The Blog

Ashes & Ink

Thoughts, stories, spiritual observations, and beautiful little fires from the in-between.

It’s My Party and I can Fucking Cry if I wanna.

So, happy birthday to me. 46 years young. Today the feeling is this: whoopee fucking doodah. Seriously. I can only spit out some Rhymes from Gangster’s Paradise to express my feelings. Else, I might choke on my lack of cheers. “As I walk through the valley of the shadow of death” I’m in the valley […]

Do Not Put Me on a Pedestal. I Will Jump Off.

I spend an overwhelming amount of time in an analytical frame of mind. I am constantly trying to solve some unnamed riddle, some foggy mystery, some irregular little whodunit nobody else even realizes is underway. You can ask me, “What’s up?” and I will start somewhere around Chapter Seven. Not at the beginning. Never at […]

My HeyDay is a NewDay: An Album Born from Ghosts, Gratitude, & Grit.

TheVerdict My HeyDay is a NewDay

Let’s be real: this title is a search engine’s nightmare. “My HeyDay is a NewDay”? Google’s algorithms are probably weeping. But guess what? I don’t care. Because it’s not just a blog title—it’s the name of my new album from alter-ego artist TheVerdict, and it drops tomorrow, July 22, 2026, at midnight. Consider this your […]

The Munchkins and the Guillotine

Munchkins and the Guillotine

Well before Dorothy’s house fell from the sky and crushed the Wicked Witch of the East, the Munchkins had a very different tale to tell. You see, long ago, Oz was divided into four directional quadrants: North, South, East, and West. Each quadrant was ruled by magical authorities, overseers—one of the four Witches of Oz. […]

The Rareness of True Connection (and other Conjunctions)

Soulmates - Connection is Rare

I started thinking about how RARE true connection actually is. There are nearly 8.5 billion people on this planet. Free on the curb. Say woah. But how many of those people will you ever actually meet? And among the people you do meet, how many become anything more than a passing interaction? How many are […]

Permanent Tactical Readiness (A Life of Garrison Duty)

Permanent Tactical Readiness

If I explained to you everything I’ve lived through in the last six — almost seven — years, you’d probably wonder how I’m still standing at all. Hell, you might wonder why I’m still fully lucid and not somewhere downtown licking concrete walls and speaking in riddles to pigeons. Truth is, I’ve survived because I’ve […]

GOATs Eat Criticism — Wagon Riders Spit It Out

We live in a society where it seems acceptable that those in the public eye receive relentless criticism from onlookers. Win trophies, raise your hand, stand in front – and society decides that gives everyone in the cheap seats the right to point fingers and dissect you. Worth noting: the ones bold enough to stand […]

The Relationship Trap: A Ball of Yarn

Relationship Trap: The Ball of Yarn

Long gone are the days of unencumbered relationships. The Norman Rockwell paintings where everything aligns perfectly — girl meets boy, boy meets girl. They kiss, fall in love, get married, have babies, and rock their grandbabies on the front porch. Loving one another through thick and thin. Till death do them part. If ever there […]

You Can’t Solve Relationship Problems at the Same Consciousness Level that Created them.

Attacking problems with maturity

Albert Einstein once said, “We cannot solve our problems with the same thinking we used when we created them.” He was right. Chaos rarely announces itself as chaos. More often, it hides inside incompetence — not always malicious, not always intentional, but persistent. And if the mindset that created the problem remains unchanged, how could […]

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