But there’s a difference between arrogance and accomplishment. Between arrogance and confidence. Between arrogance and actions.

Arrogance is believing that you are the only person on Earth that can do what you do. The opposite of arrogance is building a business that is literally dedicated to guiding kids towards being able to believe they too can do what you do. Or better yet, whatever it is THEY want to do.

Now, there’s an argument to made for the fact that accomplishment comes with a certain degree of blind arrogance. And to that I say, give me the blindfold.

There’s a certain confidence that arrogance blindly affords a fool, but then again, rarely is that fool given the credit of arrogance.

The actions of the arrogant are never met with the results of the accomplished. And accomplished looks wildly different case to case, but never let the disguise of the arrogant fool your reality of the confident.

Because there’s also a major difference between accomplished confidence, and arrogant belief.

-Rivard

https://www.golfdigest.com/story/paying-dues-what-does-it-take-for-golf-artist-make-a-living?utm_medium=social&utm_source=facebook&utm_campaign=golfdigest&fbclid=IwY2xjawSWZcJleHRuA2FlbQIxMABicmlkETFwa25mQzZweHRWQ1BNRGM4c3J0YwZhcHBfaWQQMjIyMDM5MTc4ODIwMDg5MgABHshpR9L3os7Ys8Uxe-LEVPH3YZ4NWtqS66NFhoh7GyH7vwd1E9dVJoeEn7-9_aem_TcxeJ-5lLIPoUAgZUept2A

NOMA, the Danish masterpiece restaurant of Chef René Redzepi recently went on the 'accountability’ Public Relations tour. Presumably he was an asshole to work for on some scale, and also held one of the most coveted positions in the Food & Beverage world. Not defending the guy, he may just be that big of a jerk, but the nonsensical tour of horseshit apology and “growth” (jargon puke), kind of made me wish he would have pushed back. And hard as hell. Instead, the PR crisis management stepped in and diluted a response that was unauthentic and frankly boring, I just couldn’t respect any side of the argument. He’s sounds like a dick, and his staff sound like babies. Furthermore, if Chef was punching staff members on the clock, and thirty other people watched and did nothing, said nothing, shame on all of them for their lack of accountability. Nobody wins in the accountability wars.

I fucked up bad once. In my mid twenties I was in a relationship for several years. We were essentially still kids but we had wrapped our lives to intertwine one anothers and we were having a blast… until we weren’t. It wasn’t growth in the PR sense, it was simply becoming adults that grew us apart. We both felt it ending, and one night after traveling apart and the writing being so clearly written on the wall, I cheated. I had never cheated before, and have never done so since. I was away on a trip to a family funeral, and I was mad she chose not to come, not to be with me as support. Driving the 1,000 miles back to our home, after a horrible weekend, I made a call. I called and I told her what I had done. Not because I would ever get caught, but because it was the only way to bring any semblance of right to my wrong. We ended our relationship soon after, even after a brief stint of forgiveness. The point is not to virtue signal, nobody virtual signals via infidelity, the point is character. I didn’t need to be caught to be guilty. I was guilty. And it ate me alive.

When being accountable comes with a Press Release, it’s not accountability, it’s a tax on the embarrassment of getting caught. Being accountable is doing the right thing when no one knows you did it. Being accountable is making a change to right a wrong before the consequences of not making that change are put in the court of public opinion.

When being accountable can only be obtained through some facade of religion, it’s not ownership it’s an excuse to repeat. Forgiveness isn’t a vending machine on the steps of a church, and true accountability doesn’t come from prayer. It comes from innate character. You either understand that or you don’t, and no amount of Press Release, or time to reflect, or a God, is going to move that needle for you.

When a murderer is on the stands asking for leniency, it’s almost always through the lense of religious reform. That’s not God talking, that’s called circumstantial marketing. And it sure as shit isn’t accountability. We need to learn the difference… and stick to it, because when accountability becomes a Burger King marketing tool we’re all going to taste the dissolving of collective character.

-Mark Rivard.

There's really two schools of thought tonight. The one that curses the year as it stumbles drunk into our collective memories (Understandably). Or the one that celebrates what a wild ride it's been, looking toward the refresher that is a new calendar.

I started the year off with complete unknowns. Tariff wars, budgets disintegrated, contracts dying. The very idea of the arts and cultivating intelligence and independence under mass attack. For me, that's how I make a living. 2025 started by stripping my business' of the cornerstones they built that propped up their success'. I found myself home a lot, like really home with nowhere to be for the first time in decades. Admittedly I lost a bit of motivation to keep up the fight I was in. I was aging. Aging in a young person's game, in an industry built on youth and trend. I had milked every last drop out of what was “my story”, it had built me a business, it bought me a house, it gave me everything. But 2025 started with neon signs screaming with flashing lights pouring into my life that read the words of a book I wasn’t ready to read.

