I certainly have some observations and a few opinions to offer:
The anti-child sentiment is an idea that rears its ugly head in our culture every generation or so. A version of this existed in the 1970s.
There’s a difference between saying “being a parent is not appropriate to my individual circumstances”— and actively disliking children.
I’m not a parent, but I also recognize that people getting married and having kids is… well, kind of what makes the world go around. If no one has any kids, then the human race dies.
(But maybe that is what the anti-child people consider to be an optimal outcome. There definitely is a perverse, nihilistic streak in this movement.)
Another irony is that so many of the people who are virulently anti-child are dog fanatics. They’re basically saying that they don’t want a human child… but they’re willing to sign on to the care of a furry, unsanitary, slobbering creature that is the equivalent of a permanent 2-year-old.
Since Meta has been messing with the algorithms, some very random stuff has been coming up in my personal Facebook feed. Among this miscellanea are the Facebook posts of Alice Little. Ms. Little is a courtesan at one of Nevada’s legal brothels. In other words, she’s a legal sex worker.
I will admit—I enjoy reading Alice’s posts. She’s funny, unabashed, and far less depressing than most of the random digital creators who show up in my Facebook feed.
Source: Alice Little, Facebook
The legalization of sex work is a topic that comes up from time to time in our public square. The world’s oldest profession has few friends among our political class. Republicans don’t like commercialized sex because it involves sex. Democrats don’t like commercialized sex because it involves free enterprise. The political proponents of legalization or decriminalization are a hodgepodge of politicians from both the left and the right fringes—sex-positive feminists on the left, and libertarians on the right.
What do you think of legal brothels? Go to Nevada with @LisaLing to meet Alice Little, as she explains why, for her, there is no shame in sex work. Watch an-all new episode of #ThisIsLife Sunday at 10 p.m. ET/PT pic.twitter.com/kdanlE7CZ3
The arguments against the legalization of sex work used to be based on commonly shared cultural and sexual norms. That argument might have had some validity in the 1950s. But never in my lifetime have Americans been able to agree on any common standard that might reasonably be called public morality.
Nowadays the argument is more likely to hinge on issues of power imbalances and real or imagined exploitation. The argument here is that no woman would ever freely decide to exchange sexual favors for money. Ergo, all sex workers are under the control of sadistic pimps lurking somewhere in the shadows.
Alice Little is not only active on Facebook, she has also been interviewed by the mainstream media. She charges four figures, makes tons of money, and is very adamant that she’s doing what she wants to do.
None of the above is meant to imply that sex work should become a mainstream career. Men simply cannot do it. (The demand for male services is virtually nonexistent.) The vast majority of women would likely have no interest in doing Alice Little’s job for any amount of money.
Nor are all men lining up to be clients—and certainly not at those prices. I have no interest in paying Alice Little’s high fees in exchange for access to her company. (You see, I would consider that degrading and insulting to me. What am I—chopped liver?)
But unlike so many busybodies out there, I have no desire to restrict the personal choices of others.
And this is really the crux of the issue. Consenting adults are either free to make their own decisions, or they’re not. We either trust women with individual agency, or we don’t. Either you own your sex life—or the government does.
Such is the question that I considered in the following video. The video transcript follows.
Transcript: “Was 1980s music better?”
The other day, I saw a question being debated on the Internet. It’s a question that people have brought up to me from time to time:
Was music in the 1980s objectively better than the music being produced today?
It’s a complicated question, but I think there’s a case to be made that the mainstream music marketplace of the 1980s was better than the one we have today.
Let me explain why.
Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, and Today’s Popular Music
I know a group of Gen Z young women who are always telling me about the music they’re listening to. They’re into Taylor Swift, Harry Styles, Olivia Rodrigo, and other contemporary performers.
I’ve gone out and sampled the music of these artists. And I don’t necessarily think they’re bad.
Let’s take Taylor Swift, for example. There’s a perception out there, particularly in certain political contexts, that older men reflexively dislike Taylor Swift.
I don’t dislike Taylor Swift.
I do, however, think that her music is mediocre by the standards of the 1980s.
If Taylor Swift had broken out in 1983, I suspect she would have risen to approximately the level of Debbie Gibson.
And there’s nothing wrong with that. Debbie Gibson certainly had an audience back then, particularly among younger female listeners.
But Debbie Gibson was never the cultural phenomenon that Taylor Swift has become. And I don’t believe Taylor Swift would have become the same cultural phenomenon if she’d started her career in 1983.
Why not?
When I listen to today’s most popular younger musicians, their music strikes me as bland. Not necessarily bad, but bland.
In some ways, it reminds me of the contemporary Hollywood movie industry. We get one superhero film after another, or the fiftieth installment of some franchise that began in the 1970s or 1980s.
Much of this entertainment seems designed to appeal to the lowest common denominator.
It’s entertainment that relatively few people will passionately hate, but that can also be difficult to passionately love.
