Say thank you As in, on a card. No cold, white, computer paper. In your own handwriting. With a pen that isn’t running out of ink. Sharpies are nice. I like thin and medium tipped. It’s a good way to connect. They’ll remember you. Of the thousands of books Black Irish gives away every year? I remember the ones who say thank you. The e-mails are in the dozens. The hand-written notes? Count them on my hands. When I work with clients? There’s a long list of moving pieces. The never-cut, most-often repeated one? The thank you. I served up Mama…

Luther and Bobby stole their cousin’s new lawnmower. The plan: The cousin would file a claim. The insurance company would send a check. The cousin would split the check with Luther and Bobby. Luther and Bobby would return the lawnmower to the cousin. When their half-baked schemes weren’t landing them in jail, they were selling their plasma or sorting out other ways to make a dime. Gaming the system was the one thing they came by honestly. Their parents had been working the disability arena their entire lives. They were raised as gamers. Mama had the mad scamming skills of…

[I forgot about this post from Aug. 30, 2013, until I ran into Kevin Spacey’s speech again. Take a look and scroll down for Sir David Lean, too. For as much as things change, they stay the same. — Callie] At about the 1:20 mark in Kevin Spacey’s MacTaggart Lecture, given during the Edinburgh International Television Festival, he looks straight into the audience and says, “It’s the Creatives, Stupid.” It’s a television festival, so he keeps on the “television” theme, but that deeper thread is about change and taking risks. When facing one of his first offers for a television…

Back in 1964, when Charlie and the Chocolate Factory was published, Mike Teavee’s obsession with being on TV, led to him exiting the scene with this Oompa Loompa sung verse (add “adults” to the mix every time you see the word “children” and substitute “TV” with “social media”): “The most important thing we’ve learned, So far as children are concerned, Is never, NEVER, NEVER let Them near your television set– Or better still, just don’t install The idiotic thing at all. In almost every house we’ve been, We’ve watched them gaping at the screen. They loll and slop and lounge…

“Deez Nuts” was the first to arrive — and then over 200 copycats followed, upping the count on the Federal Election Commission’s “2016 Presidential Form 2 Filers” list to 891 (as of the time of this posting). Recent additions include: Zibble the Puppet Sir Cookie Zealot Bippy the Clown Rocky Balboa Ronald Reagan’s Ghost Tyrion Lannister Porcupines R. Spikey, Jr. brought a laughter tear to my eye — as did the name of Forrest Gump’s campaign committee — as I scanned the SEC’s list and clicked on the paperwork links for a few of the candidates. I love a good joke —…

If you find yourself visiting San Antonio with a child in need of an emergency room, you’ll also find yourself in need of advice on which hospital to choose. If you read FiveThirtyEight, once you’re on the other side of the emergency room visit and on your way home, you might start thinking about Mona Chalabi’s article “Does It Make Sense To Split The Check At A Restaurant?” Within the article, Chalabi addresses the economist-coined concept externalities: Any time you make a decision that affects someone else without considering how it might affect that person, whether positively or negatively, you…

(This post first ran July 4th of last year. I’m revisiting it now on the heels of a visit with a young artist who I hope stands his ground and fights for a fair deal.) Would you have said no to Elvis Presley? Imagine Elvis calling you back in the day. He loves a song you’ve written, wants to record it—and even invites you down to the recording session. You’re excited and start telling your friends the news—and then (and this is a big AND THEN), a few days before the session, Colonel Tom Parker (a.k.a. Elvis’ manager) calls you…

I’m married to a numbers guy who taught me the art involved with math and business. Before him, I ran from numbers. This afternoon, I spoke with a guy who said there’s an art to grading a driveway. Thinking back to what my husband taught me about numbers, I don’t doubt the art of the driveway grading, but I doubt art as an excuse. The driveway guy is trying to sell me a new driveway. I live at the bottom of a hill and need a driveway that includes a dip leading up to my garage, so the garage is…

I’ve spent the past week thinking about a comment Steve made in an interview and a comment my son’s baseball coach made during a practice. At the 20 minute mark in the interview, August Cole asked Steve what happens when he doesn’t do the work. Steve replied: “I get symptoms . . . I’ll start to get in trouble . . . When you don’t do your work, vices start to creep into your life—and they get worse and worse and worse. They start out with potato chips and wind up with crack smoking or something like that.” During the baseball…

Over the past month we’ve run a few giveaways. The following is some of what we’ve observed along the way. 200 Copy Giveaway June 3, Steve announced a 200 copy giveaway of The Lion’s Gate, just as the paperback edition was being released. The announcement ran at the top of his post “A Tale of Two Covers.” A link was included within the announcement, to a form readers could populate to submit their shipping information. First day: All 200 copies were claimed. Of those copies, 198 were sent out by the publisher within a week. One individual provided a bad…