I’d spent the last eight years under the security of a contract that floated my year, every year. I had been living on easy street, and if I’m being honest with myself, I got too used to it. My grind was weak. My story hadn’t changed much, but my audiences felt younger and younger, and thus more and more distanced. My hairline felt thinner. The bags under my eyes felt heavy. I was mad. I was mad a lot. I hated what I was seeing in our collective American Culture, and I hated what the erosion of political decency was doing to myself, my friendships, my community, and my family. I built my business on integrity and inspirational ambitions, and I watched it get torn apart buy a battle aimed at suffocating such aspirational thinking. A battle that was built on mass manipulation, hypocrisy, and dishonestly. It’s easy to understand the desire to curse this year into the past.

For a brief moment I was in a relationship. Those that know me personally can attest, that’s no small feat. I tried to lean in, but ultimately I was forcing a facade. I’ve lived so abnormally for so long I wanted to feel something domestic. We went to the farmers market, spent Saturdays touring dog adoption events. I never got comfortable.

I wrote 14 essays. 38 shy of my goal. I refunded 3 Substack subscriber. Integrity still has some actionable attributes I guess.

Two schools of thought. On January 14th, I brought Wilson home. On our first night she was petrified and she melted into my lap as we watched Cast Away and I explained to her where her namesake comes from. I’m not sure she quite understood. But I thought a lot about that volleyball, the greatest story of friendship ever told. That volleyball saved his life. That night as we got ready for bed, her first night home, my first night of any real responsibility. Both of us were incredibly uneasy and unsure, I looked at this living creature staring at me, completely afraid, but well fed and warm. We both were. She laid down at the foot of my bed shaking, and right then I felt a new level of responsibility and love I had not really ever known. Yes, it was just a dog, but for me it was a symbolic changed. I’m not one to signal alarm, but I think it’s safe to say Wilson found me at just the right moment. The damn dog saved my life, and then changed it in so many ways.

In February I sat down at my easel and painted a golf hole. By March we had incorporated my next business, Charcoal Golf LLC with two of my best friends. What was entrepreneurial panic, shifted so quickly back into entrepreneurial ingenuity that I barely even felt the squeeze. (Uncle Sam may disagree.)

On New Years Eve we spent the day the packaging orders. We shipped two massive paintings, one headed to adorn the walls of one of the greatest golf clubs on Earth in New Zealand. I have paintings hanging in multiple Top 100 courses globally tonight and we watched a wild idea grow from a sketch, to a Forbes feature, to full time jobs.

There’s two schools of thought tonight. Yeah, I’m still mad, and we all probably should be in America right now. But, I’ll be in bed before midnight, warm, a home, a perfect steak for dinner, an unbelievably promising future, & Wilson at my feet.

Happy New Year. - Mark

The sun set in the middle of the afternoon. 4:45pm and I just took my last sip of coffee. Ready, finally, to slap some keys and pretend I’m productive. Maybe today the blank canvas breathes some life? I’m ready to fill the page with art through words… And then it’s dark again. A brain racing with a million ambitions while the body meanders nearly hibernate. The reality of Seasonal Depression fighting the pull of expectations. A day just turning on in the mind, while the Earth slips back into tonight far to early for any hope of productivity. The days race is over before it even had a chance to begin. Set the alarm for 6am. Try to fight again tomorrow. Best to just slip back into bed. Resistance is paddling upstream in a thunderstorm. There’s always tomorrow.

If only affirmations contained true solutions. Post-It notes adorning the walls of an office, containing hyperbolic declarations of productivity. Reaffirming to the void that an answer to emptiness is merely a matter of mental nutrients. One more podcast, surely that will help. Process is the ammunition fired back at the lack of daylight, while ironically too dark to find the trigger. Remarkable expectations under the weight of a cement blanket. Just follow the Post-It notes…

-Mark Rivard.

One of the ways I break through a slump is leafing through art books and magazines. But, many years ago I started bookmarking interesting artist videos on Youtube. Whenever I see a video I find relevant to the art that inspires me, or possibly educational to a younger artist, I add it to this playlist which I will often put on shuffle on the TV until I find my motivation. A few years ago I made it a public playlist and I now share it with art teachers all over the country as a tool for their own teaching methods.

Sitting on my deck, watching old videos, searching for my spark. Figured I'd share the playlist:

https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2tcOUzZdn2woP8HAijQjF_8hb_uOWh9J&si=znok32zl6_pzYKe7

The train was a fascinating place. I’d actually come to enjoy the ride. Not the crack pipe, but the imagination exercises I would put myself through. Watching a sleeping a couple, resting their heads on one another’s shoulders, wondering if they’d miss their stop? The bros puffing their chests and ensuring their volume was heard by all, an act so insecure the only person who was truly impressed simply did not exist. There was the tourist, scrambling for directions, discombobulated by the underground confusion of it all. The confident New Yorker, pretending to read Hemingway, while scrolling TikTok for the latest “It” spot in the Lower East Side.