I watched a Harry Styles music video the other day. It wasn’t objectively awful. But it wasn’t objectively great, either.
So what’s changed?
The Musical Diversity of the 1980s
To understand the difference, we need to go back to the music industry of the 1980s.
This was the heyday of MTV, back when MTV actually played music videos. It was also the heyday of the shopping mall record store and the album-buying culture.
Record companies were investing in an incredibly diverse range of musical acts.
And when I say diverse, I mean that in the best possible sense of the word.
First, there was diversity in the sense that we most commonly use the word today.
This was a period when numerous Black performers were achieving tremendous mainstream success.
Whitney Houston broke out in the mid-1980s. Billy Ocean was huge. Michael Jackson was one of the biggest stars in the world.
Latin performers such as Gloria Estefan also achieved mainstream success during this period.
All-female bands like the Bangles were enormously popular.
And contrary to some contemporary perceptions of the 1980s, LGBTQ performers could achieve mainstream success, too.
Now, I’m not suggesting that the 1980s were some sort of paradise for LGBTQ people. Individual experiences undoubtedly varied, depending on where people lived, their families, and their circumstances.
But in the mainstream music industry, performers like Boy George and Culture Club were achieving massive commercial success.
Culture Club was among the early acts to become major stars through MTV.
All of that was happening in the 1980s.
But there was another kind of diversity, too: musical diversity.
If you liked heavy metal, as I did, you had bands like Def Leppard, with their highly polished, commercially accessible sound.
If you wanted something a little rawer, you had AC/DC.
Bruce Springsteen was enjoying a major resurgence in popularity.
There was also the entire British New Wave movement, with groups like A Flock of Seagulls.
I was never a particularly enthusiastic fan of British New Wave music, but plenty of other people were.
The point is that whatever your musical tastes, you could probably find something you liked.
And, crucially, you could find it in the mainstream commercial marketplace.
That’s an important distinction.
What Changed in the Music Industry?
The economics of the music business changed dramatically after the 1980s.
This is a complicated subject that could easily justify an entire separate essay, but one major turning point came around 2000, with Napster and the rise of Internet file sharing.
Consumers became less willing to purchase albums, and the traditional economics of recorded music were disrupted.
As the business changed, record companies became more cautious about where they invested their money.
When a company was going to invest heavily in a performer, it increasingly wanted someone who could appeal to the broadest possible audience.
Someone like Taylor Swift.
The problem with this approach is that when you try to make any form of art appeal to too many people, you risk removing the very qualities that make it distinctive.
You sand off all the rough edges.
Consider AC/DC.
I’ve discussed AC/DC in another video, and one thing that strikes me about the band is just how distinctive its sound is.
AC/DC certainly isn’t going to appeal to everyone.
But if you like that kind of music, there’s nothing quite like AC/DC.
And that distinctiveness is part of what makes the band so appealing to its fans.
The same principle applies to other forms of art, including fiction and filmmaking.
When you try to please everyone, you risk producing something that nobody particularly loves.
But Isn’t There More Musical Diversity Today?
At this point, someone is probably going to object.
They’ll say that there are thousands upon thousands of independent musicians producing every conceivable kind of music today.
And they’re right.
You can go onto YouTube, Spotify, and other streaming platforms and find musicians working in practically every genre imaginable.
In that sense, there may actually be more musical diversity today than there was in the 1980s.
I don’t dispute that.
But there’s a problem: discoverability.
When you have a million bands competing for attention on YouTube and Spotify, how does the average listener find something new?
This brings us to the issue of curation.
One of the valuable features of the 1980s music industry was that FM radio stations, MTV, and record stores performed a curatorial function.
They selected music and presented it to consumers.
Yes, that meant some deserving acts were undoubtedly left out.
But from the consumer’s perspective, the system offered an accessible selection of music that was still remarkably varied.
You didn’t have to sort through thousands of unknown bands to find something worth listening to.
You could turn on the radio, watch MTV, or walk into a record store and encounter a wide range of musical styles.
And many of those styles were supported by major record companies with the resources to develop and promote their artists.
That system had its limitations, but it also had some significant advantages.
The Problem Facing Independent Musicians
I follow a number of independent bands and musicians on YouTube.
And one thing I’ve noticed is that there are some extremely talented performers who seem to be stuck indefinitely performing cover material.
They can play the music of established artists exceptionally well.
But they don’t seem to have the institutional support necessary to develop, record, and promote their own original sound on a commercially significant scale.
To me, this is one of the most unfortunate aspects of the contemporary music marketplace.
I doubt that most talented young musicians want to spend their entire careers reprising songs that were popular when I was a teenager.
Surely many of them would like to develop their own musical identities and build audiences around their original work.
And as a listener, I’d like to hear that music, too.
I love AC/DC. But I’ve been listening to AC/DC for more than forty years.
