Ah, the 90s! They were my formative high school and college years and I have so many amazing memories of friends, family, amazing music, and my time at the University of Illinois.

Of course, there are some things about the 90s I would like to forget, like wearing my denim overalls with one strap off, candy ravers, phat pants, the JcPenny Arizona Jeans Company polo shirts that my sister loved to buy for me, the band TLCs early baggy day-glow clothing.

You may be peddling the myth of “The Lost Cause” and not even know it.

The Lost Cause is (ironically) a re-writing/reinterpreting of the United State’s Civil War. It is an attempt to rehabilitate the South’s image from seditious traitors who were racist slaveholders or sympathizers, to noble folks who were heroic and brave in trying to assert their own rights and independence and to preserve their way of life.

It paints a picture of an idyllic, antebellum South. A world of chivalrous gentleman, and feminine, genteel ladies sipping a Mint Julep in massive hoop skirts on the veranda as the Spanish Moss creeps up the southern trees on the plantation. Slavery is downplayed, and you might even hear that “slavery wasn’t that bad” or “slave masters paid too much money for their slaves, they would never beat them”. My personal favorite is that some slaves were not unhappy and actually LIKED being slaves.

The Lost Cause found it’s way into the US education system, and as recently as 2015, where a history book in Texas referred to slaves as “workers”. Another Texas textbook (are you seeing a pattern here, folks?) said that not all slaves were unhappy. …

Wow!

Let’s take a deep breath.

What can I say that no one else has said about the year that was 2020.

If you are Gen X (like me) and younger, this was probably the most bizarre and challenging year of your life so far.

Our parents or grandparents may remember where they were when JFK or MLK Jr. was murdered, but my mile markers are Chernobyl, The Challenger Explosion, the Berlin Wall Falling/Boris Yeltsin’s last stand, 9/11, and now the collective year of 2020

We started off nearly going to war with Iran, then a 100-year pandemic which at the time of this writing left over 300,000 US citizens dead and rising. …

2020 was the year when Stella got her groove back, and I would be Stella! After falling into a deep depression after a lay off, a firing, my mother’s Alzheimer’s diagnosis, then her death from a massive stroke in 2016, I pretty much stopped listening to music.

For me that’s unheard of, I’ve been obsessed with music since I was little. My first memories of music are my brother’s Donna Summer and Saturday Night Fever records, and all the albums and 12 inch remixes we had that ran the gamut from INXS and Duran Duran to Tina Turner, Michael Jackson, and Prince. …

I once saw one of those silly Facebook questions/memes that you are supposed to tag a friend and have them answer the question “Have you ever bought a record (God, I’m dating myself) just because you thought the album cover was cool?”

Honestly, no, but if it was designed by graphic designer Mark Farrow, I probably would.

Most people don’t know designers by name. It’s pretty much anonymous art, for the people and by the people. Whoever designed the packaging for Chex cereal you ate this morning didn’t sign the box (thankfully). …

I was in a friend’s basement when I was 16 years old, and he put this CD on. It was from the pioneering synth/dance/rock band New Order’s Substance album, and the song was the John Robie remix of Subculture.

I was totally entranced by it. It was all about the tension and contrast:It was electronic, but it was rock. It had dry, cold British “white” male vocals with soulful “black” female backup singers. The band was from Manchester, England but the remix, for its time, was cutting edge American dance music.

After that, I had to learn everything I possibly could about the band. …

I would rank 2013 as probably one of the worst years of my 44 trips around the sun.

First, I got laid off as my job as a web designer from the Follett Higher Education Group. They are the largest operator of college and university bookstores in North America, with some 1400 locations.

A confluence of events like gross mismanagement, being very slow to adjust to a new digital world of e-Readers and textbook rental, an outdated website lacking in demand features, rising competitors like Amazon, Barnes and Noble, and Chegg and a lag from the Great Recession led to mass layoffs, and I was a part of it. …

I want to say Happy Thanksgiving to all of you, and I want to say I am happy for the coronavirus pandemic.

But hold up, don’t get it twisted.

I know so many people are suffering. Deaths, sickness, unemployment, evictions, food insecurity, missed holidays, missed family and friends, the inability to have those relaxing, recharging vacations.

I know so many people are dealing with illness and sickness that’s not even Covid-19 related, with friends and family having loved ones who have cancer or Alzheimer’s Disease.

I am thankful because it brought me back to life.

My own mom died of a massive stroke in 2016, but that was after years of suffering from Alzheimer’s. …