Alright, so, I’m just gonna say it, I know political correctness and ethnic sensitivity are important topics of general concern, and I know that a number of my readers are from or live in the Middle East—I am sympathetic of Freedom of Religion, my ex-wife is Muslim, and my ex-ex-wife was LDS, Latter Day Saints: Mormon—but, man, Iran has just, kind of, gotta go, you know, I mean, like, Global Imperialism, of a geographic regard, is pretty much done. The rest of us have set our focus towards economic and technological neocolonialism while Iran’s getting hit in the back of the head by the Tetherball that they just swung.

(I’m going to keep this going a little bit, I’m getting a good laugh...)

So, Iran is like that kid that peaked in High School and became a cop to justify pushing people around late into his 20’s because his football career didn’t “pan out,” while also, simultaneously, being the cop that the other cops don’t really want around, and yet they feel like they have to keep him around because it would be worse to have him on the ‘outside’ than it is to tolerate his stupid crap from inside the clique; essentially, what I’m saying, is that there’s no place for him—after Persia (you had a good run)—but regardless we’re stuck with them and we think we have to find a place for them or they’ll lose it and start cold-assailing black people, and none of us want our local PD on the nightly news for racial profiling.

“Gawd Dammit, Honey, we have to move again YOUR son can’t seem to stop trying to intimidate the bigger kids, and beating up minorities!” “It’s not his fault you never hugged him as a kid!” “Whatever, where’s the TV guide?”

With that said, however, Trump could have found a better way to “retaliate” than to kill a top Iranian General while in Iraq, because that was pretty passive aggressive; that was like, when someone’s talking during the movie, in the theatre, and another patron’s like, “Dude, shutup, WTF?” and the offender responds with, “Who’s talking shit?” and instead of going straight to, “F@$k You!” someones says, “Sshhh…”

Iran, if your listening, starting a war with America, especially now, is...well, it’s thoughtless and it’s stupid, no one’s going to be like, “Oh shit, check out Iran. That’s badass, they got some balls!” because nobody cares, and after, maybe, a few years of skirmishes, in Iran, your government will be overthrown, replaced, probably by Eric Trump, and there will be American troops in Iran FOREVER.

White millennial girls will be like, “We should go to downtown Iran. I heard it used to be sketch, but now it’s pretty chill.”

Should the Untied States be policing the world? No, and yes we do, it sucks, but we’re paranoid, we’re all paranoid, a few years ago, in Boerne—the heart of the Texas Hill Country, about 200 miles north west of the Texas coast—when Hurricane Harvey hit, I couldn’t find bottled water anywhere, nowhere for a week and half and, on top of that, I had to wait two hours for gasoline at the gas station, people went nuts but, guess what, it didn’t even f@$kin’ rain here; wind speed, 2 mph at its most aggressive. It’s all just stupid, it’s all so stupid, I just, I can’t...I can’t, even!

I was talking to her the other day, about what I should write about today, and I told her that I didn’t want to write about Iran, because...politics, FUCK! There’s a very, very fine line between our political atmosphere and watching reality TV; the news is just as worried about Sweeps (is that still a thing?) as The Crown or Modern Family, it’s all a form of entertainment, all of it; we are way passed our morning and nightly news for the plausible benefit of our day-to-day lives. I honestly think “now” is one of the worst times for anybody to be starting a “revolution,” and I mean, most notably, like, any progressive agenda, because all it is, right now, is a sound bite, it’s a conversation piece, just something for a handful of people to have differing opinions about until the next revolution or installment of Star Wars comes out.

You know what’s news, Boeing! That shit is news. If you’re not aware Boeing has made some changes to their in-flight control algorithms and they forgot to tell their pilots and, as a result, three, that’s right, THREE planes, within an unacceptably short-duration, have crashed; killing people. The most recent of which was, guess where? That’s right, IRAN! Like, two days ago! And, it’s “still too early to tell what the cause of the crash was...” according to people who determine such things. Considering that Boeing is in the middle of Senate Hearings regarding the previous two crashes...I’m going to have the wherewithal to check ahead of time who happen to, I don’t know, design and build the engine of the plane that I might be flying in prior to, I don’t know, like, flying.

This is how I know it’s not news, anymore. If something is real, and it actively affects our day-to-day they don’t tell us; it used to be the reason why we watched the news: to know how to plan for our days, and weeks, and lives but now we watch the news in order to actively avoid what’s really happening, which is crashing around us in a fiery blaze of machine parts and computer algorithms, if the pieces somehow manage to escape the 5G bubble inconspicuously surrounding our Hill Country hamlets. ​

See you soon, love!