I’d love to discover a new, commercially viable band with the distinctive sound and energy of AC/DC or Def Leppard.
I’m sure there are talented musicians out there who could produce something comparable.
But I don’t see them breaking into the mainstream marketplace.
Instead, we seem to get more Taylor Swift, more Olivia Rodrigo, and more performers working within a relatively narrow range of commercially successful styles.
So, Was 1980s Music Really Better?
I don’t believe that musical talent somehow peaked in the 1980s.
Nor do I believe that contemporary musicians are inherently less capable than the musicians of my generation.
My argument is really about the structure of the music industry and the incentives it creates.
The traditional music industry had plenty of flaws. But it also supported a surprisingly broad range of commercially successful performers.
The contemporary music marketplace was supposed to create more choice by removing the old gatekeepers.
And in one sense, it has done exactly that. There is more music available to consumers than ever before.
But availability and discoverability are two different things.
And having more music available doesn’t necessarily mean that listeners have an easier time finding music they’ll love.
The irony is that a marketplace designed to offer almost unlimited choice may have produced a narrower range of highly visible, commercially successful music.
So was music in the 1980s objectively better?
That’s ultimately a matter of personal taste.
But I would argue that the mainstream music industry of the 1980s offered a greater variety of distinctive musical experiences than the mainstream industry offers today.
And that’s one reason why so much music from that era remains popular more than forty years later.
I recently listened to AC/DC on YouTube with my dad. The video below explains what happened. I’ve also posted the transcript.
Transcript:
My dad is 80 years old, and he’s discovered that he likes watching music videos on YouTube. One of the things he’s doing is trying to catch up on music that he missed during all those years when he was working hard.
I remember when I was a kid, he was always at work. His own organic discovery of music as a young person kind of stopped around the Beatles. I would say probably around 1965 or 1966.
So he missed the whole hard rock era. He knew a little bit about it. He knew who the Rolling Stones were and so on, but he was already doing other things by then.
Looking at the music from the 1980s, which is the era that I’m kind of an expert on, I said, “Dad, you’ve got to listen to AC/DC.”
He was open to the idea, and I figured that “Shoot to Thrill” was a good starter song for AC/DC.
He’s got a big Sony television, so I put up the “Shoot to Thrill” video on YouTube.
He watched it all the way through, but suffice it to say, he was not favorably impressed.
I said, “Dad, what’s wrong?”
His big complaint—and I knew he would zero in on this—was that Brian Johnson can’t sing. At least not in the conventional sense.
Now, again, I like AC/DC, so don’t give me any hate for criticizing them.
But if you look at music historically, there is a kind of dichotomy between music from the first half of the 1960s and earlier, and music from around the time I was born, in 1968, forward.
Some of those later singers could sing, but a lot of them couldn’t, at least not in the conventional sense.
If you listen to music from the first half of the 1960s, like the Beach Boys, those guys could definitely sing, whether or not you like their music.
I explained to my dad that what makes AC/DC’s music great, and what makes Led Zeppelin great, for that matter, isn’t necessarily the quality of the vocals.
It’s the experience of the music.
But music really wasn’t conceived that way back in the days of Elvis and the Beatles.
So there is a real generational dichotomy there, I would submit.
Both of our major political parties are coalitions of groups that often have little in common. On the Republican side, the traditional tension is between the social conservatives and the libertarian wing. The advent of the MAGA movement, about a decade ago, has since made the internal politics of the GOP even more convoluted.
But things are no less complicated on the Democratic side. The 21st-century progressive movement, which is more or less aligned with the Democratic Party, includes groups that are mutually incompatible in the extreme, like LGBTQ activists and Islamists. This is how you get factions with oxymoronic names like Queers for Palestine.
But one thing all progressives have always claimed to be is the polar opposites of the Nazis. Progressives are obsessed with Nazis, and “Nazi” is often their slur of first resort when arguing with anyone on the right.
But this is 2026. While the American left is not wholeheartedly embracing the National Socialist agenda (yet), they’ve apparently decided that the Nazis were onto something, with their hatred of the Jews.
This is horrible
Philadelphia?
The day before the Kristallnacht anniversary, three anti-Israel groups are organizing a boycott targeting Jewish-owned businesses in Philadelphia.
The organizers: Philly Writers Against the War on Gaza, Philly Bike On Your Left, and Boycott… pic.twitter.com/rkk68ut5o7
Philly Bike On Your Left, a progressive activist group in the Philadelphia area, recently shared a post on its Instagram account calling for a boycott of various Jewish-owned businesses in the city. Philly Bike On Your Left describes itself as an “anti-fascist, anti-Zionist social cycling collective.”
The group’s proposed boycott is scheduled for November 8. This is the day before the anniversary of the 1938 Kristallnacht pogroms in Nazi Germany. Flyers for the event declare, “No business for Zionists! These Zionist establishments must go! Not in our city!”