And then, somewhere around 103rd St, the Rockette… Things tend to fade out north of Central Park. An almost empty car at this point, my phone long dead. She got on, looked both ways to survey the scenario, and confidently choose the seat directly across from me. Peculiar. After two stops, and me awkwardly looking left and right, never straight as to not make an uncomfortable interaction, she spoke. “Where ya headed?”

Why she spoke to me I do not know. But for the next the 20 minutes I learned all about the fresh faced, newly minted, New York City Rockette Dancer from Lincoln, Nebraska. Being a Rockette was her dream. She’d lived in New York for 4 months. She was 22.

I never did tell her where I was headed. Didn’t say much of anything at all. I was meant to get off in Washington Heights, but I got the feeling she hadn’t finished her story. I wasn’t afraid of a late night stroll anyway. So I listened a few more stops. She was so proud of herself, and I felt she hadn’t been able to say it out loud nearly enough. She reflected on her journey. I listened. For 30 minutes. I rode the train with this Rockette from Nebraska, and I didn’t say much of anything at all, didn’t really need to. I wondered if I believed her? I wondered if she’d believe me if I were to tell my story??? I wondered how I’d get home now that my phone was dead.

We reached the end the of the A line. The train was done for the night. We both walked onto the platform, and said, “Nice to meet you.”…. I walked up and over, and got back on a southbound train toward Washington Heights. I sat down, exhausted, considered how far my walk would be. I looked down toward the end of the car, and and sitting there alone was the Rockette from Nebraska, heading back south. I think she just needed to talk. Maybe I just needed to listen.

Sometimes the best things we do, are also the loneliest.

The check on my desk was staring back at me like a dare. A relatively decent payday, but nothing like those pipe dreams of a sold out opening night at Gagosian, or a rookie signing bonus with the Lakers. No, this check was modest, but a dream come true in a very realistic sense. The kind of check that puts into perspective just how fucking long it all takes.

The difference in this case was I hadn’t even painted yet. A check cut on belief. And that’s where it gets tricky. The pressure, the weight of it all. The check sitting on the desk next to the blank canvas. The kind of check you don’t want to cash until you know the finish line is framed and hung on the wall.

Art is a slow burn in the career department, and for most a dead end. Career is the key word. That’s where the easy part becomes heavy. When they write you a check for a picture that doesn’t exist. If you find yourself fortunate to call art a career you learned a long time ago that actually making it is cruise control. You know how to do it, you mastered your medium, manipulated your vision into something that engages someone else enough to write a check. But yet, somehow it gets harder. The check stares at you waiting for you start. You did it. You’re now a professional. Now you get to show them why. So start. Just fucking start. It’s easy right???

The weight of the history. The weight of the expectation. The weight of the results. It doesn’t matter how well you know how to do what you do. How many reps you’ve dipped your brush, or the confidence of when that pen becomes a sixth finger. The further you go…

the greater the weight.

.

And you’re happy.” - Maurice Sendak

That paragraph has lived in my wallet since 2009. I remember watching Tell Them Anything You Want: A Portrait of Maurice Sendak a documentary film directed by Lance Bangs and Spike Jonze, and when Maurice said that those seven sentences I froze… Rewind the tape… What did he just say??? I rewatched Maurice recite those seven sentences over and over again like it was an old VHS recording of my own Grandpa muttering a cherished life lesson in his recliner. I watched it like I watch my favorite skate videos, admiring the style and artistry in the delivery of his wisdom. The thoughtful poise and choice of words. I marinated in the meaning of it all, and felt the reality it spoke into my own way of life.

I wrote it down on a piece of scratch paper immediately. I folded that little piece of paper into 8 small segments and stuffed it into the deepest corner of my wallet. It has lived there, folded up, deep in my back pocket ever since and serves as a Creatives bible verse of sorts. A little affirmation of life and how I intend to live it. I forget that it’s there for years at a time until randomly I find myself digging for some cash, or proof of insurance, buried beneath my Costco card, there it is, those seven sentences. I always smile when I see that scrap of paper, knowing what’s written has been following me around the world for the last couple of decades.

Those seven sentences captured so much of the torment in my own mind, and rang so true to what I believed the author of Where The Wild Things Are must have endured. There’s a reason great art resonates. We’re attracted to the works we find most authentic to our own sense of what life feels like to each of us uniquely. It’s no surprise when the artist of those works that move us so deeply, is also capable of shaping our emotional reaction to the real world. I felt I knew Max better when I met Maurice through that screen and those seven sentences. Then I felt I knew Max on very deep level when I spent the next 16 years with the essence of Where The Wild Things Ares’ existence living in my back pocket, traveling with me every single day. To know Max was also to understand Maurice. And Maurices’ true greatness was that we all knew Max on some level. This was a true artist. This was greatness and genius at the highest level.

