How many people do you know who currently have black eyes? How many people in the past year have you seen who have had black eyes? Just in general, how many people can you remember having black eyes in your life over the past year, two years, five years, ten years? Unless you’re a boxer, you train in MMA, or you run an underground fight club (damn! I wasn’t supposed to talk about that!), you probably don’t see many, if any, folks with black eyes running around. Heck, I trained in karate, boxing, tae kwan do, and muy thai kickboxing over the course of about about 20 years, and... Read More

One of the most popular columns I’ve ever written was a fun whirl through the predictions of an alleged time traveler from the year 2485. Since it was published last fall, it’s been read by hundreds of thousands of people worldwide. Every day, it gets hundreds, sometimes thousands, of views. When I first wrote it, I had no idea it was going to be so popular. I was just fascinated and amused by this person claiming to be from the future, putting predictions out there on the Internet. If I had known it was going to be so popular, I probably would’ve included a plug for one of my... Read More

We live in a divided world, in a community parceled by city borders and intersected by a river, but there’s one thing I think we can all agree upon. We all pretty much hate Mediacom. The absurdly high rates, the service outages, and the fact that most of us have little to no choice but to pay for them churns up a particularly virulent disgust towards the company. But, again, we have no choice, because they’re basically a monopoly, and until another viable alternative arrives, we’re pretty much screwed in dealing with them. That’s especially annoying because they’re... Read More

Spam. We all have to deal with it some time or another. No, this isn’t one of those patronizing Pocket articles trying to glamorize millenials being broke af and trying to polish that turd into a NEW LIFESTYLE CHOICE (see: TINY HOUSES! THRIFT STORES ARE BACK! UNCONVENTIONAL WEDDING RINGS! etc.), this is about the type of spam that gets served up into your email, which is often spicier than the canned food item of dubious vintage and even more full of crap than the articles on Pocket. I get hundreds of emails every day, and so, every couple of days, I have to look through my Spam folder to... Read More

I was channel surfing the other day and landed on what could’ve been any number of films, TV shows or commercials shilling anything from chips to antidepressants. I couldn’t tell what it was because I only lingered for a few moments and the only image I saw was so banal as to be useless — and ironically, it was meant to be anything but. It was the image of a guy in a leather jacket, wearing dark sunglasses, riding a motorcycle and smoking a cigarette, as some sort of variation of “Bad to the Bone” played in the background. It was probably a commercial for bunion ointment. Or... Read More

Whenever I watch a zombie movie, I always imagine different ways that I could escape zombies if I ever found myself in that situation. I’m sure you can all relate. C’mon now, admit it. When you’re watching a horror movie, you wonder how you’d do if you were in that situation. Could you get away from that werewolf? Would you make better decisions fleeing from that vampire? Would you decide that maybe it wasn’t a good idea to have sex in the woods with that cute summer camp counselor after all those other campers were found massacred by the guy in the hockey mask? And when... Read More

Sean Leary is on vacation. The following is a column from the upcoming book, Sean Leary’s Greatest Hits, vol. 9, coming to bookstores worldwide this summer. Recently, I discovered a show that features some of the biggest dawdlers, layabouts and goldbrickers I’ve ever seen in the history of TV. A show geared toward kids. A show that may be poisoning the work ethic of this country’s youth and undermining our competitiveness in the world economy. That show? “Wonder Pets.” I recently became a father, and as such, I’ve started to acquaint myself with kids’ programming. Little did I... Read More

In the past 24 hours, a review on this site of Countryside Community Theater’s “The Music Man” written by Tristan Tapscott has become embroiled in controversy. So much so that it prompted a guest column from local actor Lou Hare, and my invitation, still open, for any other interested parties to send me rebuttals to Tristan’s review. As always, we look forward to hearing from people and stimulating conversation about the local arts scene, whether the responses are pro or con, particularly in regard to a review, which is an opinion of the writer meant to prompt thought and... Read More

One of the strangest things to occur over the past year — and trust me, there’s a long list, so this is impressive that it hits the top — is that the government has actually come out and admitted the existence of UFOs and people’s reaction has largely been a collective shrug. The media covered it, but as usual, the media sort of winked and laughed at it, as if the Pentagon releasing video and documents which had previously been top secret was just a practical joke. It wasn’t. The information was actually real, and compelling, which is why it’s odd that people... Read More

Time is the only thing you can spend once. And today, on Father’s Day, that’s something to definitely remember. Being a father, bringing another life into the world, is an amazing experience and responsibility, and it gives you a blessing in time to spend with a person who will always be a part of your life, and who is beholden to you for helping to shape them as a person. You can literally make the world a better place by making the time and effort to make your children better people. To be there for them. To enjoy your time with them. To be a parent and friend to help guide them through... Read More