This, too, is part of the “blue wave” that created a new political balance in the USA last Tuesday. We have had an undeniable leftward shift in the country. Kristallnacht, it seems, is part of that new agenda.
Some of you are overjoyed at the results. Some of you are upset.
Many of you, I suspect, don’t trust the intentions of either party. (I increasingly find myself in this last camp.)
Tuesday’s results were noteworthy, but not historically unprecedented. In the 1994 midterm elections, the Republicans retook both chambers of Congress, something they had not achieved in 40 years.
That was a massive setback for President Clinton and his agenda. For a while, commentators were openly asking if President Bill Clinton was “still relevant” in American politics.
And yet, Clinton recovered and easily won reelection in 1996. Two factors contributed to his comeback: a.) Bill Clinton pivoted toward the center, and b.) the Republicans overplayed their hand.
Because the party that won the last election almost always overplays its hand.
It is a mistake to believe that any shift in American politics represents a linear historical trend. The progressive Obama era followed two terms of the conservative George W. Bush. President Obama’s progressive overreach arguably created the conditions that would lead to the election of Donald Trump in 2016.
And of course, Donald Trump’s excesses during the first two years of his second term created the blue wave of the 2026 midterms.
Tuesday’s results were a rebuke of President Trump and many of his policies. There is no denying that. But if history is any guide, two things will happen between now and 2028:
a.) The Democrats will overreach, and alienate voters in the center, and
b.) The Republican Party will pivot away from MAGA, which has clearly been discredited in this election.
Regarding b.): This doesn’t mean that individual MAGA politicians will necessarily pivot. But a new group of Republicans will emerge, who are more palatable to centrist and independent voters.
President Trump is now a lame duck. He will no longer be the gatekeeper for local Republican primaries and gubernatorial races.
I would also bet that the GOP presidential nominee in 2028 will be someone other than J.D. Vance.
For now, the blue wave is undeniable. American politics will shift to the left over the next two years—for better or for worse.
What happens in 2028 will depend on how wisely the Democrats play their winning hand, and how effectively the Republicans rebrand themselves.
History suggests that the party that lost the last election is in the catbird seat. So 2028 may be a very different election year.
I’m not a fan of smoking. I don’t smoke, I don’t drink alcohol, and I don’t use any recreational drugs.
I don’t think you should either; but obviously that’s your business.
In this video I describe smoking from the Gen X perspective. In 1980, around 33% of the U.S. adult population smoked cigarettes. Smoking had not yet been banned from most public places. (These bans would not appear en masse until the 1990s.) Secondhand smoke was still very much a fact of life.
The wide availability of cigarettes was also a fact of life. When I was in the eighth grade, I regularly purchased cigarettes at a convenience store across the street from my school. The shopkeeper—a man of about fifty—had no illusions regarding my age. I entered the store wearing the uniform of the Catholic school I attended.
If you couldn’t find a store clerk or a shopkeeper to sell you cigarettes, you could always avail yourself of cigarette vending machines. These could be found in practically any restaurant, bar, hotel, or other retail establishment, usually near the restrooms and the pay phones.
At the same time, everyone knew that cigarette smoking was bad for you. That message had been widely available for around twenty years. There were also laws on the books against selling cigarettes to minors. We weren’t supposed to have access to them. But, hey—this was the 1980s, and things were a little more lax, to say the least.
Another thing that was different about cigarettes in the 1980s was the price. The last time I purchased a pack of smokes— sometime in early 1982—they cost $1.25. I haven’t bought them recently, but something tells me that they cost a lot more than that nowadays.
In recent years, many restaurant chains have been adopting deliberately streamlined interiors. It’s almost as if they’re attempting to reproduce the look and feel of the Apple Store.
Bright lighting. Minimalist furniture. Neutral colors. Hard surfaces. Everything designed for efficiency, uniformity, and easy maintenance.
But some Pizza Hut restaurants are attracting attention by doing exactly the opposite.
They’re bringing back the more colorful, distinctive interior and exterior styles of the 1970s and 1980s. The familiar red roofs, the old-fashioned dining rooms, the booths, and the hanging lamps.
These retro Pizza Hut restaurants have generated considerable enthusiasm among customers who remember the chain’s earlier years.
But what’s behind Pizza Hut nostalgia in particular?
Why not McDonald’s nostalgia or Wendy’s nostalgia? After all, those restaurant chains have also changed quite a bit since the 1980s.
I think the answer may have something to do with the nature of the Pizza Hut dining experience during the chain’s golden age in the 1970s and 1980s.
Pizza Hut wasn’t just a place to eat. It was an event.
Pizza Hut was something you did with other people
You could go to McDonald’s by yourself. You could go to Wendy’s by yourself.
And while you certainly could go to Pizza Hut alone, that wasn’t the typical experience for most people.
You almost always went to Pizza Hut with other people.
