I’m starting to understand why she’s called the Sprinkle Sprinkle Lady.

SheraSeven advises women not to date for love, but instead to maximize for money. One of her most viral tips is to never give a man your phone number, but instead to ask for his CashApp or credit card number.

She’s just one of countless influencers who’re trying to help us find love (while also trying to help themselves find sponsorship deals).

Some of these people are probably sincere in their matchmaking efforts, offering nuanced and commonsense advice to frustrated singles. But you shouldn’t listen to those people because their numbers are trash. They don’t get attention because attention on the internet comes from one thing and one thing only.

Pure unhinged insanity.

The influencers who rise to the top of the algorithm are the extreme ones. The misogynists, the moneygrubbers, the nihilists. Plus this lady, who apparently doesn’t like drinking coffee or getting her steps in.

But dating advice didn’t start with the internet. Before the advent of AOL, we got our romance tips the old-fashioned way: From Barnes & Noble. Books like The Rules: Time-tested Secrets for Capturing the Heart of Mr. Right and Men Are From Mars, Women Are From Venus dominated the bestseller lists.

Another popular book from that time was The Game: Penetrating The Secret Society Of Pickup Artists, which revealed that what women really want is a man in a giant fuzzy top hat.

Let’s go back even farther in time. I recently stumbled across a fascinating and revealing book full of tips for selecting a spouse. While some of the material struck me as a little...strange, the advice was based on the most up-to-date research of the time, so there had to be something to it.

The year was 1902. Phrenology was all the rage. According to this trendy new form of pseudoscience, you could tell everything about a person simply by studying the shape of their head.

Chicago phrenologist L.A. Vaught was an “expert” in the field in the same way that the Sprinkle Sprinkle Lady is an “expert” now. Meaning: This dude’s ideas were wacky.

According to Vaught’s Practical Character Reader, there’s really only one way to find out if a man is good husband material: Whether or not his head is shaped like a butternut squash.

If you were a dude on the dating market back in the early Twentieth Century, Vaught had you covered too. On page 25, he advised (with the syntax of a 4 AM Trump tweet), “It will pay to remember this head formation and especially all men who would select wives who will make good mothers.”

The lady on the right would clearly make a terrible mother, as you can see from the giant weird bulge on the top of her head. What you really want when you’re looking for a wife and mother is someone more like the lady on the left, who has a giant weird bulge on the back of her head.

Vaught’s Practical Character Reader is filled with hilarious helpful methods for picking a future mate. Here’s one more tip for all you single ladies out there:

But none of this is new. Experts have been dishing out dating advice since the beginning of time. Literally. Back in the Garden of Eden, God (the OG influencer) shared his tips with Adam and Eve. His big red flag had something to do with fruit.

The Bible is full of questionable relationships. Remember when Samson hooked up with Delilah? All it took was a haircut and he went from alpha male to beta cuck. And look at what happened after David got the hots for Bathsheba. He had her husband sent off to the front lines where he knew the dude would be killed. Which in my opinion is a major ick.

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Courtship is complicated. From tradwives to toxic men, from pickup artists to deities, everyone wants to help you sift through the dating pool. Honestly, it makes me happy I’m no longer on the market. Although, just to be safe, I did just order a pair of calipers. I’m already working out how I’m going to broach the topic with my wife: “Just hold still, honey. I need to make sure you don’t have a deceitful chin.”

Thanks as always for reading. I’ll see you again soon.

Sprinkle Sprinkle!

Lee

1. Men’s interest in reading declines.

2. Publisher’s target men less.

3. Fewer books are published that appeal to men.

4. Men seek out alternatives.

5. Start from #1 and repeat.

If I’d have wanted real traffic for the post, I would’ve titled the post “Woke Women Are The Reason Men Are Reading Less” and claimed that men are being chased away from books by an angry mob of vengeful ladies with pitchforks and New Yorker totes! This kind of culture war stuff goes gangbusters on the internet. Sadly for my stats, I don’t think it’s true.

The truth is a lot less catchy. It’s a big swirling cocktail of market forces and cultural changes. But the result is undeniable. Men have drifted away from books. And books have drifted away from men.

But there’s still hope! As I mentioned in my post, there are some exciting reasons for optimism. Signs that some men are still committed to reading. I’d love to see the this interest grow. Which is why I’m here with my hand-selected list of 5 books for men who like books.

But before we get to the recommendations, let’s first consider an important question: What is it that makes a book appealing to a male readership? Or to put it another way...

What makes a book “Manly”?

In the past, you might’ve pointed to Ernest Hemingway as the ultimate architype of a manly book. Those books were so masculine, you could actually feel yourself growing a mustache while you read them.

But times change. Over the past 50 years, the literary man went from hard-drinking, hairy-chested brawlers to...this guy.

