David Boles: Human Meme

Letter to Bob Lefsetz

October 10, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.6 MB

Even our SuperGeniuses can sometimes be wrong. Let there be no doubt Bob Lefsetz is an intellectual giant among us. Several times a week, he implores us to be better people in his ubiquitous "Lefsetz Letter" but, alas, last week Bob released a missive entitled, "The Deaf Installer" that missed the mark, and wounded more than it healed. Here's why...

The Babysitting Figurehead

October 03, 2019 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.6 MB

We make a difference by not trying. At least that's the idea of the game we play against money and power. We're hired to think, and act, but in the end, the authority above us only wants stasis and non-elasticity. How do we fight the incongruity of irrational change?

Outrage Fatigue

September 26, 2019 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.1 MB

We are constantly bombarded with negativity. How can we escape this whirlwind of insecurity, and cruelty, that surrounds us from all sides? We must ignore the inevitable, and celebrate the possible. Our lives depend upon our care.

Elastic Emotional Residue

September 19, 2019 14:00 - 12 minutes - 17 MB

We lead sticky and wet lives! The residue of our emotional responses never leaves us -- and that can be both good and bad. We examine three terms of residual emotion: Lenticular, Electrical, and Modular. Own what you know!

Malignant Skin Cancer and E. Coli Poisoning

September 12, 2019 14:00 - 13 minutes - 18.3 MB

Have a double-healthcare-whammy: Bleeding and Pooping! Welcome to the world of malignant skin cancer and E. coli food poisoning! Plus, we talk about Shingles, and why you must, absolutely, get a yearly flu shot. You came for the meme, you left with the malignancy!

What You Think Is Not What You Know

September 05, 2019 14:00 - 12 minutes - 17.5 MB

We often believe without knowing. Here's the true story of a young, Lily-White Boy from Nebraska who sought to attend -- and was accepted by -- Howard University in Washington, D.C., a traditional Black College.

There is No Destination

August 29, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 12.8 MB

If change is the vitality of life, then we must wish for change to never end. We prefer to carve our lives into subsets of accomplishments, but what if there is no end to us until we are no longer? What if there is no destination, and we must find our own joy while always spinning in perpetual movement? We dream while awake. We sit while standing still.

How to Write a Contract

August 22, 2019 14:00 - 12 minutes - 17.2 MB

Contracts codify relationships. Many of us have no idea how to write a relationship, or how to save the human condition from a legal crumbling. Yes, you can, and must, write your own contract. Know the steps. Memorize the parts. Own the project whole by remaining fair, calm, and intrinsic.

Hard Nebraska

August 15, 2019 14:00 - 12 minutes - 22.8 MB

You grow up hard, and cold, in Nebraska. Expectation is high for any person born in the flatlands. Loyalty is demanded, and tested. Responsibility is pleasure. You learn the hard way how to behave, and how to live up to the opportunity around you. Here's a story about wisdom teeth extraction, a radio show, and the hard-won lessons of living up to the inescapable fact of becoming who you are before you know what you were meant to be.

Talk to Yourself

August 08, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 12.6 MB

Don't listen. Talk. Talking to yourself is more important than listening to your gut. Talk to soothe. Talk to win. Talk to conquer. Talk to vanquish all fears.

Understanding Without Knowing

August 01, 2019 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.6 MB

Shakespeare knew we were flawed in the dark. We think we know, we think we see the light -- but we are always, and already, burdened by now knowing, but with the full understanding of that in which we do not know.

Forgetting What is Written

July 25, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.6 MB

Write it and forget it. That's the right advice to follow when you are an active writer. Danger lurks in the past. Know the present through being where you stand. Your writing will be better for the knowing.

Tell Me What I Do Not Know

July 18, 2019 14:00 - 15 minutes - 20.6 MB

We don't know what we do not know until we ask. We ask and answer about the mysterious health benefits of coconut water; the excellence of the Nike Training Club; the great work of sleep doctor Matt Walker, and more!