This was partly owing to the nature of the food they served. While Pizza Hut began selling personal pan pizzas decades ago, most pizzas were designed to be shared rather than eaten individually.
You ordered a large pizza for the table. Maybe two, depending on the size of your group. Everyone took a few slices.
But there was more to it than that.
During the 1970s and 1980s, Pizza Hut was a sit-down restaurant in a way that McDonald’s and Wendy’s generally were not.
You didn’t just stop in for a quick meal. You went there with your family after a school event. You went there with your teammates after a baseball game. You went there with your friends on a Friday night.
The restaurant itself was part of the experience.
When I think back now, virtually every memory I have of Pizza Hut is a memory of dining with other people.
Sometimes it was with my parents. Sometimes it was with teammates. Other times it was with miscellaneous groups from the neighborhood or the workplace.
I remember the people as much as I remember the pizza.
And I suspect that I’m not alone in this.
The disappearance of the shared restaurant experience
Contrast that with the way Americans increasingly consume restaurant food today.
Delivery services like DoorDash and Uber Eats have made it possible to order restaurant meals without ever setting foot inside a restaurant.
Drive-throughs and takeout counters have become central to the business models of many chains.
According to the National Restaurant Association, nearly 75 percent of all restaurant traffic in 2025 involved food consumed off-premises. In other words, almost three out of every four restaurant orders were taken to go.
Of course, there’s nothing inherently wrong with takeout or delivery. Both are convenient, and both serve legitimate purposes.
But something changes when restaurants become primarily places where food is prepared and distributed, rather than places where people gather.
The restaurant ceases to be a destination. It becomes a supplier.
And the social experience that once accompanied the meal becomes optional.
Americans are increasingly eating alone
There’s another trend worth considering here.
According to the 2025 World Happiness Report, approximately 26 percent of American adults reported eating all of their meals alone on the previous day, an increase of more than 50 percent since 2003.
Think about that for a moment.
Roughly one in four American adults spent an entire day eating without sharing a single meal with another person.
And this isn’t merely a consequence of more people living alone. The researchers also found an increase in solitary eating among people who live with others.
A separate 2026 report from market research firm Circana found that half of all main meals consumed at home are now eaten alone.
These statistics reflect some significant changes in American life.
Smaller households, different work schedules, remote employment, and changing family structures all play a role.
And technology has made solitary living easier than ever before.
You can work from home, order your groceries online, have your dinner delivered, and spend your evening watching streaming entertainment.
You can accomplish all of this without having a meaningful face-to-face conversation with another human being.
That level of convenience would have been almost unimaginable in 1980.
But convenience and human connection aren’t necessarily the same thing.
What we’ve gained—and what we’ve lost
I don’t want to romanticize the past too much.
The 1970s and 1980s had plenty of problems. And not every family outing to Pizza Hut was a magical experience.
Nor is there anything wrong with eating alone. Sometimes solitude is exactly what we want.
But there’s a difference between choosing to be alone occasionally and gradually organizing our entire society around activities that no longer require other people.
A shared meal provides something beyond calories and nutrition.
It’s an opportunity for conversation. It’s a chance to catch up with family members, coworkers, and friends. Sometimes it’s simply an excuse to get everyone together in the same place at the same time.
And those ordinary occasions have a way of becoming memories.
Nobody necessarily thought that a family pizza dinner in 1982 was an important event.
It was just something you did.
Forty years later, however, you might remember that dinner more clearly than you remember the pizza itself.
You remember who was sitting across from you. You remember the conversation. You remember the atmosphere of the restaurant.
And perhaps some of those people are no longer around.
What retro Pizza Hut restaurants are really selling
This brings us back to the retro Pizza Hut phenomenon.
The appeal of these restaurants isn’t necessarily that the pizza tastes better than it does at a modern Pizza Hut.
And I doubt that most customers have an especially strong emotional attachment to a particular style of hanging lamp or a red roof.
Those things are reminders of something else.
They’re reminders of a time when going out for pizza was an occasion, rather than merely a way to obtain dinner.
They’re reminders of family outings, childhood friendships, high school sports teams, and Friday nights with people we knew.
The restaurant décor serves as a kind of doorway to those memories.
And perhaps there’s something more going on here, too.
In an increasingly isolated society, a restaurant that looks and feels like a place where people are supposed to gather may have an appeal that goes beyond nostalgia.
Maybe we’re not just nostalgic for the old Pizza Hut.
Maybe we’re nostalgic for the way we used to spend time with each other.
There are still plenty of places in Ohio where you can get off the interstate and, within twenty minutes, find yourself on a narrow country road surrounded by woods, fields, old houses, and small towns.
Those are the places I often have in mind when I write horror.
I’ve always thought that familiar, ordinary settings make some of the best settings for supernatural fiction. An abandoned castle is already creepy. So is a ruined monastery at midnight. The writer doesn’t have to do much work to convince you that something frightening might happen there.