​
Shout out to Paul Simon, Michael Che, and Tom Segura

I’m struggling to come up with new column topics, and it’s not because there are a lack of things that interest me or that I want to address, it’s just that...well, every time I start a column and then try to develop it I always seem to look for ways to redirect and to focus my topic on the same one thing, and a part of me is doing it subconsciously and another part of me doesn’t want to write about anything else.

We talk about love, a lot. It’s one of the most common themes in the humanities, and in our day-to-day lives, even in history and politics there are layers and aspects of love that we actively seek out, for any number of reasons. If we are lacking love in our lives, or we feel like we are—actually, I’m going to interject a moment, I’ve always thought it fascinating when we are interested in someone in particular we just don’t notice anybody else. We might feel lonely if the ‘apple of our eye,’ doesn’t notice us, and in our loneliness and our desire, we tend to ignore the affections of everybody else, we may often even go as far as to feel like “nobody” loves or appreciates us, while there is almost always someone looking at you the way that you’re looking at somebody else but, in our affection or our sorrow, we’re too blind to notice—we lose ourselves in pity, in most cases, however, it’s likely that you are lacking in self-love; and without self-love you’re not going to find true love. It’s important to acknowledge your own interests and dreams and to get to know yourself and to encourage and to develop that self for yourself, and for the people around you, and if you want to attract the things in your life that are important to you.

“we accept the love that we think we deserve.” And, even if we recognize love and accept that love in a particular scope or means, we may not truly accept and welcome or obtain everything that love might offer. I have made it no secret throughout my columns over the last, gosh, several months, really, that I am in love. It’s not perfect but, almost nothing is. She’s in my life and I welcome that as nothing short of a miracle, because she is a miracle. Quiet literally, actually through her one can more openly know God. You follow my columns and my blogs so you know my understanding and relationship with God I have been candid about it; though her I genuinely relate to God differently, and more openly, and I believe that anybody that knows her is better for it, and has a better relationship with the people around them, and with God. She is a miracle.

Nevertheless, I might be better off, in the long run, not getting too deeply involved but here’s the thing, I have self-love, and I know true love, and to love unconditionally, even if we were capable of making the choice, means to love wholeheartedly in the moment because, regardless of our situation and how perfect our love might be that is all any of us really have: moments, and how those moments are labeled is irrelevant, how they are spent is what matters. And we—her and I—we never waste a single moment, and we never have. So I cannot be anything but grateful and I cannot express anything by love, unconditionally.

I wrote something for her, the other day, and I want everyone to read it (no, love, it’s not that...), for obvious reasons, because this is why it’s so difficult for me to come up with columns. I mean, it’s the start of a new year for goodness sake! I own an online bookstore! I could easily write about resolutions and reading and how all of you should resolve to read a book a week and resolve, as well, to acquire said books from the best online source of literature knowledge and supply here at Communitea Books ;) , but here I am, not writing about any of those things. Still, I mean, to be honest, is that really what “you people” want to be reading? I have a wealth of knowledge of literature and a variety of so many other things but you don’t care because the reason we read and acquire knowledge is so that we can connect with people to read about people connecting with other people, and there is no greater means of connection than love.

I’m sure you’ve heard the expression that you love someone so fiercely that you want to, “shout it from a mountain top.” I have heard it, of course, and I thought that I understood it but I didn’t, not really, not until I found you. What it is-is this ceaseless, infinite warmth inside that intensifies and is amplified as if it were about to rupture, like Whitman’s “Barbaric Yawp” and it’s yowling, it is yawping, “I love you.” ...but, no I mean, “I love you!”...you still don’t get it, “I LOVE YOU!” mm, no that’s still not quiet it, “I...LOVE...YOU!...”

And, by “I love you,” what I’m really trying to say, of course, is that “I am yours, absolutely.” You are the reasons and the aspirations, and you are the odyssey, and you are how we are capable of knowing God, and you are...and you are...and you are… and it’s not any one thing, it is the apex, it is the composition of all the things, which is why it takes me in circles, because the only way to express all the things enveloped in the perfection of your love is simply,

I love you.

                          .                         .                         .                         .                         .                         .                         .

​
..also, resolve to read and to buy all of your books from Communitea Books, because even if I don’t have it, I will get it, and in better condition, and a better price (for the condition) than you’ll find on Amuhzon or at Brahms & Nurples.

