This Can't Be Broccoli

There was a field trip at school. Not a school-wide field trip. Only one class was going. The thing is, the trip had been planned at the last minute, and some of us in the class were in another class where a test was being administered. But we can take the test another time, right? Wrong. The teacher in the other class would not permit us to take the test another time and told us that we would just have to skip the field trip. This seemed...wrong. We went to the teacher of the class that was going on the field trip and told her that she had to talk to the other teacher. She said she wouldn't. We had to choose. This didn't make sense. Was she saying we couldn't go on the field trip? No , she said, I'm not saying that. I'm saying you could go on the trip and just...skip the test. But then we'll fail the test , we said, that teacher will give us a zero. Probably , she said, So I guess you have to choose. This was only getting more confusing. A teacher was telling u...

  Since we all need to celebrate...something, I thought I'd become one of those people who go all in on Halloween this year. That's why this month, all the fiction I post on my blog will be Halloween-themed ( www.thekevinbroccoliblog.blogspot.com). All my "Man About Town" column pieces in Motif Magazine will be scary and spooky and ooky dooky. And if you drive by my house, I'll throw plain M&M's at you from six feet away, but not the Peanut ones, because those are miiiiiiiine. And I've spent the past few months acquiring some of the wildest scary theater stories I could find from all over the country. First up, a story about a spirit who just loves to disrupt a performance. Submitted for the approval of all four people reading this, I call this interview-- "The Tale of the Theater Bats" ME:  I need to tell you that while I hate rats, bats are my least favorite animal on the planet. THEM:  I don't know if I should be telling you this story...

I have a new favorite television show. Upon beginning to watch it, I was convinced I would hate it. What a fool I was. It is HBO's We Are Who We Are brought to you by Luca "I Can't Believe You Had the Audacity to Make Your Suspiria Remake Eight Hours Long" Guadagnino, a man who loves watching men fall in love in Italy the way I love watching a pug lick up ice cream off the ground. Much like Call Me By Your Name , this television show asks the question-- Will you watch the most pretentious bullshit ever created as long as every character on the show is the horniest person you have ever met in your life? And the answer is-- Is the Pope's kink pissing off Conservatives? We Are Who We Are , which I think was meant to be called Right Here Right Now  since every episode is titled Right Here Right Now  (Any idea why? No? Does it matter? Probably not.) takes place on an army base in Italy where Chloe Sevigny is at peak Chloe Sevigny playing a butch lesbian who is taking ...

Since we all need to celebrate...something, I thought I'd become one of those people who go all in on Halloween this year. That's why this month, all the fiction I post on my blog will be Halloween-themed ( www.thekevinbroccoliblog.blogspot.com). All my "Man About Town" column pieces in Motif Magazine will be scary and spooky and ooky dooky. And if you drive by my house, I'll throw plain M&M's at you from six feet away, but not the Peanut ones, because those are miiiiiiiine. And I've spent the past few months acquiring some of the wildest scary theater stories I could find from all over the country. First up, a story about a spirit who just loves to disrupt a performance. Submitted for the approval of all four people reading this, I call this interview-- "The Tale of the Haunted Dressing Room" ME:  How big was the dressing room? THEM:  It was a good size. It was, uh, it was wide and it had two alcoves, and that was where we put the costume ra...

I reached my boiling point when I was listening to Hillary Clinton call Sarah Cooper a genius. Up to that point, I found Cooper's success irritating for a few reasons. First would be that I firmly believe TikTok, while definitely having talented people on it, has also gone the way of every other social media app by amplifying people who are doing the dumbest shit possible. Secondly, very very smart people, people much smarter than me, had been touting Cooper and her lip syncs to the President, echoing the call that she's a genius and calling them "satire." Now, nobody likes to stretch the limits of the word "satire" more than me, but...is this satire? I watched the lip syncs. They're funny. They're enjoyable. Are they...genius? Uhhh...I don't...think so? It's not a dig at Cooper. She might be a genius. But can lip syncing to someone else's words and making funny videos around them make you a genius? Should it get you a ticket to talk to ...

Since we all need to celebrate...something, I thought I'd become one of those people who go all in on Halloween this year. That's why this month, all the fiction I post on my blog will be Halloween-themed ( www.thekevinbroccoliblog.blogspot.com). All my "Man About Town" column pieces in Motif Magazine will be scary and spooky and ooky dooky. And if you drive by my house, I'll throw plain M&M's at you from six feet away, but not the Peanut ones, because those are miiiiiiiine. And I've spent the past few months acquiring some of the wildest scary theater stories I could find from all over the country. First up, a story about a spirit who just loves to disrupt a performance. Submitted for the approval of all four people reading this, I call this interview-- "The Tale of the Stranger at Rehearsal" ME:  How long had you been rehearsing the play? THEM:  This was in week two or three. ME:  Early on. THEM:  Yes. ME:  How big was the theater? THEM:  T...

It seems like people are always lacking in self-awareness until they become aware that you've distanced yourself from them. As part of my "I will hide everyone I know, but avoid blocking whenever possible" I recently unfollowed a very liberal friend, and within a day, he was messaging me asking if I had unfollowed him, because I didn't comment on a post he thought I would like. Of course he posts something about "Murder, She Wrote" the day after I follow him, thereby giving me away. Damn me and my love of Dame Lansbury. I decided to be honest (never a good idea) and own up to unfollowing him. He was very confused. Mainly because lately it seems like you only block people if they disagree with you politically and/or refuse to acknowledge that Succession  is MOCKING awful, rich white people not CELEBRATING them. I tell him that while, yes, I do agree with him, I find his posting to be...excessive. And yes, this is coming from a man who posted over three hundre...

Since we all need to celebrate...something, I thought I'd become one of those people who go all in on Halloween this year. That's why this month, all the fiction I post on my blog will be Halloween-themed ( www.thekevinbroccoliblog.blogspot.com). All my "Man About Town" column pieces in Motif Magazine will be scary and spooky and ooky dooky. And if you drive by my house, I'll throw plain M&M's at you from six feet away, but not the Peanut ones, because those are miiiiiiiine. And I've spent the past few months acquiring some of the wildest scary theater stories I could find from all over the country. First up, a story about a spirit who just loves to disrupt a performance. Submitted for the approval of all four people reading this, I call this interview-- "The Tale of the Ghost in the Wings" ME:  Did anybody tell you about the ghost before you saw it? THEM:  Yes. We were in the dressing room, and an actor came backstage, and said they were hav...

I was standing at a party with someone I'd known for years. I thought I knew this person. I felt comfortable with them. I would say I trusted them. This was before social media was a prevailing force in our lives. Sure, we had them, but they were not the great revealers that they are today. They weren't overtly political. These are the times that people refer to fondly when they talk about what social media used to be. It really was just a way to find out whether or not your "friends" were having a bad day. It was blissful ignorance. But because this was the before times, what could happen was this-- You could be me. Standing at a party. In front of someone you really thought you knew. I was standing there. At this party. And this person. Who I considered a friend. In the midst of a discussion about something I can't remember. Felt very comfortable. With me. Leaning in and whispering a wildly hateful opinion about an entire group of people. They did it with a smil...