As an artist watching and learning from those like Maurice, I not only absorbed so much from careful examination and extrapolation of what I believed was his process through his words, I felt I knew the artist on a very personal level. Great art has that power, to make the audience understand you. A truly phenomenal work of art is an honest gift of deeply personal communication that unintentionally bonds the viewer to the artist. I never met Maurice Sendak, but I knew him well. I felt that bond. So well in fact I carry a little piece of his identity in my pocket and he sparks a fuse of inspiration in me so often I’ve lost track of that fact I didn’t actually know him. That’s a superpower. It’s a superpower likely unrealized by the artist, and perhaps rooted in a deep need to express some degree of pain, but man, what a superpower to hold. The artists’ greatest responsibility perhaps?

It’s also a great irony. “It’s an isolation form of life…”. An isolation which likely led to a masterpiece that ultimately moved millions. I carry that reminder in my pocket everyday and wonder often if I’ll even touch that level of impact? There’s a burden to the pain and the joy of art. To create something that might touch others, but to do it without the intention to influence the narrative. Perhaps that’s the difference between art and marketing. Sublime in action perhaps, a burden in responsibility. Selfish indeed, but when done well, a gift.

It’s become my barometer of great art, of great artists. Does their life change the way I live? Does their art reroute the path of my life? For me, that’s a small list. Maurice, Bourdain, Robin Williams, a small handful of the artists that change the way I navigate the world. But maybe more importantly, the lesson their art offers is in the way we interpret it? I measure arts greatness by how long it sticks to my bones.

I’d like think that when it’s all said and done, the magic time, the weakness’ of my character, the blemishes of my personality, and all the torments in my life will have been worth it. That I’ll be able to believe all of my own time spent in creation, under the shadows and the influence of the greats, will stick someone else’s bones.

I can only hope that my words hold stronger that just a Do Rad Things bumper sticker, but that someday there’s someone out there that has a quote they carry like a love letter to their own life in their pocket for decades at a time. That’s the power of art, and the burden of the artist. Isolating and sublime.

Thank you Maurice, & thank you for giving us Max…

He died 91 years before I was born, a single lifetime between us. That was also a fact I would later on become fascinated with. His life ended at 37. He averaged 4 paintings a day for 10 years straight. 900 paintings in 10 years, though the math doesn’t add up as most historians site he could paint roughly one a day. That made me feel sophomoric, weak, a wannabe… Well played Vincent, I can’t keep up. Did he cut his ear off??? That’s up for debate like the law of averages. Is it all just a great story? Was he actually normal? Quite mortal? Quite averagely prolific?

I’ll never escape the image of The Olive Tree. A third grader, in a sea of fellow snot nose children staring into something quite the opposite of a starry night, totally oblivious to the weight of art. I stood there, and even some 35 years later, I can recall the impact of seeing the actual brush strokes of Van Gogh himself. The facts didn’t matter, the art captivated a new life long obsession. I, was an artist.

I didn’t know it at the time, but my life had changed because of Van Gogh. I wouldn’t understand it until decades later, standing in front of 300 kids answering questions that were delivered faster than the thought process it took conjure them. “Who’s your favorite artist?”, an oddly familiar snot nosed child chirped out of turn. I didn’t have an answer, I honestly hate that question, but my knee jerk reaction in the midst of the rapid fire barrage of childlike deposition was Vincent. A full circle realization served up by the curiosity of what could have been me, 35 years ago.

It’s not even his art that really captivated my attention all these years, it’s the fact that he somehow managed to matter long after his death. Therein lies one of the more inexplicably powerful aspects of art. In my opinion, it wasn’t the paint, it was the person. The story. The way the audience resonated a century later. The pain. The turmoil. The artist.

The effect Van Gogh had on me wasn’t one of visual arts, it was more about what art offered. These visual documentations of self. His blood flowed for 37 years, but the story still held strong a hundred some years later. More so, it only grew. Hundreds of millions of dollars worth of story and lore. To stand in front The Olive Tree and feel the irony and pain, what he saw, and what the world has done with how he saw it. I was drawn to the power of the art, not the stroke of the brush. There’s a selfish place for the process of making art, but I felt the pull of the story. I applied that to everything in my life, perhaps unintentionally, the equity of the story. But as I stood there, recounting my third grade Van Gogh experience to a third grader, I realized I was there with that audience not because I could paint a pretty picture, but because the pretty picture was just the introduction to my own story. And the pretty picture was an invite to tell it. They don’t come to see your line work, your brush strokes, they come to feel your view.

I’m not actually a Van Gogh fan. As it turns out he isn’t my favorite artist. The depression and the pain of it all lives in my mind like an old box of thoughts that wasn’t invited to the party.

