In no order, HBO is the best programming network, and the original premium channel. Now you can get it without a cable subscription in the same way that Netflix is available. HBO is a pioneer in bringing the best of the best to your living room, it’s worth a look, and here are the best 5 ways to start.

Entourage – Season 5 Episode 12

This series is the male version of ‘Sex and the City’, it’s a lot of guy comedy mixed with the actual plot and story arc. This is the best episode of the series, and also where it jumped the shark. It exemplifies the best things that the series has always relied on, friendship, loyalty, and ultimately making the best artistic decision possible, regardless of the logic.

Foo Fighters – Sonic Highways Episode 7 – Seattle

Dave Grohl’s series, ‘Sonic Highways’ is amazing for any music fan. This episode in particular pulls all of the emotion and history out of the origin of Dave’s music. He get’s into his earliest days in music, talks about his time with Nirvana, and as always, is the most genuine and honest man in modern rock’n’roll. Even if you don’t like the early grunge-era music, there are so many other musicians in the episode that make it worth watching.

The Wire – Season 2 Episode 6 – ‘All Prologue’

The best show in the history of television. You can line a group of critics around the block to say the same thing. If you like crime dramas, this is your show, and this is arguably the most accessible episode. Omar Little, one of the main characters throughout the series, and also President Obama’s favorite character, steals the show when he takes the stand against another rival drug dealer. His testimony alone is worth the watch.

The Newsroom – Season 1 Episode 1

Quite possibly the best introductory 10 minutes in a series ever. I’m sure it’s more difficult to enjoy if you don’t lean left politically, but this series deserves at least an episodes’ glance. It presents an excellent, and critical perspective on modern American news. If you watch nothing else, watch the first 10 minutes of the pilot, it may even give you that bump to register to vote.

The Sopranos – Season 1 Episode 1 

The legendary series that you’ve always heard about. Often compared to ‘The Wire’, and for good reason. They are both excellent, but require more effort than the average network, wrap it up in an hour drama. This is just the beginning for Tony Soprano, but this episode sets up the series perfectly. Never has a character been emotionalized by ducks in his swimming pool, especially considering he is a mob boss.

So in short, get HBO as soon as you can, and check out the many amazing shows they have to offer. Many are also available on Amazon Prime, let good taste prevail!

So long since my last contribution to the land of menial text. I’m sure that will entice you to read further, and my appreciation is immeasurable. In accordance with my resolution to refrain from morose dialogue, I will attempt to break the silence with something positive.

I can finally pick up a guitar again!

I feel that finally, I have shed the weight of my loss and can be productive again. The comfort of regaining fire inside me is empowering, and I can’t wait to put pen to paper, pick to strings, music to life the way I used to do. The next step is living well, thanks to all the friends that care.

That title is an ugly sentence to anyone with experience in two or more of those classifications.

My best friend was an American raised in a middle eastern-American house, in a German-Irish town, in the middle of the sticks. How sticky? Well, we were the town in the sticks that didn’t inbreed, you know, progressive.

The only reason I’m writing this is because he told me he wanted to write a book someday. A book about growing up in the sticks as an American, raised with all the prejudice associated with an immigrant from the middle east. That would have been a hefty tome, even without that whole 9/11 thing.

Anecdotal evidence could yield a few hundred pages, but I knew him, the anomaly of a person he was. Weeks from Duke Law graduation, weeks from drinking with his friends in the midwest again, he was taken from us.

Over a year later on Memorial Day, that’s what I remember. This video always makes me tear up, and that semester was the highlight of my college career. There aren’t many days I would want to go back to, but these certainly were among them.

Merry half-consumer-christmas!

Enjoy blowing up shit in the sky while your deity attempts to exist in the same stratospheric subdivision.

The Mall of America is our Vatican, and both organizations should take a moment to step back and see the catastrophic things they are doing to people’s lives.

While I’m at it, the House of Representatives deserves to be in the crosshairs of the next major hurricane. I don’t mind saying that only because I know the conservatives in the house won’t worry about the hurricanes that will hit those oil/natural gas states. 

Environmentalism: Still being bought against despite necessity. 

It wasn’t the death of my best friend that started it.
It wasn’t my grandmother either.
It was what I have always thought, as Bill Maher eloquently repeats:
“Faith means the purposeful suspension of critical thinking. It’s nothing to be admired.”

I’d almost finished feeling sorry for myself about it,
It was the look in the eye of his sister,
It was the look in the eye of his girlfriend,
Almost three months later.

I used to joke about my non-belief.
I’ve said so many sacrilegious things in my time, people know me for it.
“The Bible’s in the fiction section.”
Yeah, I stole the line, but I said it in 11th grade Catechism, to gasps.

The secular state school of Toledo confirmed my contempt.
Dr. Robert McCollough, Air Force Veteran, my most respected professor,
“Everything we know about Jesus, we can fit on one note card.”
This man flew in the six day war, and has two doctorates in European History.

I trust him more than Church, as should any rational person.

The Pain that ‘God’ Causes Me (AKA Why I’m an Atheist.)
Is that he leaves me with the most vivid of memories,
The logical side of me, knows that I’ll never share another beer with Andrew.
We’ll never play music again, never belittle a Republican again, I fuckin’ miss that the most.

I know that last part sounds spiteful,
it is.
It was ear to ear on both of us every time we did.
-Andrew Tarek Katbi – 3-31-13

-JC

He changed my life. I can only say that about a select few people. I distinctly remember the moment I heard, ‘Live Forever’ for the first time. My next move was to order every Oasis cd that was on the Sony BMG music club website I was a member of at the time.

