Jason Kirk's Blog, page 2

WATCH GRID: Second half

Short one this week, due to travel.1

Four things, quickly:

If you might be in the Jacksonville, Florida area on November 24, let’s hang. Got a book event coming together real quickly. Very full-circle venue for me! Details coming ASAP.

Though I’ve already done the 2024 Watch Grid’s charity thing, I’d still appreciate it if you’d tell your library about my book’s great reviews. Since we started this last month, hundreds of new libraries have stocked it. (Thank you!)

If you and your homies want me to ...

College football's 6 wildest weekends ever*

This past weekend in college football was a Blood Week.

What’s a Blood Week? That’s the Shutdown Fullcast’s term for a weekend in college football when way too many good teams lose. It’s fun when powerful people fail!!

The usual bare-minimum requirement in order to be considered for Blood Weekness: At least three top-10 teams must lose upsets, though there are caveats and exceptions and nuances. In order to gain full Blood Week status, the mayhem should include something truly merry, like the #1 ...

WATCH GRID: The middle

Hey there, another short one this week, partly due to business. (We’re doing a live Shutdown Fullcast in like three hours, for instance.)

First, thank you to everyone who’s participated in my lil football-season promo drive for my lil objectively good book, Hell Is a World Without You, available everywhere right now, one way or another. A month ago, I set a goal of 1,000 new requests for libraries to carry it, in addition to the many libraries that already were, and you’ve already gotten us two-t...

WATCH GRID: A map

Hello.

First, a map:

As far as I know, that’s almost* everyone who’s asked their library within the past few weeks to carry my obviously good book. Thank you!

We’re now well over 600 requests this month (or about 4% of the people who read the Watch Grid each week, hint hint for everyone else haha), and as noted, after we get to 1,000 this season, I’ll donate $1,000 to a charity chosen by a random Requestor — and also write words at you that are more fun to read than this same library thing each w...

WATCH GRID: Jesus is Haitian

One:In hindsight, I’d been noticing it all along, but had been around-the-clock trained to pretend otherwise.

By then, I’d witnessed our designated national bogeyman having morphed from Russian to African-American to LGBTQ to immigrant to female to impoverished, with numerous overlaps, side quests, stray shots, and reroutes along the way.

Throughout, I remember having the faintest sense that conservative leaders seemed to be preternaturally aware of ever-fluctuating danger trends, as if they wer...

WATCH GRID: 32 novelty junk foods, ranked

From worst to first, a non-complete ranking of some trash that I tried in the past year “because lmao.” Let’s rank:

Worst: Doritos Flamin’ Hot Mystery Flavor (Mystery spoiler: I think the mystery is … coffee?)

Cup o Noodles campfire smores

Lay’s IHOP Rooty Tooty Fresh ‘n’ Fruity

Taco Bell Cheez-It Crunchwrap

Oreo Coke Zero (The tweener. From here on out, everything is at least Fine. But you, Oreo Coke Zero? You just confuse me.)

Harvest Snaps “hot & spicy” Crunchy Loops

Doritos Baja Fiery Mango

Candy P...

Week 2 WATCH GRID: A request!

This week’s College Football Watch Grid is below.

[Business voice] To the dozens of readers who have pledged thousands of total dollars to this Substack, thank you for the offer! My posts here will remain free, though. For this football season, here’s what I’m requesting from each subscriber instead (you guessed it, more or less):

I want my book (which is, as noted, good) to be acquired by 1,000 more libraries. Based on what I’ve personally been told by hundreds and hundreds of its readers (that ...

WATCH GRID: A request!

This week’s College Football Watch Grid is below.

[Business voice] To the dozens of readers who have pledged thousands of total dollars to this Substack, thank you for the offer! My posts here will remain free, though. For this football season, here’s what I’m requesting from each subscriber instead (you guessed it, more or less):

I want my book (which is, as noted, good) to be acquired by 1,000 more libraries. Based on what I’ve personally been told by hundreds and hundreds of its readers (that ...

WATCH GRID: Everything has always been new

First, here’s the obvious question at this time: What is God the god of?

Sure, I’m going somewhere with this.

Gods are gods of things, right? Things like fire, birth, or War III.

But for those of us inhabiting the world that sprang from Greek and Roman imperialism (“the West”), “God” usually refers to a singular figure whose jurisdiction is hard to define.

Condense an osmosis-based understanding of what the Bible allegedly says into something like the monopolistic god of irritable omnipresence, an...

AUDIOBOOK: Hell Is a World Without You

Audiobook cover art by Evangelyn Kirk (based on Gustave Doré’s Paradiso, Canto 34), with layout by Jordan Edmonson

The USA Today best-selling novel that raised $50,000+ for the Trevor Project (and whose top-rated Goodreads review is simply “Holy fucking shit ⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️⭐️”) is available right now as an audiobook, narrated by the author, me. Your dawg Michael Surber handled production and provided Explosions In The Sky-style guitar throughout. A half-dozen early listeners said we did a good job. 🫡

You...