My Gift to You



I’m not one to pick favorites, but if I were pushed to name my heroes in writing, I suppose I’d list Mark Twain, Will Rogers and Kurt Vonnegut. If you pushed me harder and asked me to name someone still alive, Joel Stein would make the short list.

Stein wrote for Time magazine for 20 years, and he mentions in his bio that he wrote 22 cover stories. Wait, isn’t Time a weekly magazine? I have to say, 22 cover stories in a 22-year run doesn’t sound like all that many, but it’s still 22 more cover stories than I ever wrote for Time magazine.

If you’re on the older end of Gen X or older, you know that Time and Newsweek were what kept readers informed about national issues for decades. For non-readers, there was 60 Minutes and 20/20. Time had a circulation of more than 4 million in its heyday. I didn’t realize it still existed, but apparently they still crank out about a million of them.

But Stein hasn’t written for Time in about 10 years. He has written two books: Man Made: A Stupid Quest for Masculinity and In Defense of Elitism: Why I'm Better Than You and You're Better Than Someone Who Didn't Buy This Book. I would recommend both of them.

Currently he writes a Substack, called The End of My Career. A Substack is basically a subscription-based email. I’m signed up for his free one. Joel’s a better writer than I am from the get-go, and by virtue of being a nationally known journalist, he also has better personal stories, as his personal life involves things like having George Clooney over for dinner.

Even people who had wildly popular blogs aren’t blogging anymore. Substacks are where you want to be in 2026. I again considered going to a Substack format instead of blogging, but then thought about how although Joel is a favorite writer of mine, who shares hilarious stories, I’m not willing to pony up the $6 per month, or $60 per year, to read it.

Would people read a Substack from me? I conducted a thorough market analysis to determine how many actual paid subscribers I could potentially end up having. My total number came to this:

  1. One of my sisters.
  2. One of my sons.
  3. Ann’s Mom.

But if I look at my blog numbers, I easily have twice that many readers now. I guess I’ll stay put.

Speaking of Ann’s Mom, today is her birthday. It’s only the second one that she has ever had that starts with the number eight. I haven’t done a thing for her, so I’ll dedicate this post to her as my generous gift. That’s her in the picture at the top of this post. She’s the one on the right. 

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