Jeff O'Handley, Author

Jeff O'Handley

The Doubting Writer Finds His Voice

A note

This morning, I quick wrote a post about writing. At the close of it, I wanted to acknowledge the terrible events of the last week (pipe bombs, synagogue shooting), but I did not wish to relegate them to a footnote to a post about something as trivial as writing. At the same time, I really […]

Why did I bother?

I knew better. I knew better, and I did it anyway. Last week, a Facebook friend of a very conservative nature posted a graphic on Facebook. Unlike his usual postings, it wasn’t even a share, it was a graphic he’d come across, downloaded, then posted. It was about Christine Blasey Ford. If you do not […]

Today’s Recommended Reading

I came across this powerful piece in The Guardian last week. It is disturbing to say the least that we are staring down the same things–rampant nationalism, racism, authoritarianism–that we faced eighty-plus years ago. It disturbs me even more that the USA has gotten caught up in the same reprehensible tide. I only hope it […]

Oh, that jacket

First, let’s get something straight: I don’t follow fashion. I don’t care what the stars wear. And on the occasions when I happen to see snippets from the runways at Fashion Week, my reaction is usually along the lines of, “Who in their right mind would wear that?” (the answer, of course, is pretty much […]

We’ve been here before

Recommended reading if you haven’t already run across it on Facebook or elsewhere: Fuck you, I like guns. I may have said this before, after some other school shooting, or a mass murder in a gay nightclub, or a massacre at a movie theater, but I’ll say it again: I’m not anti-gun. I don’t want […]

Sorry to see you go, Tom

I don’t remember exactly when I first heard Tom Petty & the Heartbreakers. I do remember back in junior high school, having an acquaintance who was fast on the way to becoming one of my closest friends talking Petty up enthusiastically–along with other bands I had not yet heard of, like Elvis Costello, The Pretenders, […]

Short thoughts on Charlottesville

I had two uncles who served in the Navy in World War II. Another flew a P-38 with the 8th Air Force out of southern Italy. Three of my friends had fathers who helped liberate Europe. Two of them swept across France and fought in the Battle of the Bulge. The other landed at Anzio […]

Whatever it’s Called, it Worries Me

The world of the Grand Theft Auto series is populated with memorable…vehicles. Banshees and Bobcats, Sentinels and Schafters, Intruders and Inernus (Inferni?)–there are literally hundreds of cars, motorcycles, trucks, helicopters, boats and bicycles to steal in the course of the game, and these vehicles have more personality than the random citizens walking the streets of […]

Yeah, about that…

Hey, remember this? J.K. Rowling wrote it in Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire: Well, I think those times are here. Throughout the primary and campaign season, our President bashed America up and down, calling it a Third World country because the airports are crap, and you can’t walk through a city without getting […]

Befuddled

“I’m not laughing, I’m just befuddled.”–Chuck Todd, Meet the Press, January 22, 2017 This is the game, folks. In case you missed it, the day after his inauguration, President Donald Trump’s Press Secretary, Sean Spicer had has first press conference–and he spent a good portion of the time lying about the size of the crowd […]