You Are Not Gifted

July 11, 2019 14:00 - 17 minutes - 24.6 MB

We are not our futures; we are only our past. How, then, do we test time, and efficiency, and the promise of productivity from the bliss of the abyss? Malcolm Gladwell does not accept the idea of using timed tests to determine success; but so many programs for the Gifted in public schools require an exam that values time management over the purely creative thought. Here's a True Crime story that nixes a future for the want of a single point -- to make the point.

Alternate Realities Are Real

July 04, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 12.6 MB

Close your eyes. Jump a timeline. Live a new life inside the life you are already living. We appear in multiple realities of our own choosing. Which experience do you wish to make your main reason for being?

Shaming You With the Disabled Exception

June 27, 2019 14:00 - 13 minutes - 17.9 MB

Why are the disabled used to shame the average-bodied into better behavior? Does the armless archer serve as a better cudgel of reckoning than exercising to preserve your health? Why are the accomplishments of the Disabled held up as an outlier inspiration to an empty nation?

Fitting Into the World

June 20, 2019 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.8 MB

Your life always belongs to you. There will always be others who try to bend your life into theirs -- but in the end -- you must defend your right to live your life with consequences you create, and not be burdened by the sins of the other.

Subscription Burnout

June 13, 2019 14:00 - 14 minutes - 19.5 MB

We pay too much to play! The software subscription is out of whack. If you want to get any sort of interesting work done, you're going to need a never ending Adobe, Office, Google and Apple subscription! Where will the madness end? Will we ever again be allowed to own what we pay to create?

99% of Writing is Looking Out the Window

June 06, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.3 MB

We write to see what we do not know. 99% of writing is thinking, staring, meandering, and daydreaming. Only 1% of writing is actually inking words to pixels and paper, and only other real writers know that; the rest of the world is wondering why we aren't "writing" as they write a grocery list or a traffic ticket in real time.

Democracy Without Values

May 30, 2019 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.9 MB

Democracies fall apart without a shared moral core. If the idea of a Democracy has no set of impenetrable values set alongside it, the whole matter will fail into the ash of a great idea without execution.

How We Train Taste

May 23, 2019 14:00 - 18 minutes - 25.3 MB

Taste is trained, not inborn. Through those we admire, we learn how to influence the world with grace, aesthetic, and taste. Listen to the lessons of jeweler Fred T. Witt, movie star June Perry Levine, director Marshall Jamison, professor Howard Stein, and editrix Hilda Raz, for inspiration into the next.

Blood of the Deceiver

May 16, 2019 14:00 - 11 minutes - 15.4 MB

How do we handle the treacherous in genius? Can we still celebrate Michael Jackson's music, while full well knowing of his violation of groomed children? Do we cast out Elizabeth Holmes from society for being a lying, but lost, visionary?

Nebraska: For Everyone!

May 09, 2019 14:00 - 12 minutes - 16.5 MB

How can an entire state be "self-deprecating?" It isn't possible, and so here is the "2018 Private History of an Advertising Campaign That Failed" -- as one Nebraska Tourism slogan gets sloughed off for a second slug line that spills better, bites funnier, and fills the heart with more than a fart.

The Triangulated Con

May 02, 2019 14:00 - 14 minutes - 19.9 MB

People live to take our money. The Long Con. The Short Con. The Street Con. They all have one objective, to suck you in and rip you off. Learn how to spot these cons, and how to defend the sacredness of your pocket.

Why the Liberal Media Loves Trump

April 25, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13.5 MB

The big lie is there is no Liberal Media. There is only Conservative Media. All big media companies are conglomerations that kneel to power, and only serve their mercurial political masters; and that means the rest of us need to figure out how to divine the truth as it stands, not as it is presented to us for forced consumption.

The Dramatist and Prior Causes

April 18, 2019 14:00 - 12 minutes - 17.4 MB

Who guides the hands of the Dramatist? We know every Dramatist is a Determinist when it comes to creating characters, but who, or what, is controlling the mind of the thinker who creates worlds, and destroys universes? Predestiny is for dying characters! Free Will is for the initiated -- and the triggered!

Progressive Recession

April 11, 2019 14:00 - 10 minutes - 14.9 MB

We look forward, only to fall back. For all our future progression, we keep failing backward into the pit of what was, and the dusk of what never shall be. We are kept down by our incapacity to hold on to what was once won; stuck between the bee and the sealing wax.

