Uncategorized – A.P. Miller

I Hated 90’s Pop Radio (And Now I’d Do Anything to Have it Back)

Posted on 6 Oct 20239 Sep 2023 by A.P. Miller in Uncategorized

Do you remember when the CEO of TikTok was dragged in front of a Congressional Panel and the world had to watch a bunch of dinosaurs figure out how technology worked? I’m honestly shocked the poor man wasn’t taken to Salem, tried for being a witch, and burned at the stake. I will say I think the CEO of TikTok was paraded in front of the wrong panel—that man should have had to face the highest spiritual leader of every faith system on this planet—TikTok is sucking life from people like someone chose the wrong Holy Grail in an Indiana Jones movie. I’m guilty of it too. I’ll sit down after work, commit to a few minutes of doom scrolling, and realize it’s time to get up, and file for retirement.

No one ever prepared me for the young people on that app gushing over songs from the 80s and 90s, saying shit like “this song hits me in the feels.” It hits me in the feels too—mostly how it felt to have to hear the same song on the radio for the 47,952nd time on the radio. Let’s be perfectly clear, there was no skipping songs, hitting next, or streaming another channel. When you’re eight years old, locked in a vehicle while your mom is smoking her second pack of Marlboro Reds of the trip, and in the driver’s seat, there was nothing to listen to other than the radio, or the minutes of your life being stolen from you. Sure, we had cassette players, CD players even, but can you imagine how far that gets you when you have ADHD so bad you’re giving the people around you a learning disorder? Worse than that, if you caught a brief glimpse of a song you might like, and someone changes the station before you can find out what the song is, your only hope is that you’ll find out what the song’s name is in the next life.

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The Dewey Decimal Deathmatch: Books vs. eReader

Posted on 30 Sep 202218 Sep 2022 by A.P. Miller in Uncategorized

I’ve said, on more than one or two occasions, that extremism is bad. To be so devoted to any one secular side of a spectrum or argument makes one blind to the opposing perspective makes one blind to the world around them. More often than not, I’ve applied this philosophy to terms of political leanings, or social issues, but there is an exception. Books.

In another life, I was a commentator for professional Mixed Martial Arts (MMA), and part of my duties was assembling statistics on fights. My job was to analyze data, to create hype around the fights to occur, and provide analysis of the fights after they’ve gone down. I’ve seen grown men get hit so hard they don’t know what day of the week it is, or what town they’ve come from. All of that considered I’ve never been more internally conflicted by opposing choices than choosing between a physical copy of a book or an eReader such as an Amazon Kindle or a Nook.

For this week’s blog, I’m going to tap into a former life, and I’m going to break down the tale of the tape, and analyze the war of attrition between the Book and the eReader!

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STORY TIME: A Body’s Constellation [Halloween 2019]

Posted on 24 Oct 201924 Oct 2019 by A.P. Miller in Uncategorized

The waiting room was white; the walls, the furniture, the decoration, the floors. The entire room was so sterile and virgin that the only surface that seemed real and tangible was where the tears had fallen and not yet dried. The rest of the room was more like the pulsating shades of light than a hard surface where life could occur.

I sat in a chair that was neither uncomfortable or soothing. I had business to attend, unfortunately, it was the same business that the eyes that had spilled the evaporating tears had. I wished I was alone, perhaps I could have had a moment to prepare myself in the form of getting my emotions out. I imagine that I didn’t let myself break down for the same reason that the small family that sat in the room across from me did: my grief was none of their concern, nor was theirs any concern of mine. It’s a strange sensation, knowing that a near identical experience is happening across the room and being so enveloped in your own experience to not offer the same comfort that you craved. We’re a strange species, human beings.

“Mr. Miller?” my name was called by a disembodied voice; it was not abrasive nor soothing, the same level of tolerable that the furniture had been, “you will be seen now.”

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Ten Reasons to Never Trust a Fiction Writer.

Posted on 25 May 201811 Dec 2018 by A.P. Miller in Uncategorized

I had a very profound thought: why should I trust an author or a musician’s political opinion? Why should I trust them at all, I thought. I have opinions on things, a lot of the time I just keep them to myself. It’s a very primal world, the internet. I could post on Facebook about how much I love my Mom’s recipe for chili and I could get backlash from all sides about it. Peta might want to know if the cow for the beef was ethically treated, vegetarians might take issue with how the onions were chopped, and some depraved world leader might have lived on a steady diet of chili and by eating chili, I am advancing their cause. If I can’t clearly communicate my opinion without fear of offending everyone and their mother, should I mirror an author’s opinion? Continue reading “Ten Reasons to Never Trust a Fiction Writer.” →

Dear Seventeen Year Old Me.

Posted on 18 May 201815 May 2018 by A.P. Miller in Uncategorized

Dear Seventeen Year Old Me:

In a precious few months, you will be a legal adult and will be responsible for your own choices, by proxy. I want you to see this as a good thing; for all of the potential that you have to make catastrophic bad choices, you have the equal potential to make miraculously good ones. For every situation that you’re in that could be bad, there is an equally accessible one that is amazing; that responsibility to make the best of it is now up to you, do not take it lightly. Continue reading “Dear Seventeen Year Old Me.” →