I live just few miles away from The Olive Tree to this day. I often find some strange comfort knowing that late at night, when the lights are out at the Minneapolis Institute of Art, just a few blocks down the street a little piece of Van Gogh is resting up for the next day. On the days when I’m trying to make sense of it all I’ll go visit. I never stand directly in front of the painting, I like to watch the impact. I stand off in the corner and watch the power of the Van Gogh effect. Is it the beauty of the his view that mesmerizes, or is it the gunshot wound to the stomach that churns our curiosity?

That’s the Van Gogh Effect. He cut his fucking ear off…

-Mark Rivard

It’s pretty obvious when this started and who the loudest voice in the room was that constantly and consistently, for over a decade, beat this idea into the psyche of America. And it worked like a charm. America became the abused lover, backhanded slaps in the face of intelligence and facts, all while claiming that he loves us, and we just couldn’t get enough. But the hat says we’ll be great again right??? Choke us daddy Trump. HARDER. It’s easier to stay out of jail, when she never presses charges. Even better when she hands over her phone and lets him take control of the bank account. As it turns out, we’re kinky like that. We’ll happily throw away logic and self respect, our own morals and values, at the promise that Daddy knows best and he’s of course going to take care of us. Small little bite-sized Reels and out of context TikTok edits have become our new love language. We’ve turned the White House into a Wife Beater sales floor, complete with a WWE CEO. When the real news has Hulk Hogan pedaling votes, how are we ever supposed know what news is Fake?

The media, as it were presented and sold to us by our own “social” versions, became realities worst enemy according to some. Facts and truth, respect and regard, all the things that an abused spouse’s friends and family try to tell her become the enemy of the abuser. America’s pride is buried somewhere under the black eyes, right where a guy like Trump needs it to stay. “Make America Great Again” rings an awful lot like “You’ll never do better than me.”, and we ate that shit up… well, less than half of us did anyway. What caught me off guard, and frankly shouldn’t have, is how many respectable people were willing and enthusiastically ready to become the punching bag.

12% of men in 2024 claim to have no best friend. Loneliness is a great tool for propaganda. In 2017 when I left the Service Industry for good to become 100% self employed I saw my rolodex of friends evaporate more than half almost overnight. I hung onto bartending far longer than I needed to, because I craved the community it provided, and I wasn’t yet fully engulfed in a relationship with my phone. I was an insider, until I wasn’t. And once I wasn’t, I was out… ‘Community’ can be tough like that. A word we like to use in marketing to fluff up whatever brand or product, so often bullshit in the marketing sense, yet effective. Buy these supplements and become apart of the Gut Health COMMUNITY, you’ll never be lonely again and you’ll shit gold while you doom scroll every morning on the toilet. MAGA, as a brand understands this. MAGA also understands there’s a giant gap in people, primarily men in the US that have gone further and further from any sense of community. The more you lose your community, the more you’re willing to look for a new one. And guess where that new community lives? I’m guessing you're looking at it right now, I’m guessing it’s in your hand 10 hours a day, and I’m guessing your highly addicted to it. I know I am. Need a friend? The Motherships here for you, Apple put that best buddy in your pocket. And therein lies the problem. We used to have friends and conversation. The media was a source of information, the opinions of which were discussed in person. Now the friends have been replaced by scrolling, and the war waged on reporting is intentional. Daddy Trump knows that if he can keep us lonely and questioning the value of truth and fact, he’s welcome to keep skull fucking the Constitution all he wants. Where I differ, and what surprised me most, was how many lonely men willingly enjoyed a good mental skull fucking from Daddy in this country.

It was hard as hell to leave the Service Industry, and still is, I miss it everyday. I’m so fortunate to have amazing friends, and even though I lost access to that social club after leaving that industry, I’m one of the luckier ones that has a core group of lifelong best friends. So how does this translate to media??? Media is broad, it’s become reformed and reframed in such a short period of time, on such an unbelievable scale it’s impossible to measure the effects. A similar trajectory to loneliness. For many years I tamed my public thoughts on account of a client I valued, and once I was freed of that teeter totter of “Should I say this?”, I got to thinking. Something we would all benefit from. We all walk around with supercomputers in our back pockets, access to endless information, and like all good things, we ruined it. Instead of using them to get smarter, we were forced an algorithm, force fed a trust-no-one mentality, and led to believe that “Doing your own research.” meant trying to find an alternative to fact. And it worked.