But what about the gas station you’ve passed dozens of times? Or an old country graveyard beside a two-lane road? What about a patch of woods that looks perfectly harmless at four o’clock in the afternoon—but considerably less inviting as the sun begins to go down?
That’s the territory of “Don’t Stop for Gas in Zombie Country,” the short horror story in the video above.
The setup is deliberately simple: an ordinary trip through the Ohio countryside, an inconvenient need for gasoline, and a small rural gas station.
Then things begin to go wrong.
This is also the kind of story I’ve been exploring in my Uncanny Ohio series: macabre tales built around Ohio places, local history, forgotten corners, and the unsettling possibility that the ordinary landscape around us may contain things we don’t quite understand.
Kindle Unlimited is Amazon’s main subscription ebook reading program. Kindle Unlimited gives you virtually unlimited (hence the name) reading privileges to a wide variety of titles, for a low monthly fee.
Not every title listed on Amazon is enrolled in Kindle Unlimited. Literary fiction from the big New York publishing houses generally is not included. You likely won’t find the latest Jonathan Franzen novel in Kindle Unlimited anytime in the near future.
Kindle Unlimited is heavy on genre fiction. This means: romance, space opera, LitRPG, fantasy, and horror.
I have a fair number of horror titles in Kindle Unlimited. I write supernatural horror, in the tradition of Peter Straub, H.P. Lovecraft, Bentley Little and E.F. Benson.
And yes (I know this sounds a bit pretentious) Stephen King. I have achieved barely a gazillionth fraction of King’s commercial success. But his formula of character-based, fast-moving horror is always on my mind when I sit down to write a horror tale.
What kind of horror don’t I write? If you want splatterpunk, or “extreme” horror (aka “torture porn”), then you should skip my books and stories. I have no interest in writing horror fiction that is endlessly grim and/or sadistic. My horror fiction is more akin to the campfire ghost story.
Below are the horror titles that I presently have enrolled in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program. This means that you can read them for free if you’re a Kindle Unlimited subscriber.
To view one of these titles on Amazon, simply click on the image of any book, or any hyperlink below.
(Don’t have a Kindle Unlimited membership? Click here.)
A college student takes a walk down the most haunted road in rural Ohio for a cash prize. This is a “haunted road” story, basically a tale of being stuck on a cursed country road at night. Ghosts, evil spirits, and hellhounds abound. Also, an evil witch that inhabits a covered bridge.
A coming-of-age story set on Halloween night, 1980. This is a tale of supernatural events in the American suburb. A classic horror tale for Generation X.
The year is 1976, and the Headless Horseman rides again. This coming-of-age horror thriller is sure to please readers who appreciate character-based supernatural fiction with lots of twists and turns.
The basic idea is: the ghosts of American history coming back to haunt Middle America in 1976, the year of the American Bicentennial. (And yes, I’m old enough to remember the Bicentennial, although I was rather young at the time.)
In early 2016, I read an article in The Economist about the luk thep “spirit dolls” of Thailand.
Manufactured and sold in Thailand, these are factory-made dolls with a unique sales point: each doll is supposedly infused with the spirit of a young child that passed prematurely.
The luk thep are intended to bring comfort to their owners. (They are marketed to childless women.) To me, though, the whole idea sounded rather macabre.
And I couldn’t help thinking: what if one of the dolls was infused with a child spirit that wasn’t very nice? What if that same doll ended up in the possession of an American woman who happened to visit Thailand on a business trip? Luk Thep is a fast-paced ghost tale that spans two continents.
Looking for horror stories you can read online for free?
While I recommend Kindle Unlimited for fans of horror fiction and ebooks, I should also point out that I have a number of horror stories you can read online here for FREE.
From classic ghost tales to creature features, you’ll find a considerable range. Check them out!
It’s an ordinary spring afternoon in suburban Cincinnati, 1980.
Eighteen-year-old Michelle Blevins is home with her younger brother when a stranger rings the doorbell.
The stranger is wearing a blazer, tie, and aviator sunglasses. He says he represents a local law firm. He says Michelle’s parents are in trouble.
And he really wants to come inside.
That’s the setup for “The Door-to-Door Man,” my latest original short story for YouTube.
Those of us who grew up in the 1970s and 1980s will remember that this was the era of “stranger danger.”
In some ways, the world was considerably less connected than it is today. There were no cell phones, doorbell cameras, GPS trackers, or Internet searches. If a stranger appeared at your front door, you couldn’t pull out your phone and immediately find out who he was.
At the same time, people were becoming increasingly aware that the world wasn’t necessarily as safe as they had once imagined.
Serial killers, violent crime, and mysterious disappearances regularly made the news. Parents warned their children about strangers. And yet it was still perfectly normal for unfamiliar people—salesmen, repairmen, deliverymen, religious solicitors, and others—to simply walk up to your house and ring the doorbell.
