundown: The Mandela Effect is a strange phenomenon which happens when large groups of people misremember things or have memories of events which seemingly never occurred. Although they are “wrong” in their memory of the events, many people seem to share the same false memories.

The term was coined by the paranormal researcher Fiona Broome. Broome claimed that thousands of people, herself included, had distinct memories of South African anti-apartheid leader Nelson Mandela dying in prison in the 1980s, which makes absolutely no sense since Mandela was President of South Africa from 1994 to 1999 and died in 2013.

A few other famous Mandela Effects are:

⁃           The Fruit of the Loom logo, which millions of people remember as a tantalizing display of fruits with a cornucopia behind it. (Look it up. There’s no cornucopia.)

⁃           The Monopoly Man having a monocle. (He doesn’t.)

⁃           The Berenstain Bears being remembered as The Berenstein Bears.

⁃           Darth Vader telling Luke Skywalker, “Luke, I am your father.” (He actually said, “No, I am your father.)

Left: an artist’s recreation of the Fruit of the Loom cornucopia that allegedly never existed. Right: the current logo, which has allegedly always been the same. 

Explanations for the Mandela Effect range from false memories to parallel universes accidentally colliding with our own. It’s a fun theory that can get really weird the further you dive into it. Just ask anyone what the Fruit of the Loom logo looks like. There’s literally images on the Internet of the exact logo I believe my underwear adorned in my youth.

Nevertheless, I bring this up because I had a serious case of the Mandela Effect for the first time. And by first time, I mean without reading an article about it, which would then influence me to believe whatever the article is saying I was supposed to believe. Just like I have done to you in the examples above.

My Mandela Effect is of the story of D.B. Cooper that I have just recounted to you. As I said before, the story has fascinated me since I was a kid. But there’s one problem. The story that I remember isn’t the one I told you at all.

Out sick from work one day, I clicked on the ol’ YouTube and was hunting for some mind-numbing videos to get me through the day. There I stumbled upon another D.B. Cooper video. There’s nothing like watching a video about a story you’ve already heard of a thousand times. I was in.

My memory was immediately filled with the mythical tale of D.B. Cooper—or, at least, the one that I had remembered. I was ready to hear the story of everyone’s favorite unidentified plane hijacker, who demanded $50,000 in ransom money and eventually parachuted out of a plane somewhere over the Amazon in a dark and stormy night, plunging almost certainly to his death…

That was the story of D.B. Cooper I thought I knew. Imagine my shock when the story was told just as I told it earlier in the article. Dan Cooper jumped out of the plane over Washington or Oregon—not the Amazon. He requested $200,000 in ransom money—not $50,000 like I was sure he had. He most likely survived—when it had always disappointed me that the mysterious man had surely died.

I felt like my head was going to explode.

Snapping out my phone, I began Googling. To my horror, I found not a single shred of information regarding the story I grew up hearing. How was that possible? I had just been thinking about the story a few months back, particularly the balls on him to jump during the storm into the unknown Amazon.

That was always the gist of the videos and articles I swear I’ve read about the case—the fact that Cooper’s hijacking amounted to pretty much nothing since he definitely died of either starvation or via cannibal Amazonian. It was sad and disappointing.

But no. The story I was sure I knew is not real. Allegedly.

I’m still not totally sure if my own reality accidentally merged with one where Dan Cooper made it out alive, or if my memory is just that bad.

But that’s a story, and a Deep End for another day.

Until then, I’m John Mistretta. This is The Deep End. Enjoy your day.

If you have any of your own Mandela Effect stories please share below! I would love to hear if anything crazy like this has ever happened to you. Oh, and if you are on the same page about D.B. Cooper jumping out into the Amazon on a rainy evening to his death, please tell me I’m not crazy!

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