I woke up the morning after the election, pissed off, and so grossly disappointed in the weak-minded abused half of this country. I was shocked that so many of my respectable friends and family chose to sell their values and turn their backs on their morals because they bought into the idea that a few billionaires and a bankrupt-impeached-sex offender-felon would somehow save them from Trans kids and this invisible murderous wave of gang members (ironically all carrying guns they voted to protect) that I’m still waiting to see show up on my south Minneapolis doorstep. As I looked at my phone the morning of November 6th, the very first virtual serving of the new reality of community I was fed, was from a guy I consider a dear friend. A man I’ve known and respected and looked to since I was in high school. In a joyous post he celebrated victory by claiming that now it was time for to “Come together, unity, and to be civil”, and of course he sighted “Community”. Perhaps my attitude was sour that morning and I just missed all the parts of the decade long, endless Trump campaign where he was so inspiring and civil to the virtues of unity and values that make the American spirit so great… but I doubt it. I have ears and can read. So perhaps my response to his post was dramatic? But again, I doubt it, I have ears and can read, and have done so for the last ten years. So I fired off and called out the hypocrisy of bullshit in that hollow call for community and civility. I was told I was the one being negative, which was accurate. However, I have ears and can read. Civility and the tactics of a Trump administration are the scientific result of oil and water. So naturally I was confused how such a respectable man, a successful man, and even a mentor in a sense could mistaken such a kindergarten level scientific result we all understand so clearly, so wrong? The sheer gall of calling for unity and civility, while supporting and cheering for the most clear and obvious candidate of the polar opposite of those virtues, was like claiming to be a climate change activist while burning tires to cook a shark fin. The mental gymnastics it takes to claim decency, then vote blatantly against it, is something I fortunately do not possess.

I looked to another person who had been wildly engaged in my political posts, another man I have known a very long time. And while we’ve likely never agreed on much politically or religiously, we’ve always been just fine in the real world. Unfortunately the real world is a virtual place now, and we’re all headed further and further down this road. Throughout the election this person would comment endlessly on my posts. There were long rebuttals to opinions and facts, deep dives into conspiracy and unsolicited DM’s. Most of it I never read. I just can’t take someone seriously who claims the mainstream media is rigged to oppress us, then endlessly share’s meme’s of TikTok wannabe Right Wing political pundits. I looked to his profile one afternoon after being DM’d a long winded rant about Nancy Pelosi & some obscure Right Wing website article, or something to that effect I honestly didn’t read it… I noticed what the saddest result of this Social Decoding, or more accurately Social Dissolution is. As I scrolled down past endless posts of reshared political meme’s, I was shocked at how much this thought process and obsession had claimed this man’s life. Years worth of manufactured anger and political virtue signaling replaced any sense of family or joy. For three straight years this man’s social virtual output on Instagram become nothing but reshares of Right Wing edits. But in this person’s mind it was important to signal to the community that they had outsmarted the “system” by demonstrating how far down the rabbit hole they’d been led. It was far more important to publicly signal that they knew the real cause of George Floyd’s death than it was to wish their daughter a happy birthday. So when I asked myself how the fuck did we get here??? I saw my answer on their virtual wall, and my god is that a depressing place to visit. This wasn’t politics, it was a diagnosis.

We’re fed what we engage online. It comes as no surprise to me that depression and loneliness is rising at crippling rates. There was a collective war waged on traditional media for personal and political gains, and for market position by the vessels that feed us the news, and it worked. It’s no coincidence that a guy like Trump doesn’t want you to watch the news, or even worse, believe it. Because then we have to actually acknowledge what we did to ourselves. Attacking fact and manipulating confusion, stoking mistrust is how we end up married to the fist that feeds us. I watched another friend unravel from respectable, likable, and even widely agreeable into a endless stream of pointless attempts to be somehow right about something, seemingly anything. 3 to 5 posts a day digging through wild avenues of what-about-isms, and insane comparisons of irrelevant nonsense to try to signal to the world he was above it all, he was smarter than the machine…. unsurprisingly he lost all audience, virtual friendships, and clearly the two things he was craving so much of, respect & attention. A sad scroll through his Facebook revealed a never ending conversation of anger, talking to a virtual wall with an audience of one. The belief that if we dig far enough into the bowels of the internet we can find the truth, is as dangerous as trusting your yoga instructor in Costa Rica to cure your brain tumor. Even scarier is the thought that we now pedestalize these “Social Decoders” with more revere than we do our own critical thinking. When Rogan becomes your source for information on vaccines, it’s no wonder Trump can be your beacon of family values. It doesn’t make any sense, and it’s not supposed to. If it made any sense it wouldn’t be entertaining, and entertainment is one antidote to loneliness.

Is it all bad though? A friend of mine, a Trump supporter, and I got into an argument. I questioned how he could know everything we do about Trump, support him, and still attempt to maintain that he lives with a clear moral conscious? How do explain Trump to a child, his history, his words, his brand of leadership? If you wouldn’t let him coach your kids little league team, how can you actively appoint him to the most delicate and powerful role in the world? This is a person I’ve known since childhood, a friend, a respected friend. We both heated up in conversation and went our virtual separate ways. A couple weeks later I was in his city and we met for a beer. He was still the same guy I love and respect, and I hopefully the same to him. We talked as friends, left the politics out of it as we all often do in person, and had a great conversation. You would never know we had an ugly disagreement just days before. It ended with us both exchanging very thoughtful gifts that neither of us expected. Two men, friends, who vehemently disagree not necessarily politically, but about one man in particular were able to share a beer and leave better for it. For that reason I’m hopeful.