How am I able to do that you might ask? Simple, by taking a page from Michael Scott’s playbook and undercutting the price of my competition so ambitiously that I am simultaneously putting myself out of business as well as forcing Amuhzon to make me an offer! Take that business strategy! 

​“I am going to make this so much harder than it needs to be!”

​I have worked, in the past, reviewing books, music, and movies, I have focused primarily on literature but I have always enjoyed talking about music and film, because I enjoy the humanities and the arts and I can appreciate them in an array of layers. I maintained three different blogs here, on my website, when it first went live that focused on music, film, and literature reviews but they went cold, because I bit off more than I could chew, it’s a lot to keep going, especially when the site started doing so much better than expected, and so much more quickly.

I also have a tendency, especially with movies, to rarely offer a poor review, and, ultimately, that doesn’t work. Reviewing everything favorably doesn’t establish the “bell curve” that people expect in order to respect the reviewers reviews. Although I did always include the good with the bad but, I mean, I tend to like most movies that I watch. If I think I might not enjoy a movie I just don’t watch it and that, too, makes for a poor film reviewer. I walk out of a lot less movies, though—I went and saw Eight Crazy Nights with Adam Sandler in the theatre years ago, when it first came out, I’m not sure why I went to see it in the first place, at the time I was going to a lot of movies and I would, often, drive to the theatre without a clue what was showing or when and just pick a movie that was starting around the time that I would show up, it’s entirely possible—probable—that Eight Crazy Nights was the fate of such an occasion—I walked out of it. It was horrible. I may have walked out of a movie, in the theatre, one or two other times. I remember I had a date one evening, and she wanted to see either Angel’s & Demons or the Da Vinci Code, one of those Dan Brown adaptations, and I fell asleep during the movie, I don’t think that I have ever done that before, or again. I have done other things in movie theatres but such occasions were entirely unrelated to the movie.

Anyway…

I went and saw Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker yesterday, with my mom, and I had very high hopes. In part, because it was the conclusion of the saga and, in part, because J. J. Abrams had co-written and directed it. He was responsible for, kind of, the reboot of the saga with Star Wars: The Force Awakens and I’ve liked pretty much everything the guy has done. He did the Star Trek reboot with Chris Pine as Kirk and Zachary Quinto as Spock and it was awesome. Abrams co-created Felicity, Alias, Lost, and Fringe as well as having written Regarding Henry, Forever Young, and Armageddon, so what I’m saying is the guy has his shit together. Star Wars: The Force Awakens was, in my opinion, one of the three best Star Wars films.

With that said, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker was a bit disappointing, even for me, the script was decent but mediocre in comparison to, like, pretty much everything he’s every written, and I understand that he was building from the travesty that was Star Wars: The Last Jedi by Rian Johnson—now, Rian Johnson is a great filmmaker, he is responsible for Brick with Joseph Gordan Levitt (Awesome mystery neo-noir film), The Brothers Bloom (another great, kind of, noir comedy with Rachel Weisz, Adrien Brody, and Mark Ruffalo), and the recent Knives Out with Daniel Craig (I’m waiting until it comes out to Redbox), the one thing that the three of those movies has in common is also the same thing that makes him, quite possible, the worse person to direct any Star Wars film. So, I understand that Abrams was having to re-calibrate a bit, he didn’t handle the pressure well.

The story-line was fantastic, but the script was clearly written by multiple people, it did not harmonize, at all—it was messy. It was rushed. And it was, by the far, the worse direction of any Abrams film I had ever seen. When he did the Star Trek reboot everything was crisp, it was clean it was like he knew how he wanted to tell the story and he just told it. Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker, however, it felt like he couldn’t commit to a vision and he was just trying different things, like, he would film a scene and think, “Well, that didn’t work,” and then say, “What if we tried this...” and nothing really came together. The two redeeming qualities, other than the foundation that it was built on, was the fact that Daisy Ridley, John Boyega, Oscar Isaac have great chemistry (and Adam Driver is a great actor), and the story. It had the potential to be so much better, and it was so close but, it just didn’t quite capture it for me.

I’m not a zealot of anything, that I know of, I enjoy Star Wars inasmuch as I enjoy Star Trek and When Harry Met Sally and Pulp Fiction and Good Will Hunting, I’m not team Star Wars or team Star Trek or team Edward, I simply enjoy a good story, which Star Wars is.