That combination provides the backdrop for “The Door-to-Door Man.”
I’ve been experimenting with writing very short fiction specifically for YouTube: complete stories that can be read or listened to in a single sitting, accompanied by atmospheric visuals.
“The Door-to-Door Man” is one of these stories. It’s a tale of suspense rather than supernatural horror. There are no ghosts, monsters, or paranormal forces here. Just an ordinary young woman, an ordinary suburban house—and a stranger at the door who may not be what he claims to be.
You can watch and listen to the complete story in the video accompanying this post.
If you enjoy “The Door-to-Door Man”…
You might also want to check out my DEADLY BYWAYS series.
Deadly Byways consists of six novels set in the late 1970s and early 1980s. Like “The Door-to-Door Man,” these stories explore the darker side of an era that many of us remember with nostalgia—but which had plenty of dangers and shadows of its own.
If you enjoy suspense stories about ordinary people confronting extraordinary dangers—especially stories set against the backdrop of America several decades ago—DEADLY BYWAYS may be for you.
In the meantime, I hope you enjoy “The Door-to-Door Man.”
And remember: be careful who you open your front door to.
When I logged on to Amazon (on the customer-facing side) today, I noticed a new John Grisham short story, “The Law Student.” The short story is a standalone prequel to one of Grisham’s novels. “The Law Student” is about 5,000 words long.
This seems to be a trend in New York publishing of late: novelists publishing short stories that are either based completely in standalone narratives, or are lead-ins to novel-length works.
I’m personally a fan of short stories, both as a reader and as a writer. I recently finished reading a Tom Clancy doorstopper of a novel from the 1980s: Red Storm Rising. Published in 1987 and weighing in at 725 pages, Red Storm Rising was the perfect thick-spined novel for the mall bookstore era. But Red Storm Rising was also at least two hundred pages too long.
There are many perfectly serviceable story ideas that simply don’t require or justify those massive lengths. Consider, for example, my horror tale Family Secrets. This one came to just under 16,000 words. Technically speaking, Family Secrets is a novelette. You might also call it a “long” short story.
Family Secrets is a very gripping story at 16,000 words, if I may say so myself. I would not, however, have wanted to expand the story to a typical 60,000-word novel length. Family Secrets is based on a nightmare I had back in April. Stories based on dreams, even horror stories, are seldom the stuff of full-length novels.
Needless to say, short stories should be priced appropriately. This is a rule that I always follow. I also place most of my fiction in Amazon’s Kindle Unlimited program, where you can read it for free.
Last night I went out for a walk in my neighborhood around 7 pm. (We’ve had an unseasonably warm spell here in the Cincinnati area.) I didn’t take into account how quickly the dusk settles in this late in the year. I was only halfway out when it suddenly became very…well, dark.
I therefore walked back to my house in the dark. The houses around me were festooned with various Halloween decorations: skulls, black cats, and even some cool Halloween projector lights.
I love Halloween. For me, Halloween is the time when we mortals come to terms with two constants of human existence: a.) the unknown, and b.) the inevitability of death.
The celebration of Halloween is an act of acceptance. Our lives will always contain tragedy, dissatisfactions, and uncertainty. But we cannot allow ourselves to paralyzed by fear…or by sadness.
Halloween is a time when we laugh at death, and embrace our mortality.
A few years ago, I wrote a Halloween novel called 12 HOURS OF HALLOWEEN. This nostalgic, coming-of-age horror tale is set on Halloween night, 1980. Check it out here.
I was a teenager during the 1980s. Where drugs were concerned, this was the era of “Just Say No.” This was little more than a decade into the so-called “war on drugs”
Adults were concerned that we were going tobecome potheads—like one of the characters in a Cheech & Chong movie—or, perhaps, like Jeff Spicoli in Fast times at Ridgemont High.
Even the well-heeled suburban kids in The Breakfast Club indulged in weed on the sly in those days. But if you were caught, the penalties could be severe—in theory, at least. In the 1980s, simple possession for personal use could result in jail time.
Once again—in theory. The legally stipulated penalties were often applied unevenly, based on racial and economic factors. The law was not color-blind. Nor was it money-blind.
The legalization boom
All of that changed in the early 21st century, when the mood regarding marijuana decisively shifted. This was the era of legalization. Washington and Colorado were the first U.S. states to legalize recreational cannabis in November 2012. Other states followed suit to greater or lesser degrees.
Before long recreational marijuana use became not just something that was tolerated, but a full-fledged industry. People weren’t just growing and purchasing pot for their own personal use. Now they were growing and purchasing it to sell to others at a profit. Marijuana had gone from a forbidden activity to one that was more or less encouraged by the new legal framework.