Fake News isn’t reporting the facts through accredited institutions, it’s every one of us becoming our own version of Dan Rather. My friend retorted in our argument that he was sick of “Career Politicians”. That made me think, as opposed to what??? Politics IS a career. It’s a hard one too that takes an extreme amount of knowledge and patience, that threatens your private life at every turn, and holds your every decision accountable. I’ve sat through many Minneapolis Park Board meetings with non career elected citizens, and trust me, they don’t get shit done. The last thing on Earth I’d ever want to see is a politician that isn’t in it at the career level. And that goes for media too. Tim Pool is no Dan Rather, he’s literally described as an “American Commentator”. Which is to say, no different than the opinion essay you’re reading right now. But this is where so many of us find our media and our news now, through the lens of the least qualified amongst us. I offer you no news here, I offer you an opinion, and there IS a difference. The adults in the room need to be intelligent enough to sift through the opinion of it all, and find the facts. The Career Politicians need to be accountable for the quite boring and thankless job they have, not the entertainers we’ve become so accustomed to. Yes, I’d like my New York Times like I like my elected officials, career, factual, and boring as fuck.

So here we are. Psychologically abused into believing the facts are fake, that America needs a savior, and that we all should “do our own research”, or in other words decide what’s real for us. Daddy’s gonna fix it all, the black eye is temporary. The TDS my friends, is not hating our collective abuser, it’s continuing to love him.

-Mark Rivard

Don’t get distracted. Focus on the Lamb.

I mask my seasonal discomfort with a good deed. The annual Degenerate Xmas Eve Party. A night I open my doors to the lost and bored, the ones I call friends that find themselves alone on this particular evening in December. We’ll drink too much, we’ll close down the dive bar, and we’ll all pretend that it doesn’t really suck. It’s more for me than it is for them. I need the distraction. My good deed balances the mental irritation of Christmas. My gift is hospitality. Hospitality is my repreve from my own mind. Mint Butter. Focus on the Lamb.

But I do foster a massive sense of joy from cooking, and hosting. Many of my friends have come to rely on my annual middle finger to the manufactured “Christmas Spirit”. Hell, I like to believe some of them even look forward to it. The traditions change with generations. I remember loving Christmas as kid, my divorced parents spoiling us rotten in a sick competition of who-loves-you-more. Maybe that wasn’t the case, but my brother and I played the game well like two ungrateful little assholes. As we grew up and the traditions of childhood shifted to the Xmas Eve bar shift in a tourist town and a 6am alarm clock to herd 100 tourist into ski boots far too small at the rental shop, the magic evaporated startlingly fast. Not only was Santa the behavioral manipulation I always suspected, but the cost of doing family business became a true hemorrhoid. Flash fry the green beans, add a dash of lemon and some shallot. Focus on the Lamb.

When you grow in a split family home, schedule becomes a bidding war. I’m one of the lucky ones, my parents managed to navigate the rigors of divorce for the most part with ease. At least in the peripheral of my brothers and I. Christmas alway had a way of narrating the reality though. I remember being told “it’s the most wonderful time of the year!!!”, yet my mother would cry everyday. This is wonderful? There’s just something so dishonest I can’t get past when the tears are clearly not of joy. But they did their best, in fact they did more than their best for us, we grew up so much more fortunate than any of my various parents ever could have ever imagined. So where did I derail from the Xmas Spirit? Was it the horrible taste of eggnog, another falsehood of decadence…. Focus on the Lamb.

It’s not all doom and gloom though. I believe in accountability and my shit attitude tonight has nothing to do with anyone but myself and my own choices. I have three amazing nephews who are ready to tear into some wrapping paper. I’ll eat well for the next two days. For me the only way I know how to find the Christmas Spirit is to host. It’s my distraction from the fact I’ve fallen a decade behind in the arenas of love and parenthood of my own. A Christmas Tree in the living room of a bachelor sparkles with more a sad reflection on the front windows than it does like the heartwarming Hallmark image we’d all like our homes to emulate. At least I’m honest about it. So I host. Degenerate Xmas Eve is upon once again, and holy fuck, way too quick. Experience is the gift, and I’ve been one of the richest men on the planet when it comes to experiences. Nothing to be a scrooge about here…

Just focus on the fucking Lamb.

(Originally written late 2018. Unedited for the original post.)

