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  A few months ago, I made a malicious and completely unfounded blog post about Paul Dunlap—property manager, art collector, and someone who once did a great deal to support me. In that post, I falsely accused him of racism in connection with my family’s apartment business. While it’s true the family has a history of discriminatory practices, those actions happened 40 to 50 years ago—long before Paul ever became involved. Those decisions were neither his responsibility nor under his control. The truth is, Paul Dunlap is a good man. He has always been kind, considerate, and fair to me....

Today I went to my last smoking cessation class. I’ll be honest—it was frustrating. I haven’t quit yet. Part of me wanted to walk out of there as a proud non-smoker, waving goodbye with fresh lungs and a new lease on life. But that’s not where I’m at. Not yet. Still, the teacher was incredibly encouraging. She didn’t focus on the fact that I haven’t quit. Instead, she highlighted what I have accomplished: cutting back significantly, using tools like watching the clock, and writing in this blog to keep my hands and mind busy. It was good to hear someone...

Art and About: 10 Days Until I Find Out If My Movie Will Be Accepted for The Sunset Film Festivalby Dan Joyce The countdown begins. In just 10 days, I’ll find out whether Today in the Hood, my no-budget, all-heart indie film, makes its way into the Sunset Film Festival. The tension is real, the excitement even more so, and in the meantime—I’m refreshing my email like it's a slot machine. Jackpot = Acceptance Letter. 🎬 Watch the TMovie:https://youtu.be/QuXp76yENR4?si=9PNeSmSUp5RdHKy8 This film is raw. It’s poetic. It's honest. It's part documentary, part dream sequence, and totally born from the streets I’ve...

This Tuesday is my last cessation class—and guess what? I'm still smoking. I had big plans. I cut back a lot and set WonderCon as my quit date. I thought the excitement would distract me, that the patches would help me power through. But it didn’t quite go that way. Even with the patches, the withdrawal hit me like a truck. By the second day, I had ripped them off and was smoking through the whole weekend. Now it feels like I’m right back where I started. I’m smoking nearly as much as before, and to be honest, I’m nauseous,...

Whether or not I want to smoke is a slippery little question. It’s subjective—something that lives in the shifting fog of desire, habit, emotion, and maybe a bit of rebellion. You can’t prove it, you can’t measure it, and some days you can’t even trust it. But here’s a bit of logic that’s hard to deny:Anyone in their right mind doesn’t want to do something repeatedly when they know it’s killing them. So what does that say about me? That I’m not in my right mind? That I’m under the influence of a delusion? That the cigarette is somehow more...