2024 Was A Golden Age For Morons

Here's some nonsense I edited and wrote last year

Hello! Welcome to Moronitude! I bet you’re saying, “Oh shit, two posts within a few weeks, what happened?” It turns out that I’ve cured my laziness once and for all! Actually that’s not true, not even in the slightest, but I wanted to do some housekeeping and self promotion while I’m here.

So, a lot has happened in the last year. I lost my job at Inked toward the end of 2023 and really lost my love for writing in the wake of it. Long story short: I tried so hard to make that magazine interesting and in the end I was the only person there who seemed to give a shit about that aspect of things. Management certainly didn’t. So they let me go and the worst part of it all was that I didn’t feel like writing anything for a long time. I feel like I’m a poster child for why you should choose a job that isn’t something you love. In the end, your job is never going to love you back and will discard you at a moment’s notice, and if you’re not careful it’ll ruin your drive alongside it. Bleh.

We moved on a long time ago and my passion for writing has been restored! Yay! I solved that conundrum quicker than the plot in a Hallmark Christmas movie (foreshadowing?). The thing is that I haven’t been doing much writing here, instead I’ve been able to publish most of the kinds of things that I would publish here at my new project, Another Jane Pratt Thing.

While I’ve been working another job to pay the bills, I’ve been pouring my soul into this venture that I launched alongside some incredibly talented people, including the former head of Sassy and Jane magazine, Jane Pratt. It’s as different from Inked as any project could be and I absolutely love the writing I’ve been able to do, but more than that, I’ve enjoyed having a chance to publish so many of my talented friends.

This has seriously been my favorite part of the whole project. I’m not only falling back in love with writing, but I get such a kick out of working on articles by my friends. I’m so damn proud of the stuff they wrote for us this year. Jesse wrote about when his dog Eli was stolen. Sarah wrote about being stuck in immigration purgatory. Rocky wrote about “girl dads.” Julia wrote about everything she’s learned reading tarot. I even let Jeremy write about being a Yankee fan. I’m an old softie now.

Which brings us to the point of this here post. I’ve paused all paid subscriptions here (thank you so much, everybody! I’m sorry I didn’t produce more!) and will likely not be posting too often. BUT I wanted to share with you some of the stuff I’ve been writing over there in case you want to give it a read. We’re also having a sale right now on subs at $6.40 a month, which is cheaper than a fancy cocktail and you get a new thing in your inbox pretty much every day.

Enough of my poor attempt at “marketing,” let’s get to the point of this damn thing — things I wrote that don’t suck too much.

In September, Kim and I flew out to Oakland to meet up with my dad and Karla so we could go to one last Oakland A’s game at the Coliseum. Like any time you go back to a place that was important in the past, but that hasn’t been a huge part of your recent life, I felt like I should have visited way more often since leaving California. But of course, it’s too late. The Oakland A’s are no longer and in a just world John Fisher would have been tarred and feathered on his way out of town, but billionaires don’t have to play by any rules in this country, so… I’m sorry. I got on the soapbox. I promise the article is better than that. Read it here!

I spent Halloween 2023 in the heart ICU with a blood pressure in the 250s. It was pretty much the scariest night of my life. I was surprised how difficult it was to write about, even doing so a year later. But I think it came out alright? If you’ve seen me being a thinner guy around town and wondered why, reading this is probably a better explanation than anything I’ll ever put together using mouth words… er… speaking. You know what I mean. Read it here.

I started writing a column about fashion. Yes, I know, please refrain from doing a comical spit take. For this one, I wrote about getting dressed up to go to a gala (afterparty). Am I including this article mostly because I look pretty damn good in it? Maybe… Read it here.

While I’m doing some pretty thoughtful writing (self-congratulations), I’m still getting angry about really stupid things and using any platform I can to scream at clouds. Don’t color code your bookshelves, you ignoramuses. Read it here.

Days after the election, I was in a pretty dark place. I needed to put down my phone and take a break from yelling into the void. I was mostly surprised how much the election loss felt like grieving a loved one, so I gathered some thoughts about what I was going to do to make it through that week, that month, these four years. Read it here.

I don’t really drink much these days, but don’t you dare think for a second that I don’t still love spending time in bars. After heading back to Chicago last month I wrote about how important Chicago dive bars are to me. So grab a shot of Malört and give this one a read here.

OK. That’s a shitload of self-promotion for one newsletter, apologies. I’ll be sending out these newsletters (very) periodically, not phasing the out completely, but I thought I’d let you know where to go if you wanted to read some more Charlie. And also some other great stuff. Another Jane Pratt Thing. It’s cool. It’s pretty cheap too. All the cool kids are subscribing. You should too.