You don’t need to be a manly man to write a manly book. In fact, you don’t need to be a man at all. Plenty of women write the kinds of stories that appeal to men. I included a couple of these female authors in my list below.

And just because a book finds a larger male readership, that doesn’t mean women can’t also enjoy those books. All the books on my list have found a broad readership that includes many female fans too.

There’s no set criteria for what makes a book manly. So I went ahead and made one up. A carefully-crafted, highly-impartial totally subjective criteria that I randomly landed on. All the books on my list featured the following attributes:

Read more

According to the internet, here are some things men are into:

• Joe Rogan

• Crypto

• Cold plunges

• Stoicism

• Big chunky luxury watches

• Call Of Duty

• Online gambling

• UFC

• Beef

And here are some things men aren’t into:

• Books

This last point becomes apparent as soon as you walk into a bookstore. Browse on over to the New Releases section and you’ll see lots and lots of books by women, for women, and about women.

You’ll see books stamped with the seal of a celebrity book club from Reese Witherspoon, Oprah Winfrey, or Jenna Bush Hager. Three women with enormous influence over a mostly female demographic.

You’ll see books that surged in popularity through BookTok—another area where men are almost entirely absent.

And you’ll see books that belong to the most ascendant genre in publishing right now: Romantasy. Maybe there are some men who write romantasy out there. And some men who read romantasy. They must exist, but they are a tiny—tiny—fraction of the overall readership and authorship of these books.

Keep looking around the bookstore a little longer, and you’ll eventually wander into one or two tucked-away corners that seem to still appeal to men. Military History. Business Nonfiction. Horror. Sci-Fi & Fantasy. But overall, the impression you’ll get is...

Men have abandoned books.

Or maybe books have abandoned men.

It’s hard to say.

And the data confirms this. Men now account for a mere 20% of book purchases. And the share of “avid readers” (those who read 10+ books in a year) skews 88% female, 12% male. When I look at figures like this, I start to worry that we’ve entered something I’m calling The Male Readership Death Spiral.

What we have here is a classic negative feedback loop. As the on-ramp for male readers narrows, books become increasingly coded as something that experts refer to as “Lady Stuff.” Men don’t see their interests reflected in bookstores or social media, and so they migrate into activities that researchers have termed “Dude-Friendly” (see list above).

But before we go any further, let’s first ask ourselves an important question:

Is any of this even all that bad?

After centuries of ignoring and excluding women, shouldn’t we be celebrating the fact that publishing is finally giving them their due? At last, female authors are being recognized, gaining the status that they were denied for so long. Women can walk into a bookstore and find plenty of titles that match their interests.

These are all great things. And no, I don’t think men are being actively discriminated against in publishing. This isn’t my Anti-Woke Manosphere pivot. (Apologies to those who were counting down the days.)

We can acknowledge how terrific it is that publishers have embraced female readers and writers while also exploring why many men are so turned off by books. Because I actually think it’s not too late to reverse the Male Readership Death Spiral. In fact, I see some positive signs out there in our culture—unique areas where men are showing renewed interest in books.

Let’s start with an issue I mentioned earlier:

Celebrity Book Clubs

While the biggest of these clubs are still operated by female celebs, some famous men have also recently entered the space. My two favorites are:

Anthony Jeselnik (The Jeselnik Book Club) – For those who don’t know, Anthony Jeselnik is a stand-up comedian. His style can be abrasive and provocative, but when he’s not on stage, he’s surprisingly thoughtful. His taste in books is broad and literary. Definitely not just “Books For Men, By Men.” He often selects books in translation, such as his last title: Paradais by Mexican author Fernanda Melchor. And rather than just posting on Instagram, he really goes into depth, sharing hour-long Q&As about his pick on YouTube.

John Mulaney (#mulaneyreads) – What it is about comedians that makes them so inclined to launch book clubs? I don’t know, but John Mulaney is one of my favorite stand-ups, and his book club is a terrific place to find interesting reads. A lot of the higher-profile book clubs often feel like they’ve been narrowed down by a team of publicists based on a list of whatever titles are the most hyped in the current moment. Meanwhile, Mulaney’s picks are often titles that’ve been on the shelves for years. Even decades. One of his most recent selections was Sometimes A Great Notion by Ken Kesey, which was published back in 1964. This feels like a more accurate reflection of how most people are reading books.

Jeselnik and Mulaney don’t boost a book’s profile as much as Reese or Oprah, but they’ve been bringing a really fresh and interesting perspective to the whole celebrity book club complex. And more importantly, they show men that reading isn’t just for girls.

And now for the second antidote to the Male Readership Death Spiral:

Audiobooks

Audiobooks represent one of the most exciting growth areas for the publishing industry. According to Market.us Scoop, sales of audiobooks have climbed by more than 50% over the last 5 years. And not only is the audiobooks market growing—it’s especially popular with men, who make up 55.57% of the audiobook audience.

