Left to my own devices

Barry Rowe has died. For some of you, that may mean something. For others, you may be asking, "Who?" He was different things to different people (as most of us are). To me, he was, first and foremost, a teacher. Multimedia class. Centennial High School. 1991. That's where our journey began. Happily, it continued -- off and on -- over the next three decades, and his recent passing is deeply felt. Mr. Rowe -- he preferred that I call him "Barry," and was sometimes rather tetchy about it, but old habits die hard -- was a fan of old British cars and TV shows, MG automobiles and The Prisoner , respectively. He liked more than just those things, of course, but they are the ones that stand out to me.

This blog would seem to be the suitable place to officially announce my new book. I say that because it is culled from the writings here over the past ten years. It is titled,  Decade: Selected Writings (2011-2021) . Call it a greatest hits, if you will.

I've never been much of a fan of edgy humor. Wait -- that's not entirely true. When I was a kid, it did appeal to me. Isn't that kind of how it goes when you're younger? You don't fully appreciate being shielded and protected from the more harsh realities of the world, so when you're flipping through the channels, land on HBO, and hear people like George Carlin, Eddie Murphy and Andrew Dice Clay sound angry, using profanity and talking about sex, it feels like that good-sort-of-dangerous that, the kind your mind reacts to when faced with a forbidden fruit. Speaking of Eddie Murphy, it was his 1983 stand-up special, Delirious, and his 1987 follow-up, Raw , that caught my attention during the late '80s. They were both funny in their own way, and both specials were definitely homophobic . And there was the internal dichotomy for yours truly: On the one hand, it was titillating watching what amounted to adult verbal content when I wasn't supposed to. On the

* NOTE: There are some minor SPOILERS for Eternals that follow. _____________ Rick Blaine and Ilsa Lund. Westley and Buttercup. Rose Dewitt Bukater and Jack Dawson. Elio and Oliver. Elisa Esposito and... Amphibian Man? For over a century, movies have featured some of the greatest love stories ever told. Sometimes, they're the core of a film, other times they're a side-plot. Regardless, when done right, a romance in a movie can be sweeping in its ability to lift -- or even deflate -- our emotions. I'd like to add another set of names of to the aforementioned couples: Thena and Gilgamesh.