I got some more good news today — The Roanoke Times published my “Open Letter to President Donald J. Trump” in its Letters section. Founded in 1886, the regional daily newspaper is Southwest Virginia’s leading online news source, in addition to sales at 1,500 locations throughout the region.
You can find the letter right here.
I am honored today to see my poem “This Windy Morning” published over at Spillwords Press. Thank you, Editor Dagmara K., for allowing me to share my voice there!
You can find the poem right here.
20th Century Fox/Fox Atomic.
This is just another strange ad campaign from the 1980’s — Spuds Mackenzie was the mascot for Bud Light. People went nuts for the dog — the campaign spawned a ton of merchandising. (People in the 80’s got worked up over the damnedest things.)
In the interest of full disclosure, I will confess here that I myself owned a Spuds MacKenzie button at the close of the decade. I wore it on my dark gray denim jacket — along with a bunch of other arbitrarily selected buttons that I thought made me look extremely cool. (It was a late-80’s thing.) Hell, I even wore that jacket-and-button ensemble during the first semester at Mary Washington College.
Weird world — Spuds was actually a female dog. She was a rescue dog, and she was named “Honey Tree Evil Eye.” (I feel certain there is an interesting story behind that.) And Mothers Against Drunk Driving lobbied against the ad campaign as it allegedly targeted children.
Dark Horse Comics.
Hey, guys — remember the “Open Letter to President Donald J. Trump Upon His Acquittal” that I wrote a few weeks back? The Bristol Herald Courier ran it Wednesday as a letter to the editor.
The newspaper is published in Bristol, Virginia, and has a readership of 39,000. It won the Pulitzer Prize for Public Service in 2010.
You can find the letter right here.
DC Comics.
The Whore & Gambler by the State
Licencd build that Nations Fate.
The Harlots cry from Street to Street
Shall weave Old Englands winding Sheet.
The Winners Shout the Losers Curse
Dance before dead Englands Hearse.
— excerpt from William Blake’s “Auguries of Innocence”
“Lupinar Romain,” from Histoire de la Prostitution Chez tous les Peuples du Monde, 1851
DC Comics.
Here’s the 81-year-old Clara Peller performing her iconic line for Wendy’s restaurants, “Where’s the beef?!” This was arguably the most memorable ad campaign of the 1980’s.
The commercials are pretty funny — the first two are, anyway. All three aired in 1984. Peller, who had emphysema, went on to star in other commercials, including those for Prego spaghetti sauce, Praise dog food, and Ben’s insect repellent. All were allusions to her breakout role for the restaurant (and were presumably unauthorized); Wendy’s then ended its relationship with her.
Eric Robert Nolan, Author 