Although I did feel a lot closer to these last three Star Wars films. In a similar way to my parents generation who saw A New Hope, the Empire Strikes Back, and Return of the Jedi in theatres. I saw Star Wars: The Force Awakens in the IMAX at the Smithsonian Air & Space Museum in Washington D.C., and for whatever reason, ever since then I have had a different appreciation, and I really wanted to see them outperform the BIG THREE.

It’s a really difficult thing to accept when someone comes so close to doing something so good and then they just, don’t.

And J. J. Abrams just didn’t.

I’m sure, when Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker makes it to Redbox, I’ll watch it again and I’ll enjoy it more the second time because, by then, I will have accepted it for what it is but, after yesterday, at the very least, I really will not be so eager to see the next J. J. Abrams film.


(*Anything that I will feel assured enough to review, especially online, is something that I would have tried myself at some point in my history. I have written a novel, I have written professionally for many years, I have played music professionally in some capacity at some point in my life, and yes, I have directed, very small stage shows, such as Rocky Horror Picture Show, etc.)

​The holidays are an exceptionally interesting time of year. There are remarkably mixed attitudes, and heaps of stress and fabricated feelings and we put ourselves through it, in effect, in order to feel closer to one another and to spend time with our families; and then it comes, and then it goes and it’s exceptionally unremarkable. Most people are just glad that it’s over, and then we start the new year and fool ourselves into believing that with the coming of a new year there will be a new, ‘us.’ Until we forget about that new us for several months while we try to keep our heads above water throughout the course of the year and then the holiday season comes again and we remember what we didn’t accomplish throughout the year, and try to prepare ourselves for the upcoming strain. We bicker about political correctness and look for new ways to distance ourselves from one another, and then we all hope that the next year will actually see some degree of hope.
​
​Personally, I enjoy this time of year. In part, because my birthday falls on and around Thanksgiving, and I feel more balanced and in tune with the world and everyone, and it’s just a beautiful time of year. I think that another part of it, for me, is the fact that, regardless of our attitudes, we all tend to come out of a complacence coma, and we become real people again, for a little while. We wake up, we’re conscious, and although that often looks and transpires with a sense of discomfort, it is, nevertheless, authentic.

Because underneath the layers of preservation there endures a glimmer of raw, ardent love and that vulnerability is captivating, and it seems that, for a while, we might allow ourselves to be open and to be honest with one another and it is only through that discomfort that we might all actually, finally—after a short reset period of uneasiness and turmoil—discover a sense of harmony and equanimity...

...and we get gifts for no reason whatsoever, like, none, we just get gifts, the best part about it, though, is the journey of finding the right gift for someone we love, and hearing things like, “Thank you,” and “I can’t stop smiling,” because it’s not about today, and the exceptionally un-remarkableness of it, it’s the constant belief that many of us maintain that everything is leading up to something that denies us the gratification of the adventure, today is an opportunity—not a destination—to be conscious and to be grateful and to, hopefully, remind ourselves how to recognize that throughout the year, until we no longer need the reminder and we're living it, and we eventually just genuinely enjoy that essence of Christmas and the time of year that we too often forget...

So, Merry Christmas & Happy Chanukah, and be sure to drink your Ovaltine

Do you remember that gorilla? I can’t remember his name, he dragged a toddler throughout his enclosure after the boy crawled or climbed or fell into it, and then he was shot and killed, the gorilla I mean, not the boy, that would have been a real tragedy...actually, in the world today, I’m not sure which would have created more of an outcry. Harambe, yeah...Harambe. So, here’s the thing, those of you that threw a fit about the “murder” of Harambe, he, um, well, he’s a gorilla, and you might think that you care about gorilla's but, you don’t. And, I’ll prove it to you, right now: if all the gorilla's in the world just disappeared, overnight, in some freak gorilla pandemic, that only affected gorilla's, and it didn’t go viral, if Twitter didn’t talk about it, how long before you notice?

That’s what I thought…

That’s kind of how I feel about the impeachment of Donald Trump. I was reading about it this morning, and I didn’t feel anything. Nothing in favor of-, nothing contrary to… I just, don’t care. I mean, other than the conversational aspects of American politics it has become so poignantly impassable that it doesn’t affect me in the way that it used to; granted, I may be a bit miffed by how millennial’s are affected by EVERYTHING, because you have to have an opinion about absolutely everything, and it almost always has to be in contention of the general belief but, I mean, you’re opinion, especially if you’re an archetypical millennial, because I’m not so sure that you really understand the substructure of your attitude, you’re just consumed by the notion that you are the first generation whose voice was, kind of, more overweeningly louder than those before you.

