Find Me’s “Dancing To a Broken Heartbeat” is like a perfect clone of ’80s adult-oriented rock, and I’m not saying that like it’s a bad thing.

“One does not simply fly in to Mordor.”
https://babylonbee.com/news/in-9-0-decision-scotus-rules-that-the-eagles-could-not-have-carried-the-fellowship-to-mount-doom

Sly not making enough in royalties off the Rockys, the Rambos, the Creeds, and everything else, that he has to do a reality show with his family?

Alright. Everyone hurry up and go see Dune: Part Two so we can talk about it.

I have thoughts.

Getting ready to nerd out with the high schooler at Dune: Part Two!

“Why do you have no desire to go on a cruise, Chris?”

Gee, I don’t know.

https://www.luxurlist.com/en/made-cruises-truths-plans

Who is Clark Barr?

My friend Pastor Wildman called me up last year, and asked if I would be interested in participating in a music video for a song he was working on. I was immediately in, and when he described the part he envisioned for me, moreso.

The song “Wildman” is about John the Baptist, and the vision for the video’s open was a newscaster noting a developing story about a “wild man” who was a prophet and a preacher. I put together some rough drafts, there was some back and forth with the Right Good Reverend Wildman, and we hashed out the final details. Then came the time to shoot my video portion.

For that, I turned to my hetero life mate and Empowered Parent Podcast partner, Ryan. He and Kayla have a business, One Big Happy Home, they do their speaking engagements and trainings under. It’s also the umbrella we run the podcast from under, because, no longer being supported by a ministry, we have to pay the hosting bills. (Podcasts ain’t free to produce and maintain, folks. And we are very picky about sponsors and what products we might promote.) To that end, they maintain an office with a setup that’s great for virtual training and, as it turns out, filming fake news casts.

You may have seen a pair of photos I posted last month, joking that I wasn’t ready to say what was going on, but that it had nothing to do with the Iowa caucus, which had actually taken place that day, if memory serves.

Now that Wildman has released the debut single, and if you haven’t seen any of my social media posts about it, you can now see my finished work:

To celebrate the music video debut, and to promote pre-ordering the EP, Wildman had me and the other actors—his podcast partner Steve, and our mutual friend Pastor Paul Ahnert—on The Wildman & Steve Show to talk about how it all got put together. (You can listen to Part 2 as well.)

This past Saturday, Wildman had me on his evening show on Classic Christian Rock Radio, and we talked more about my portion of the video, and how “Clark Barr” came to be. That interview got turned in to a podcast episode.

The interview is more wide-ranging, and the podcast doesn’t have the music that was played in between our chats, but the gist of my newscaster persona is this: he’s cobbled together from lots of different anchors and other media personalities, as well as a little of myself. The name Clark Barr came first from Superman’s alter ego, Clark Kent, and also from a scene in the Tom Hanks/Meg Ryan rom-com You’ve Got Mail. The pair are discussing the online handle “ny512,” and trying to decipher what the 512 is for.

Ryan: “Five hundred and twelve people who think he looks like Clark Gable.”

Hanks: “Five hundred and twelve people who think he looks like a Clark bar.”

And thus, Clark Barr was born.

So there you have it, my music video debut, and my story behind it. Buy Wildman’s EP today!

Retrophisch Review: Outlaw

Cover art for Jack Stewart's novel OutlawI will be honest up front that it is impossible for me to be totally unbiased in this review. I got to know the author, Jack Stewart, a bit before his first book, Unknown Rider, was published, and that is documented in the review linked to the just-mentioned title. That said, I respect Jack enough as a writer to not ask for hints and tidbits in our conversations, and he respects me as reader in only offering teasing morsels to whet the reading appetite. We talk more about the business/working side of writing than the content. Which is refreshing, as it allows me to go in with a clean palate.

Outlaw opens about a year after the events of Unknown Rider. Navy fighter pilot Colt Bancroft is back in the cockpit, albeit in a FA-18E Super Hornet stationed aboard the USS Ronald Reagan, instead of the F-35 we first met him in. NCIS Special Agent Emmy “Punky” King is still looking for the traitor within the Navy’s ranks who eluded her in the first book, and her search turns up more questions regarding the Chinese Ministry of State Security’s network of spies on the American West Coast. Her investigation puts her on the scent of a new agent working in southern California, one possibly tied to events in Shanghai that landed a CIA officer in the hands of the Chinese intelligence service.

As Punky realizes the spy she’s after could trigger a synthetic bioweapon breakout, Colt is flying air support for the rescue mission underway to get the CIA’s case officer back. Both come to the realization that if they fail, the implications wouldn’t stop at geopolitical fallout, but the opening of a new world war.

Outlaw differs from its predecessor in that Colt and Punky never share the printed page. They think about the other on occasion, but their storylines do not directly intertwine like in Unknown Rider. Nevertheless, each is responsible for massively important parts of the plot, as we are introduced to many fresh faces, as well as one or two others from the first book.

Another key difference is the scope. Unknown Rider dealt with a specific instance that brought the two characters together, whereas in Outlaw, things play out on a much larger scale. To his credit, Jack handles this with deft hands and a tight plot.

As stated before, Jack’s writing heroes are Tom Clancy and Mark Greaney, the inventor, and one of the current kings, respectively, of the technothriller genre. As a long-time fan of both of those, it gives me great pleasure to say that Jack may have reached the peak of publication and planted his flag with Unknown Rider, but in Outlaw he begins the establishment of his own empire as a technothriller master. This absolutely reads like a Clancy novel of old, and it’s an anxiety-filled roller-coaster of a ride in all the best of ways. There are even more subplots and moving parts in this book, and if you thought Jack took you inside the mind of a fighter pilot for a glimpse of life in the cockpit before, brother, the afterburners really kick to life in this one.

Let’s just say there may have been a moment during my reading when I texted Jack to curse him out. And I meant it in the most respectful way possible. It’s. Just. That. Good.

If you love reading thrillers, stop reading whatever else has your attention at the moment and dive in to Outlaw. You won’t regret it.

5/5 phins, a stunning and incredible sequel

Amazon: Hardcover, paperback, Kindle
Barnes & Noble: Hardcover, paperback
Bookshop: Hardcover, paperback

Well, it’s quite obvious why the icon for the Apple Sports app is a soccer field. 🙄

No college baseball? College softball? Is there no NFL because it’s the off-season?

Used for less than 5 minutes, already deleted.

I will spare my Louisiana friends the utter travesty being displayed today at our office cafeteria.

Let’s just say the items kale, tofu, and Old Bay are attached to “New Orleans recipes.” 🤢