Pete Buttigieg for President!

April 01, 2019 20:21 - 9 minutes - 12.8 MB

Pete Buttigieg is the one candidate made to defeat Donald Trump. Pete is kind, righteous, tough -- and he knows how to answer a direct question!

When the Lion Roared

March 28, 2019 14:00 - 11 minutes - 15.1 MB

There is springtime in aging, and winter in not knowing. Discover how to build upon the notion author Philip Roth shared on his deathbed: "Aging is an annihilation." We who know are too old to share with kids who have no interest in seeing.

Never Answer, "YES!"

March 21, 2019 14:00 - 11 minutes - 15.4 MB

There are phone scammers stalking you! Let us help you take on those who would haunt you on your phone -- the phantom Voice Mails that are left without ringing -- the robot voice prompting you to say the word "Yes" so your identity may be stolen! It's all here in living lifelessness!

When a Life Flashes Before Your Eyes

March 14, 2019 14:00 - 9 minutes - 13 MB

Do we know each other without asking? Is it possible to know everything about a stranger without a single touch, or phrase of communication? Let's explore the idea of reading people when they are not aware, and discovering people when they do not care.

Ubiquity is the Enemy of the Unique

March 07, 2019 15:00 - 11 minutes - 16.4 MB

We yearn to be noticed for our sameness. Learn how to fight back against the idea of fitting in, and of being overwhelmed with duplication. Find a way out of the lack of original thought thwarting our nation.

Paths to Wellness

February 28, 2019 15:00 - 10 minutes - 14 MB

Unleash the greatness of your health! Today, we share some favorite iPhone Apps for creating a tough mind and a hard body. Have you met Da'Rulk from the Chris Hemsworth Centr App? Sworkit will sweat you. Inscape will challenge you. Peloton will tax you! And more!

Time is Running Out!

February 21, 2019 15:00 - 10 minutes - 13.8 MB

The clock ticks for thee! Together, we lament the lack of righteousness in free will and the lack of hope in predestiny. Are we our thoughts, or only our programming?

Loss of the Private Conversation

February 14, 2019 15:00 - 13 minutes - 18.1 MB

We have lost the sharing of the intimate moment. Examine the loss of the sacred warmth shared between two people in exchange for public hostility. We now live open lives of rubrics, and discourse, and mockery -- everything is now fodder for a Facebook Live broadcast, or an Instagram Snapchat iMessage confabulation.

Sustaining the Gaze

February 07, 2019 15:00 - 12 minutes - 17.7 MB

Are we what we know, or are we our imagination? Here is the cruft of us, the ashes that become us, the stardust pittles that make us. If we can resurrect Mari Sandoz with a gaze, then we can lift ourselves back into the universe.

Shattered Blood, Broken Watch

January 31, 2019 15:00 - 12 minutes - 17.6 MB

Too many men only believe their minds, and not empirical proof! Have you ever wondered why so many men refuse to take the reality of their ill-health seriously! AFIB? No way! High blood pressure? Sez who? Oh, the saddest of tapestries we so willinging weave into an early grave!

Multi-Level Marketing Marks

January 24, 2019 15:00 - 13 minutes - 18.7 MB

No dollar is an easy earn! We urge you to not fall for these "get rich quick" schemes posing as Multi-Level Marketing opportunities! You will not be a millionaire by the time you are 25-years-old!

The Anchor of Cultural Appropriation

January 17, 2019 15:00 - 9 minutes - 13.5 MB

We may borrow, but never steal, and still be guilty! Have you divined the merits of Cultural Appropriation, and the price we pay for its dismay, and discovery? Will playing "Cowboys and Indians" ever remain the same again?

Voluntary Indoctrination into Evil

January 10, 2019 15:00 - 12 minutes - 17.2 MB

The evil isn't among us; the evil is in our children. We re-culture the cult-of-thought that helps our children voluntarily induct themselves into the ancient realms of evil. Radicalization of the young, unsupervised, mind threatens the four corners of democracy.

David Boles: Human Meme

Episodes