Craig Calcaterra

Nov 9, 2024 | craigcalcaterra.com | Craig Calcaterra

Because Allison and I are traveling more, I recently applied for Global Entry. You have to do an in-person interview with a Customs and Border Protection agent to get that, and my interview was scheduled for Wednesday afternoon. The closest interview location is Dayton for some reason so I took a late afternoon road trip to get that sorted.

Nov 6, 2024 | craigcalcaterra.com | Craig Calcaterra

America just enthusiastically voted for a violent, lying, bigoted, misogynist, insurrectionist felon who promised it nothing but destruction and misery. It is a damning indictment of the country and its people. Unlike in 2016, this was no fluke. This was no low-stakes leap of faith by some fed-up people hoping that an uncouth maverick might make their life better and might not cause much harm. This vote was made with eyes wide open.

Nov 5, 2024 | craigcalcaterra.com | Craig Calcaterra

On Election day 2020 I was very blue. Even if I felt that Biden was going to win, which he of course did, I was amazed that it was going to be close. I was amazed that after four years of Trump our nation didn’t collectively recoil and lash back. I had hoped, naively, that 2016 was a blip and that the horrible stuff many of us thought we had settled for good in the second half of the 20th century would never come roaring back. The fascism. The racism and bigotry. The nativism and xenophobia.

Sep 11, 2024 | craigcalcaterra.com | Craig Calcaterra

When I grew up I was taught to believe that only sailors, carnies, and inmates got tattoos. The fact that the only person I really knew with a tattoo was my Navy veteran grandfather and the next person I knew who got a tattoo was my then-sailor brother bolstered that thinking. That soon changed, of course. I’m not sure when societal hangups about tattoos began to recede, but in my experience it became a hell of a lot more common to see ink on normies like me in the late 90s and into the 2000s.

Sep 11, 2024 | craigcalcaterra.com | Craig Calcaterra

When I grew up I was taught to believe that only sailors, carnies, and inmates got tattoos. The fact that the only person I really knew with a tattoo was my Navy veteran grandfather and the next person I knew who got a tattoo was my then-sailor brother bolstered that thinking. That soon changed, of course. I’m not sure when societal hangups about tattoos began to recede, but in my experience it became a hell of a lot more common to see ink on normies like me in the late 90s and into the 2000s.