While watching Where the Buffalo Roam, a movie based on Hunter S. Thompson (who is one of my few heroes), I found myself wondering if I’m being prissy in my writing—bland, emotionless.

I started this blog to demonstrate to potential clients what level of writing ability I possess. In the interest of not driving off would-be customers (and not flinching when I re-read my posts in a year), I try to write well yet still keep my topics and my discussion of them inoffensive. This practice can endanger an artist’s integrity

If I express an opinion, someone in the world will be annoyed or offended by that opinion, or at least convinced I’m a moron (which is not unlikely). However, if I try to please everyone, I’ll produce the “pudding-paste” writing described in Fahrenheit 451. I find myself searching for the line between being an artist devoid of self-censorship (like another of my heroes, GG Allin) and a mousey blogger plinking out letters no one wants to read.

I’ve often wondered if writers possess large egos—after all, they have to answer the question “Why would anybody care what I have to say?” Maybe people care because what’s said is done so in an interesting or poetic manner. No pressure there.

In the end, I suppose it doesn’t matter. I enjoy writing, most of the time, and I enjoy sharing my work with people. I suppose I have a certain duty to make that work interesting, and I can only do that by writing truthfully, which doesn’t mean abandoning tact, necessarily.

I dropped out of college when I was nineteen. I thought I couldn’t hack it; I was drinking all the time. I thought I was a failure, and maybe I was, but someone close to me went away to prison for life, and I didn’t realize how deeply that affected me until years later.

I went to work right away building air cleaners, then locating utilities, and finally (after a second, weak attempt at college) I began a career in construction. And that’s where I would’ve stayed if the industry hadn’t totally collapsed in this state.

I never gave up trying to write. I wrote short stories and terrible poems here and there, and even sold a couple stories, but I just couldn’t seem to get things going. After my third lay-off in two months, my wife at the time convinced me to do something I swore I never would: go back to school.

So I went. I obtained loans, swallowed my pride, and sat in classrooms with people fifteen or more years younger than me, trying to relate and learn something at the same time. I learned some stuff anyway.

I graduated this month, thanks to the generous support of my family and friends. I couldn’t have done it without y’all, and I want everyone to know how grateful I am. That scholastic failure that lingered in the back of my mind for decades has been put to rest. I am also grateful to the writing teachers at UNR who gave me the tools to become a better writer—tools I’d likely not have developed on my own. And I want to also thank the Writing Center at UNR, where I was able to further practice my craft while tutoring other students. Lastly, I want to thank the few readers of my blogs and stories—an artist needs an audience, at least this artist does.

I wish y’all a good holiday—stay safe and feel loved.

Recently, while “helping” my youngest son with his first semester kindergarten homework, I came across a word problem asking how many bases three cylinders and a pyramid possess. Admittedly, math is not my forte (I might not have a forte), but I can answer that: four.     

            “That’s not right, dad; it’s seven. We learned that in my class.”

            “Seven?” I said. Oh, I get it—they’re (math users, an epidemic) counting each face as a possible base. I counted up the sides and got eleven this time (either it was a rectangular pyramid or I don’t count well, probably the latter). Despite my poor math skills, I know seven is not eleven.

            His teacher hasn’t graded our homework yet, but I’m fairly certain he’s right (I vaguely remember confirming his answer via the Internet.) I thought math was supposed to be logical. I thought bases are on the bottom. Even if I stood on my head, I wouldn’t consider that the bottom of me (some people have made statements to the contrary…) And if I do consider the math top to be the math bottom, shouldn’t I apply that process consistently to cylinders and pyramids? I hate math now more than ever.

            Regardless if my son is right or wrong, this is not a good sign. How am I going to help him with his third grade homework, the quadratic equations? Teach him how to hide the calculator? I can’t say, “What are you going to do? Carry a calculator everywhere you go?” He’ll probably carry a computer in his ear that makes my laptop look like one of those contraptions from the fifties that filled a whole room (but you still couldn’t play Gorf on it).

            I guess that’s what tutors are for. Hell, maybe he can teach me the math I can’t remember.

I’m from Reno, Nevada. Here in Reno, we have a respectable Latino community, which provides us the opportunity to learn and readily practice a second language: Spanish. I’m trying to learn Spanish, and though I’m terrible at it, I teach what I can to my boys because they are language sponges right now. I wish I were fluent and could instruct them in Spanish, now, while they are so receptive to learning. Zeus knows, it gets harder to learn new languages as one ages (for me, anyway, it was. Is. Read my blog and you’ll see I struggle with English, too.)

I often wonder why, then, people complain about things like Spanish screens on the ATM, or receiving a letter with English on one side and Spanish on the other. Why wouldn’t someone want to increase his or her knowledge, learn another language? I bring this up because it’s a point of contention, and not just at Klan rallies anymore. People really get angry about this kind of thing.

The most prevalent argument I’ve heard is that if someone goes to a country, they should learn the language. I have trouble understanding, though I know it happens, why a person would resist learning the official language of a country—but if he or she does—that’s no one else’s concern. Let them flounder like Americans in a foreign country. English is tough to learn, and writing signs and letters in the native language of what will soon be the majority of people seems like a good idea to me. I know seeing the Spanish beneath the English on a sign helps me better understand Spanish. Many countries have dual languages; I don’t see why a country that prides itself on being a “melting pot” of cultures shouldn’t.

If you are one who gets angry when foreign letters happen across your line of sight, clogging up your ATM screen, or you have to listen, God forbid, to someone to say a few words in another language, you’re probably having trouble reading this anyway. Maybe that’s it: English is so hard for you already, the extra information in Spanish shorts out those last two brain cells struggling to keep your lungs working and you regularly pass out while trying to read.

Don’t feel bad. That happens to me, too, when I do math in my head.