I went to a comedy show in New York City tonight alone.  That was a first.  Somewhere in Greenwich Village I felt at peace.  The spirit of comedians on stage was hopeful, but also sadly realistic.  An admission of defeat, the long shot battle of success, while proclaiming a love for the craft.  Inspiring.  Feet from greatness, it’s intoxicating, the possibility.  It’s as if the allure of the city is stronger than the reality of life. Drugs have that effect.  Is New York a drug?  Potential is the high, and the potential of reaching the New York heights is low.  Angry at rent, while shouting into the mic with hope, a few Long Island miles from affordable.  A tired trope of endlessly sad humor.  Uncomfortably funny drenched in its own realness & reality.

It’s the juxtaposition of New York.  The dream it sells packaged in gold & glitter, that’s delivered in a nightmare of endless sirens and never ending horns.  The always constant stream of honks that shocks you back into reality just as your mind slips into the fantasy of seeing your name on the marquee.  New York is tough.  And I love it.  Kick me in the teeth and piss on the peanuts of my net worth…. I’ll have another a slice, one more set, and text an ex.

I took in the situation, the surroundings, and I changed my regular order. There was something going on here. Something I have felt a hundred times before while alone at the bar scanning a menu that reads like the least original book you’ve ever read. I deviated from my typical Pilsner and opted for the 2011 Laposté Cabernet. I took off my coat and smiled at my neighbors to the right. There’s sense you get with enough experience being solo and social of what those around you are willing to engage in, or eager to hear, or not even remotely interested in. An elderly couple with money to burn on a dozen oysters, looking for a reason to buy a stranger another a glass of wine. I smile at the bartender, open my shoulders the neighbors way, and it’s an easy play. I spend the next two hours learning how they met, all about their kids, and fielding proud parental style encouragements. They’re sweet, and kind, and they spoil me with the tab. I eat well. But inadvertently, and probably to my knowledge, they create a smoke screen. The bartender, who’s clearly overheard everything, now has some questions of her own. She’s been overly attentive, chiming in here and there until Mom and Dad head home. Wishing me luck in life, bickering over who has the keys, and feeling their own tinge of inspiration, parental duties fulfilled, they head off into the New Jersey night. I make a new kind of eye contact with the bartender and order a Pilsner.

But this is real life. The Rom-Com of the moment catches a breeze of reality. Two Pilsners later and I’m on my way. Again. A nice night in Bordentown, but another night alone. Because let’s face it, if I spent the rest of the night helping her close the bar down, busin’ the remaining tables so we can close down the local dive together, only to enjoy breakfast with her kids… you’d never believe me. And I’d never tell.

It’s another night, solo and social. There’ll be another tomorrow, and another after that. There’s a thousand stories just like it. Or is there? Perhaps we just make it all up. But either way, the pancakes are always just as sweet.

So how the fuck does a guy who barely graduated high school, stared down more bong rips in his late teens and early twenties than he ever stared at pages in a book end up on a stage, with an art career, and thriving educational business? Your guess is as good as mine, but one thing I know for sure, it wasn’t luck. And at least from my perspective it wasn’t a guess. It also wasn’t my “15 Minutes”. And it sure as hell wasn’t my love for education as a vocation.

I don’t believe in luck in the sense of career, or position in life. We are a result of what we do with the culmination of opportunities and experiences we live. And we can control those to a large degree. Luck is merely an equation when it comes to the 30,000 foot view of your life. Sure, everybody loves tripping over a crisp $100 bill on the sidewalk, but that’s no life strategy, and it was never mine.

So what the fuck makes me think I have license to ramble on about luck or career, or talent, or life??? Nothing really. To be honest I’ve always wondered why anyone would listen to me in the first place, and I’m beyond blown away they would actively go out of their way to hear it.

It’s not lost on me what it takes to care enough to seek something or someone out. So here we are.

15 minutes to life…. consider this an intro to the next phase of my art. I was not lucky to have found my ‘15 minutes of fame’, I made that happen for myself with deliberate intention. I’m not even particularly proud of it. My ‘15 Minutes’ was well earned, but there’s a reason Warhol gave such a brief window of time to the opportunity afforded by such a fortunate strike of publicity. To last forever would be a curse…. Unless…

Let me pause right here. The bottom line is I’m writing this essay, an intro of sorts, from a place of anger. I’m irritated and annoyed, but somehow wildly inspired. My life has been forever changed on account of my ‘15 Minutes’, what feels like 1,500 years ago. But in that change was never luck. It was formula. A few parts creative, a few parts work ethic, a few parts vision, and even a few parts sweat equity. It’s a tricky formula to follow because it’s constantly being rewritten, constantly on the move. Tonight it’s fueled with a tinge of anger, tomorrow it might be propelled by a sliver of life experience, maybe next week by some thrill of divine love…. who knows…. but long before the 15 Minutes, and deep into the life, my art, my one true love of a medium was to write. This is that. This is me.

It will all make more sense soon. I hope you stay tuned.

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