Massachusetts has never been a state to miss out on nitwittery. So of course, Massachusetts voters approved recreational marijuana in 2016. The marijuana industry has grown in Massachusetts since then. In September of this year, the state’s Cannabis Control Commission reported that recreational marijuana sales had surpassed $10 billion in the Bay State. It takes quite a few potheads to reach sales figures like that.
The wrath of unintended consequences
But not everyone in Massachusetts has been happy about this outcome.
This brings us to the concept of unintended consequences—something that those pesky conservatives like to bring up. It is ironic that Massachusetts, one of the most left-leaning states in the USA, has come to the realization that legalizing pot—and turning it into a full-fledged industry—has brought some unintended and undesirable consequences.
There have been concerns about an increase in marijuana use among young people. If weed is legal—and the government practically encourages it—why shouldn’t young people use it, after all?
There have also been concerns about impaired driving. One of the things you might remember from those 1980s movies is that people don’t drive particularly well when they’re high on weed. This is a lesson we learned long, long ago with alcohol.
And speaking of old lessons… Massachusetts was one of the first states to ban smoking in public places, because cigarette smoking isn’t good for you. It turns out that marijuana is also bad for your health—especially when you smoke it. It’s not particularly good for your focus or your mental health, either.
All of these things are true—and have been true forever—even if you happen to think that marijuana is some cool new hipster drug.
Question 8
This has led to Question 8, an effort to repeal most aspects of Massachusetts’ weed legalization framework. Question 8 is on the ballot in the Bay State this election season.
Question 8 would eliminate recreational marijuana sales, along with the accompanying tax and regulatory framework. In other words, all the things that make recreational marijuana an ordinary business activity.
This wouldn’t be a return to the harsh anti-weed laws of the 1980s, though. Adults twenty-one years old and above could still possess up to one ounce without getting into trouble. Medical marijuana would also remain legal.
If approved, all of these measures would take place on January 1, 2028. Massachusetts would thereby become the first state to repeal a voter-approved recreational marijuana market.
There would be winners and losers, of course. There always are when laws change. If you’ve recently invested in a recreational marijuana-related business in Massachusetts, you might or might not be willing to make the personal financial sacrifice for the sake of public health.
The challenge of victimless crimes
We tend to veer from one extreme to the other where victimless crimes are concerned. Victimless crimes include weed use, gambling, and prostitution.
No one thinks that these activities are socially beneficial. But should they be made illegal? Should consenting adults be prohibited from participating in these activities when they directly harm no one, at least in theory?
Victimless crimes are not always victimless when practiced at scale, though. Widespread marijuana use can endanger all of us when we’re forced to drive alongside intoxicated drivers.
Commercialized sex is another tough one. Although there is an effort to portray all instances of commercial sex as victimization, there is much evidence to the contrary here. High-end sex workers like Alice Little and Meida Marek are clearly women with options, who have chosen sex work for reasons of profit—not coercion or desperation.
That said, no one wants to see a brothel in the local shopping mall. No one would welcome sex workers speaking at the local high school on the next career day.
We have many choices on a continuum between open encouragement of a socially deleterious activity—and ruthless, uncompromising prohibition. One option is to allow these activities to take place on a small scale in private, but without the legal and societal stamp of approval that a formal regulatory framework brings. This means that the government can’t tax these activities. But the point is to keep the total revenue generated by these activities low to begin with.
Another option is selective enforcement. In Ohio, where I live, it’s legal to gamble so long as the government gets a piece of the action. Ohio has a state lottery, and we also have legal casinos. It is, however, illegal in Ohio to organize an unregulated poker game for money in your home. Employee betting pools are also technically illegal.
But authorities in Ohio aren’t going out of their way to search out such instances of unregulated gambling, not even with Republicans in charge. Restrain your home poker games to a small scale, and you probably won’t get in trouble.
I would argue for a similar approach to commercial sex. In 2013, authorities in Kennebunk, Maine, jailed Zumba instructor Alexis Wright for selling sexual favors to men from the privacy of her exercise studio. Wright was not coerced, nor was she coercing anyone else. Alexis Wright was a 30-year-old woman selling a voluntary service to adult men in their 40s and 50s. Yet they arrested her and put her in jail. The libertarian in me bristles at such authoritarian nonsense.
At the same time, I don’t want brothels in the local shopping mall, or sex workers speaking at the next career day at my local high school. In other words, I come down in the mushy middle where commercial sex is concerned, just like I come down in the mushy middle where recreational marijuana is concerned.
A more nuanced, more ambiguous approach to victimless crimes won’t please purists at either extreme. But from a societal perspective, ambiguity makes sense. There are certain activities that we don’t want to encourage at scale among the general population—especially where children and minors are concerned. At the same time, however, consenting adults should be allowed to do what they want with their own resources and their own bodies, so long as they aren’t directly harming others, and they’re mostly keeping their activities to themselves. The mushy middle is not a perfect approach to victimless crimes, but it’s better than either of the alternative extremes.