I’ve been avoiding talking about the impeachment process, and now with the impeachment, and then the senate trials coming up, which, I mean, they are not going to convict him on either count, for those of my readers that have a strong distaste for the man I get it, I don’t like the character of the man either, he’s vulgar, and if that’s something that you see, in his character, for the half of the population that actually sees it, it’s difficult to get past it, I know but, regardless, he is not going to be removed from office, and he’s not going to resign, although I’m pretty confident he will not see a reelection, still, with that said, there really isn’t anyone running against him that might win, maybe Joe Biden, maybe, although Biden is just too delicate.

Anyway…I told myself I was going to write about this when I woke up this morning so I did, however, with the morning that I had—my morning was unspeakably astounding—it didn’t really feel important enough to write about, although, with that said, the OG point of the column was founded on the basis that the impeachment itself doesn’t really matter, at least to me; I suppose, it just matters that much less…

There is so much happening right in front of us, everyday that we take for granted. The people we see every day, the conversations that we have every day, the choices we make that affect us every single day we downplay, we reduce it to the unexceptional. And that’s a choice that we’re all making every single day. I get to be astounded with my life every day that I choose to be, which is every day because of the people that I get to share it with. I sat across from someone this morning who is unfathomably important to me and I am reduced to awe, I mean, literal awe; imagine trying to express how you feel about your life simply because someone is in it, and you just can’t.

Have you seen Liar, Liar, with Jim Carrey? It’s a great movie. Throughout the movie he tries so hard to lie, there is one scene in particular when he is in his office alone, and he is trying to lie to himself about the color of a pen, and he can’t and the process that he suffers to get from point A to point B is hilarious, the same thing happens later in the courtroom when he’s trying to say something, and that’s exactly how I feel, except I’m struggling to express the truth, because there is nothing that compares to how overwhelming I feel, I have never felt it, I have never imagined it, it is unfathomable to me the love that I feel, but I keep trying to express it, and regardless of where or how I begin I always end up making a fool of myself; and I love it!

We are capable, in our humanity, of discovering and rediscovering these little meaningful truths in our day-to-day lives, but we choose instead to bicker about a broken system of phony smoke-filled political malarky, and it’s just so exhausting; how often does any of it really affect our lives? I dated a girl after high school whose father would pace behind the couch in their living room watching FOX news yelling at the TV that we should just nuke the Middle East, but the rage that fueled him was…I mean he lived in two story house with a little picket fence, in a suburban Hill Country town, the biggest issue that he faced every day was the traffic on I-10, and back then traffic between San Antonio and Boerne on I-10 meant you saw another car in your immediate vicinity, it was awful; I couldn’t even imagine the unbearable provocation of observing the existence of another human being from just far enough away to almost make out the figures on their license plate, and they were, most likely, not even terrorists, just another figurehead on his way home to yell at the TV and have a scotch on the rocks before bed.

Donald Trump might be a conversation piece but, people, pay attention to the people in your lives, you’re lucky to have them, some of you take so much for granted, and I couldn’t even express how grateful I am just to know her, let alone if I were to go to sleep next to, and wake up with the following day, to hold her when you watch TV, and to dance around our living room, all those moments that you let slip away because Donald Trump...shot a gorilla...while you stewed over presumed affluent terrorists driving a Jeep...Bandersnatch indignantly too close to you on your commute home compelling you to ignore the most beautiful sunset you might have seen since the last time you looked. 

ps. I love you. 

​The last few days have been a bit emotionally trying, I have spent a great deal of time thinking about love, and how we relate to love, and how love interrelates to life, practically—in our day-to-day lives. As well as how willing-, and capable I might be of allowing love to affect my life; as if it were a choice (and I realized, that, for many people, it is a choice: to love or to move on, and that I have been one of those people. I have loved, and I have actively, with some but relatively minor difficulty (even at it’s most difficult to let go, in my experience)—required little more than leaving the television on at night with a blanket over the screen to cancel out the light, an exercise in feeling less alone, and/or firmly and with resolve reinventing my perception of a person: imposing particularly negative habits or behaviors so that I might begin to see them less favorably, etc.—decided to move on), I have also come to realize that it’s not always going to be a choice, sometimes, regardless of any conventional reason to love, namely to be loved in return, love is, in essence, and at its most fundamental: unconditional; however, that’s not how we have come to experience or relate to it in our day-to-day lives, because we do actively want to experience love, physically, so directly that many of us are capable, only, of experiencing love in that light: selfishly.