Where it gets eerie is how many people tell me that I’m the reason they have an Oasis playlist on their computer, and an Oasis station on their Pandora account, I was only spreading the good news? Jesus must be happy.

But in all honesty, Noel Gallagher is the direct reason I taught myself guitar. ‘Live Forever’, and ‘Wonderwall’ were the first two songs I learned in their entirety, and the joy was all mine. I could probably name one hundred artists I love, but none would have a shot at topping Noel for that top spot.

I can also remember the time my dad came down to my room and heard, ‘Wonderwall’ and was like who the hell is that? It’s Oasis dad, ‘start it over’ he said, we sat there and listened to that magical tune and so then I had to burn an Oasis mix for him.

Like I said I learned guitar on Oasis songs, created a band with my best friends where we covered several of these songs, and it was the most electric point in my life. Oasis songs are mostly, very easy guitar wise, so the fun we had bouncing around or singing and playing them after the bar was, ‘Breaking Into Heaven’ as The Stone Roses said.

Meeting Noel Gallagher sealed it for me. I had always loved his snide, cocky attitude in interviews, but I saw him twice on the NGHFB tour, and the second time got an autograph. He’s a  total class act, it’s the first time I’ve ever seen a crowd cheer the performer to a minute long  pause, due to the noise, they killed it in Detroit.

He recently received the NME’s ‘Godlike Genius’ award, and he is as deserving a candidate as any.

The first hole offers an excellent scoring opportunity, this short par 3 is a great way to start your round.

The second is a difficult par 5 requiring a low tee shot to avoid the two large trees, a well placed second and then a third that avoids the hazard around the green.

The third, another short par 3, puts a large maple tree in play, but offers another good scoring opportunity.

The fourth hole is a tricky par four with trouble everywhere, 4 is a good score here.

Five presents another tricky tee shot, and lots of opportunity for hazard.

The sixth is a tree ridden troublesome par five, an elevated tee shot makes avoiding the trees difficult.

Dubbed, ‘The Forest’ by local members, number 7 proves to be a unique challenge.

This tricky short par 4 requires a precise tee shot, but a great scoring opportunity.

Ending the front nine, the 9th requires a great tee shot to allow opportunity to cross the hazard with the second on this treacherous par 4.

‘Twin Trees’ begins with an uphill tee shot, leaving a lengthy and difficult approach.

Eleven presents a great birdie opportunity, wide open with no worries, two straight shots make a great score.

Requiring a very accurate tee shot, fourteen makes a formidable adversary.

Fifteen presents a challenge for all, and is a feather in the hat of every (insert color) jacket winner.

Seventeen provides a difficult driving area, and keeps the nerves of competitors tense.

The closing hole, 18, provides an interesting challenge to players, clearing the bushes provides a significant advantage, and the narrow landing area creates a difficult second shot.

I hadn’t considered it often enough until this week, but I am so lucky.  When I had to listen to Bill Maher defend himself against a lawsuit from Donald Trump, which was completely absurd  considering the  show that he performs, I felt lucky.

I don’t yet (hopefully) fall under the ridiculous veil of  criticism for acts of free speech. The Corporation has already won, I don’t plan on having children, so I have a unique perspective.

The power for corporate interests to control free speech and the progress of  society will only increase as less people contribute to the discussion. The corporate control of government has in many ways surpassed the ability for elections to be relevant.

The elephant in the living room has become the corporation.

Without the corporation, free speech would still be a competition between like-minded journalists who wanted the truth above all doubt. The requirement of integrity would subdue them to prison terms and ridicule in the name of a story.

But to question and slander a comedian of a late night show?

This beckons reference to ‘V for Vendetta’, or ‘Civil rights for teenagers who don’t read.’

Trump has already ruined a sports league (USFL), television, and the political process, the American people need him to step aside so we can find the next least capable hopeful.

We live in the only era in which corporate interest can subdue speech, when government refuses to speak when necessary, and the people are excluded from the process.

I’m So Lucky

Late at night, this was my venture into the land where brands die and people wonder where their money went:

I was half scared, half excited because I didn’t even know that KMart still had brick and mortar stores in the United States. This relic of the past was just that, a trip back in time, and a refreshing one at that. Just to illustrate why this place is so much better than the average ‘Wally-World’, Here are two lists:

K-Mart:
-Didn’t smell diapers
-Did see many ethnicities
-Didn’t smell them
-The help was actually helpful

Wally-World
-Usually smells like shit’n’cleaning-products
-Saw and smelled many ethnicities
-The help was not helpful
-Nothing about the place was appealing

You can stop me if I’m wrong, but haven’t both Pepsi and Coke tried this shit already? Don’t change the recipe for the taste, just make it kill us less.

This picture sort of has the punch-line built in, but I have no idea why anyone would want to answer 600 trivia questions about quite possibly the lowest grade of human beings ever assembled.

Now I’m not going to tell you which store had this display, and I won’t dispute this statement: one of these three things does not fit. Hint: it’s the middle one. 

American entertainment has polluted the world much more than our fuel emissions have. If I have to live as an American for the rest of my life, I would appreciate it if I didn’t have to answer for these atrocities shown above. I’m not an American apologist, I just apologize for the fact that we let the idiot box raise our kids far too often, rather than bothering to fund education.