{"id":34087,"date":"2026-07-10T12:53:48","date_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:53:48","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/?p=34087"},"modified":"2026-07-10T12:56:35","modified_gmt":"2026-07-10T18:56:35","slug":"open-mic-night-july-2026","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/2026\/07\/10\/open-mic-night-july-2026\/","title":{"rendered":"Open Mic Night, July 2026"},"content":{"rendered":"

Life Notes<\/em><\/p>\n

I hate it when I come up with what I imagine is a great idea, only to discover that someone I despise has thought of it also. How many good ideas have I killed for this reason?<\/p>\n

\"I<\/a>
I found this very clean $20 bill in a pair of shorts I hadn’t worn since last fall.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Life is like a soggy, greased electric eel. I want to hold on, but ELECTRIC EEL!<\/p>\n

\"You'd<\/a>
You’d think I would get tired of this, but here I am.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I skim through Nietzsche’s Zarathustra<\/em>, then listened to Strauss’ tone poem based on it, then listened to Wagner, then went down a deep rabbit hole about why Hitler was obsessed with Wagner. My main take-away? I should have my copy of The Portable Nietzsche on my night stand in case I die in my sleep, people will think I was deep in the end.<\/p>\n

\"My<\/a>
My found-in-the-park pink bowties are holding up well as my official Open Mic uniform.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

An Observation from the Movie <\/em>Wild<\/p>\n

by The Usual Suspect<\/p>\n

In the movie Wild<\/em>, Cheryl Strayed, a real person portrayed by Reese Witherspoon, has decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail. Every night, she writes in her journal, then immediately burns the pages.<\/p>\n

The genius, I thought, to take the first step, then go directly to the last one.<\/p>\n

The genius, I thought, of writing words to the sky and soil, instead of to an audience.<\/p>\n

The genius, I thought, of casting ideas above and beyond.<\/p>\n

The genius, I thought, of mixing fire and ink and paper and ideas, then inhaling them.<\/p>\n

The genius, I thought, of disappearing forever.<\/p>\n

\""Okay,<\/a>
“Okay, who had ‘This guy is an idiot? ‘ “<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
\"\"<\/a>
Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
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Richard R. Barron | richardbarron.net<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

As is often the case, I made these images with my 1980s-era Nikkor 85mm f\/1.8, a lens that seems to have a “just right” quality for events like this.<\/p>\n

\"85mm<\/a>
85mm is my favorite focal length.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Life Notes I hate it when I come up with what I imagine is a great idea, only to discover that someone I despise has thought of it also. How many good ideas have I killed for this reason? Life is like a soggy, greased electric eel. I want to hold on, but ELECTRIC EEL!…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":34100,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1,15,19],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-34087","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized","category-essays-and-opinions","category-journals-notebooks"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34087","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=34087"}],"version-history":[{"count":11,"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34087\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":34124,"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/34087\/revisions\/34124"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/34100"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=34087"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=34087"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/richardbarron.net\/giantmuh\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=34087"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}