I have recently experienced a certain loss, and, as a result, some extent of conflict, internally which has acted as a catalyst to this private dialogue with myself about love, and I wanted, very much, for the feeling to just go away…

...you know, like, poof!

It felt cruel that I might love, involuntarily and be required, still, to suffer the loss. That seemed very much like a fatal flaw within the wondrous and far-reaching scope of “The Greatest Joy in Life...” almost like someone forgot a comma in there somewhere or a letter or a word or a fully realized idea, like they might have intended more for the sentiment to be about a puppy or a cup of coffee in the morning or an object so unchallengeably inanimate that it didn’t really matter whether your pet rock loved you back, or whether it was “emotionally unavailable.”

Still, the conflict existed and it was one that I wasn’t entirely unfamiliar with, one that a ten year old red-headed boy most aptly described in Love, Actually, “...worse than the total agony of being in love?” It occurred to me that much of what I was “feeling:” the heartache, the loss, the whatever else, I wasn’t actually feeling it, it felt more like I was supposed to be feeling it, almost as if I was trying to fit some template.

Until it dawned on me that I hadn’t actually lost anything, and no, I don’t mean that I didn’t really have anything to lose, what I mean is that every single day that passes I am, and have been even more awe-inspired by her than I was the previous day, and that is just as true today as it was yesterday, and the day prior, and preceding and so-on-and-so-forth since the day I realized that I was in love. What I feel for her isn’t hers to take away from me, or anyone elses,’ I have never known love more true and unconditional. The thing is-is that I will be there for her unequivocally and without condition, always; both because—as I have discovered, very recently—she’s stuck with me, in the capacity of her choosing, and because I want to be there for her, there has never been a single person more deserving or that I am more grateful to afford myself to. And, even more so, she knows, absolutely that if there were no one else that she could depend on for any reason or for any thing, I will be there. Unconditionally.

What may, or may not happen tomorrow with her has only once crossed my mind, and that was two days ago, when something that changed between us felt, at the time, as if everything had changed…

...all the same, nothing actually changed for me.

How I feel about her has not changed, only an avenue that we shared to communicate, and to express that has. It’s difficult to explain the differences and the connection between the way that I have loved in the past and the ways that I love her, the best way, or maybe the only way is to acknowledge that I do not actively think or care about what we don’t have, or what we are not to-, or with each other...

I really only recognize and care about what-, and who we are, right now. And, with that, you can never actually feel loss, you can only ever feel fulfilled, and have exactly, everything that you could ever need: a pair of blue-green eyes and the most unfathomable revelation of a human being that there is nothing you wouldn't do for, for no reason other than that you can. 

I wrote an article for the Hill Country Weekly a few years ago that sold out more printings than the paper had in quite a while, at the very least, maybe ever, it was titled Boerne, Texas Gone Forever in response to those bumper stickers that had been popping up on peoples cars throughout the last few years. The following is not that article, but something else that spilled out of me while I was sitting in town this afternoon. 

​I haven’t done a lot of writing ‘on location’ in a while, it used to be pretty common for me to spend my late mornings to mid afternoons at a coffeehouse or in a comfortable bar setting: writing, working, and talking to people; for many months, however, it’s been the comfort of my couch, the ambient noises of short episode situational comedies or various Pandora stations where I have been drawing my inspiration (among other more cognitive places); I think, when Electric Coffee (my coffeehouse of choice for a good long while) closed, and I started bouncing around to a few places: Dienger Trading Co., Local Coffee (in Leon Springs), Boerne’s Daily Grind, and Bear Moon Bakery and nothing really felt as comfortable as Electric, I just, kind of, stopped going out.

And, even less so since I started working in Fredericksburg, a year ago. I haven’t really explored Boerne like I used to on a semi-regular basis, so, a couple of weeks ago, on my birthday, I walked along Main Street a bit, and, quite accidentally, I discovered Black Rifle Coffee Co., on the opposite corner of Dienger Trading Co., across from Main Street from the Square. Black Rifle feels, very much, out of place, it’s got a remarkably corporate aesthetic although it’s locally owned, and in the short time I’ve been sitting here I’ve already seen a handful of people that I haven’t seen since spending my days at Electric. The people watching here is fantastic. Adjacent to the coffeehouse, a sort of portmanteau of two businesses, is a gun shop; there’s an older gentleman with a gray handlebar mustache standing at the gun counter with a cup of coffee in his hands, because I know every time I’m about to buy a gun I’m thinking, “...if only I had more caffeine in my system. There’s nothing quite like a strung-out jittery trigger finger.” 


