Below you’ll find links to a selection of personal (not too personal) blog entries that serve as additional samples of my writing on a variety of topics, from hobbies and interests to general inanities.
Small But Momentous 2016
“In the movies and on TV, when a character has stage fright, they always have someone telling them to think of the audience in their underwear of some other thing about how to think or what to do while they are on stage. Well, that’s all baloney for sure.”
I always drink beer, and when I do, I rarely drink Dos Equis 2010
“And never mind the fact that drinking the same beer whenever you drink beer is the opposite of interesting. Yes, it’s a damn annoying detail but it is overshadowed by how well, in one brief feint with the marketing knife, they find our soft belly and sink it home. If this were not true, sales of Dos Equis would not have increased as dramatically as they did.”
Relationships Are Revenue 2016
“When I say ‘relationships are revenue’ I don’t mean that relationships are a part of making money, though that is certainly true. What I mean is that positive relationships, in and of themselves, contain value, even if they are short and sweet. Relationships are one of the rewards of doing business.”
Slippers 2015
“If you never wear your slippers outside the house your priorities are askew and we should part company before unfortunate words are uttered. Finally, slippers must be a color that will not readily reveal coffee stains. This one is entirely personal and practical.”
Looking Up 2015
“I inherited the habit of looking up, but it is a habit that will not survive being twice removed from the jet age fascination of my father. Perhaps, when things begin to hover and float and generally defy our current understanding of gravity, kids will start looking up again.”
“Emily Dickinson famously versed that ‘hope is a thing with feathers.’ The poem goes on to describe hope as Superman’s mute canary, or maybe Yankee Doodle Pigeon. Neither rain, sleet, snow, nor Dastardly and Muttley in Their Flying Machines can drop this bird.”
A Question of Magic 2010
“I generally stay out of magic shops, but if I should happen into one I am overwhelmed with the feeling of loss. It’s not really the feeling of personal loss; it’s a feeling of loss around the emptiness inside most magic shops. The secrets are not there. You can buy every trick in the place and learn them all and you will be a collection of paraphernalia and moves and people will ask you how you do it but no one will reach out for a shoulder to steady them when they watch.”
“One of Sandburg’s greatest long form narrative poems was titled The People, Yes (a series of poems actually). He believed in the people. If Robert Frost had produced a mirror series of poems it might have been titled The People, Maybe. Frost was a rural New Englander, suspicious and insular. Sandburg was a Midwestern urban dweller and a Chicagoan above all else, open and extroverted to a fault.”
Coyotes 2015
“Coyote’s, it seems, are like the world in general, at least the world as I know it. They are less dangerous than I imagine but more dangerous than I think. And my response is basically the same. I’m not going to buy a gun but I might start carrying a stick to the bus stop.”
Not Really a Basketball Story 2015
“Every single retail location in Tomorrowland was unceasingly busy and bombed and full of crazed guests seeking revenge on the future by trying to purchase it out of existence. I always ended up in the gift shop at the exit of Star Tours. I sold so many light sabers.”
Rust and Wrinkles are Sexy 2015
“But the thing I love most about used stuff is thinking about the life a thing lead before it became part of my life. I love opening a used book and finding some random piece of life tucked into it. Receipts, plane tickets, movie tickets, grocery lists, playing cards, pressed flowers. These are all things I have found inside used books. I recently bought a book of Mother Goose nursery rhymes published in 1930 and found a poem, written in pencil, tucked into the pages.”
Then the Rebels Moved into the Palace and Lost their Voice 2016
“It is time to summon up that rebel, the radical spirit. Following a revolution there is always the risk that the rebels may move into the palace and grow comfortable and begin to fear change just because it is change, like those they fought against long ago. The movement becomes a monument. But right now, as voices all over the world scream about “us and them,” the specialty coffee industry can again rebel and be an example. Who knows better than we, those who travel the planet both buying coffee and brewing coffee, that there is no them. It is all us.”
Little Big Moments 2016
“So often, decisions of consequence are made in a small room somewhere by a few people who may have thought longer and harder if they knew where the moment would lead.”
Ode to Der Wienerschnitzel 2015
“I took it as a point of pride that I could clock out, get to my car, drive to Wienerschnitzel, get two chili dogs, eat those chili dogs while driving and not get any chili on my tie or shirt, clock back in, and be back on the sales floor all in the space of 30 minutes.”
Mike Ferguson Writer 