“Here, a free box of bullets w/ the purchase of your gun.”

“I don’t need the box...I only need one…

...half of a poppy seed muffin, but only if they can take out the poppy seeds and heat it up; if they can’t heat it up, and this is important, then leave half the poppy seeds in, and sprinkle the other half of the poppy seeds on half of a blueberry muffin, and then cut both halves in half and throw them both away, and a small black coffee.”


               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .


​There’s a bookstore in Boerne, again. I grew up going into Read All About It, here, in Boerne. It wasn’t the best bookstore, they catered mostly to the schools, with the books from school reading lists lining the shelves, and a section of Texas history books. It closed while I was living in Idaho, and there hadn’t been a store until I opened mine in the winter of 2015, Wardrobe Books represent whoop, whoop!


I had to close Wardrobe in the summer of 2016 (my building sold), and Boerne hasn’t had a brick-and-mortar until a couple of weeks ago. Unfortunately Dale, the store’s owner, is only selling New books, and it’s too big a location to focus entirely on new releases but too small to have a decent selection of new books, and, quite frankly, the Boerne Bookshop will not succeed in today’s climate without selling used books, especially in a small Texas Hill Country town; if for no other reason than that the sales margins are way too low. Nevertheless Dale can rely on my support, inasmuch as I might be able to offer.


The point that I’m slowly making is that I’m intrigued by the transition Boerne is undergoing, I’ve known for some years now that our rapidly growing little town has been transitioning through an identity crises, and it seems we may soon be coming out of that (I’m excited to see how the rooftop bar and grille affects the dynamic when he opens sometime this summer), the changes that began with Bill Bird buying the Ye Kendall Inn and the Mazour’s opening The Cibolo Creek Brewing Co., are becoming more and more apparent; I never thought I’d be living in Boerne—in Texas—again, and yet I couldn’t be happier with my life, right now, and with the direction that Boerne is headed; although I am somewhat disappointed with how Ron Bowman, our city manager’s, attempts to increase city tax revenues by appealing to corporate syndicates and car dealerships is playing out, he is—unwittingly, maybe—creating two very distinct coteries which are pulling Boerne in very different directions. It’s somewhat how I picture Santa Fe, New Mexico a few decades ago, if you’re unfamiliar with Santa Fe it is made up of two, maybe three very distinctive cities: the obvious Northern and Southern echelons, and possibly a North Eastern collocation…

...unfortunately Boerne will not develop with such recognizable demarcations, there will be pockets of us, the favored elite surrounded by, you know, everybody else (whispers* “the little people” *cough, *cough): those that make it possible for me to live such a complacently serene, and lavish lifestyle with very minimal effort, but in order to do so, and to help support my unreasonably snug way of life, I am going to have to actually see them! Everywhere! Imagine, if you will, I know, it’s difficult and painful, abysmal and eerie, outlandish and crabbed, bothersome and difficult...where was I going with this again?

...ah, that’s right, imagine, if you will, a number of lost amiable zombies wandering around playing Pokemon Go!, only, your—I’m—the Pokemon! Have you read (or seen) the Hunger Games? Yeah, just like that, with those pesky districts rousing trouble for the devoted, hard-working, elite.

Black Rifle Coffee Co., had the good sense of installing iris scanners at the entrances, everybody in Boerne is marked with your tax bracket behind the Anterior Chamber of your eye between the Cornea and the Iris, the best idea since an expanding middle class establishing a clear and present boundary between the upper class and, well, you know…

...so, what I’m really trying to say is that Boerne is a very pleasant, and dynamic town, and I’m both excited to be a part of it’s development, and fortunate to be here right now, and to be happy. And it is, in now way, "Gone Forever," it's just different, and, in a great many ways, the changes have been for the better, it's just, you know, people are afraid of change, because people are afraid of what they cannot imagine, the unknown, so much so that they forget that change is inevitable, and you can either actively participate and influence it or you can sit idly by, and watch it happen beyond the purview, and context of your impact. 

​What is a Sustainable Business? And can a sustainable business find business sustainability? These are an important questions, and one that every business owner should be asking themselves now, and not necessarily because of our global climate whether it be societal or geological, but because sustainable business for business sustainability is where the future of business is headed.

​A Sustainable Business is one that has as low as possible an impact on an environment, a society, a community, and the economy. Essentially it’s a business that meets what is known as the Triple Bottom Line, a framework to evaluate the outcome of your business in three parts: Social, Economic, and Environmental. Sustainable Businesses are conscious businesses that recognize the importance of meeting the needs of the present world without compromising the needs for future generations. Most people, when thinking about a Sustainable Business, automatically think of a Green Business, or a business which focuses primarily on the benefits of the planet. The Triple Bottom Line recognizes the importance of our social, economic, and environmental impact equally, which is to say that the environmental impact is only a third of the demands of a Sustainable Business.

I do believe in the importance of limiting our impact on the planet, as much as possible, and I appreciate that there are a number of very large, profitable companies that are maintaining Sustainable Business practices, Game Changers 500 is an organization, similar to Fortune 500, which releases a list of Sustainable, Triple Bottom Line practicing companies that are growing, and are massively profitable.

​A good example of a great start is that most large, skyscraper buildings being built today practice low impact building, while developing buildings that are themselves low to negative impact. A LEED seal or plaque on display within or on the building is an indication of the more modern advanced environmentally friendly buildings. A number of these buildings are consuming CO2 from the atmosphere while actually producing O2, it’s amazing. That means these buildings are behaving like trees!

One of the impacts Sustainable Business focuses on is our social impact, and by that I mean many businesses are helping to provide better lifestyles for people living in underdeveloped countries, they are helping to bring these people up out of poverty, while helping to establish higher income families, that will, over the generations, be able to become consumers themselves. The idea is that helping to bring communities out of poverty will develop consumer friendly, and consciously spending people who may otherwise not have had the money to put back into the economy. When a business is conscious of its market, its environment, its employees, and its impact both now and in the future, it can only benefit the global economy. Our current economic system, and business development, though it is shifting dramatically to that of Sustainability, is one that either keeps people in-, or forces people further into poverty. But how does that benefit a business?

There are business of all kinds making sustainable changes: publishing companies, wineries, groceries, coffee and teahouses, banks, construction, and more.

​               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .               .

​It’s important as a business owner, and a consumer to understand the benefits of Sustainable Business.

As a consumer we must recognize that, especially in The United States, the way that we spend our money is the loudest, and most demanding means of conscious and effective voting that we have, and we are polling daily. Where, and how we spend our money will help to provide the foundation of business--and political transitioning—for our future, and the types of business that will thrive. Be conscious about it.

As a business owner, especially a small business, look into the benefits of using local materials, recyclable materials, and look for ways to help your community, and to invest in your community, and to invest in the people in your community. Small things really do make a difference. People will go to one coffeeshop over another because of where they get their milk, or whether it’s organic or not. And this is true of every business we shop at, and develop.

There are creative ways of being a Sustainable Business. CommuniTea Books, my bookstore in Boerne, Texas, buys Organic Fair Trade teas, and is constantly looking for ways to better the community where the tea leaves come from—all over the world. Guayakí brand Yerba Maté is giving a large percentage of their profits back to the region in South America where Maté is grown. The tea plant isn’t healthy in its indigenous area, and a lot of the forests are dying. Guayakí is helping to restore the regions forests so that the plant can once again grow naturally, and healthy so that not only the region can mature, and develop again naturally and economically, but also so that Guayakí can continue to provide a better product to the companies customers.

When you get the opportunity watch the documentary PROSPERITY. It is an amazing account of exactly what I’m talking about, and provides further insight into the benefits of Sustainable Business. Our current systems are not based on the practices of conscious commerce, and as a result they do not maintain sustainability. In order to maintain business sustainability in the future you will have to be a sustainable business.

Get behind companies such as Collective Evolution, Rodale Inc., Thrive Market, The Container Store, Change.org, Aspiration, Reserveage, Natural Grocers and more, and look in New Resource Bank, and demand that your community offers a banking system as conscious, and community friendly as New Resource.

There are 5 ways that you can start making a difference, as an individual:

1. Spend – be conscious about your spending
2. Work – work for good conscious companies
3. Invest – research investing in conscious companies
4. Bank – bank with conscious banks (like New Resource Bank)
5. Act – let your money, and your action be your vote