Yes, you read that right. Men are in the majority. I don’t know how we find the time, honestly, when we’re so busy listening to Joe Rogan every day. That guy’s podcasts are 3 hours on their own.

What’s the reason for this? Why are men flocking to audiobooks in greater numbers than traditional print? Well, that comes down to what they’re listening to. Which turns out to be a whole lot of History, Biography, and Self-Development. These happen to be the fastest-growing segments in the audio format. And compared with novels, these types of books are easy to put on in the background when you’re commuting or exercising or searching for a big chunky luxury watches while gnawing on beef jerky.

It’s also worth noting that the third-largest genre in the audiobook format (after Literature/Fiction and Mystery/Thriller/Suspense) is Sci-Fi/Fantasy. This is an area where you find many more male readers. Or in this case, listeners.

I’d argue that the algorithmic nature of audiobook apps helps engage men. Compared to a physical bookstore, where a man might have to wander into a low-traffic corner of the space to even discover the types of books he might be into, the app will quickly recognize that this dude likes “Humorous Sci-Fi” or “Books About The Roman Empire” and make that the first thing he sees on the home screen.

What does all this mean for the Male Readership Death Spiral?

The outlook doesn’t look great when it comes to male reading habits. Overall, men are reading less. Especially when it comes to fiction. Book culture can often feel like a space where men are an afterthought. If even that. For a variety of reasons, a lot of guys have simply opted out of reading books.

But there is room for hope. Cool male comedians are out there recommending books to their fans (both male and female). Men have found other ways, such as audio, to consume books. When I look at the bestseller lists, I see some books by male authors—featuring male characters—such as Dungeon Crawler Carl and Project Hail Mary selling huge numbers of copies, week after week.

There’s a way to boost male readership without making it into a culture war battlefield. There’s no need to insult female authors or demean the interests of female readers. We can promote reading among men without also getting up on a soapbox and moaning about how hard it is to be a man nowadays. Although that does sound fun. Does anyone have a soapbox I can borrow? What even is a soapbox, and why are people always climbing on them?

Never mind. I’m getting off topic. The point is: I think most publishers wouldn’t mind expanding their customer base to include that little niche demo that happens to account for nearly 50 percent of the population. Now we just have to figure out how to do that.

If you’re interested, in my next post, I’ll be recommending some books to fight back against the Male Readership Death Spiral. Books that I think have the potential to appeal to men and women. By men and women. To make my list, I devised a highly-scientific totally arbitrary criteria that I’m calling The Manliness Scale, which determines a book’s appeal on a scale of “ME” (extremely unmanly) to “VIN DIESEL” (extremely manly).

It’ll be a paid-only post, so upgrade those subscriptions now, if you haven’t done so already!

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And finally, if you happen to have a young reader in your house, I write middle grade novels and Audible Originals for kids between the ages of 7 and 13. These books are popular with both boys and girls. They’re funny. They’re action-packed. And I’ve been assured by multiple test readers who are not related to me that they’re “not boring.” If you’d like to find out more, you’re welcome to head on over to my website.

See you again soon!

Lee

See that beautiful orange line? The one soaring majestically upward like a rocket on its way to Jupiter? That was the post. Doesn’t it look impressive? It’s certainly a lot nicer to look at than that dull gray line scraping along the bottom, way down below. That’s my typical post. Yuck!

My posts usually get about 1,000 views. Some do better. Some do worse. Up to that point, my most popular one had 6.38k views. But this new thing? It more than doubled that. Right now, the post is sitting at 14,199 views.

That’s right, folks. I’d gone viral. The algorithm had bestowed its mysterious, mathematical light upon me. Readers flocked from far and wide. It was every internet creator’s dream.

Until it turned into a nightmare.

All those wonderful new readers flooding in? Turns out some of them didn’t like what I had to say. Not one bit. The article was a tongue-in-cheek discussion of ways that America is better than Europe. It was filled with dumb jokes about how European towns are hard to pronounce and references to naked German people and BOY DID IT MAKE SOME PEOPLE ANGRY!!! They rampaged into the comments section with pitchforks and torches curses and questionable grammar to share their anger and contempt.

Here’s a little sample:

I like how that last one ends with “best and peace to you.” Whenever I angrily rip someone a new butthole, I always like to cap it off with a polite sign-off.

To be clear, the vast majority of the comments were kind. But still. I try to maintain a nice, happy bubble of goofball silliness here at Bacon Enterprises, Inc. This was something new. It left me feeling icky inside.

How did this happen? And what can we learn from the experience? In today’s post, I’ll be analyzing why this post became so popular and trying to understand what it can tell us about the internet more broadly. If you’re hoping to create things on- and offline, there’ll be some helpful stuff in here about how to get attention (and what happens when you do). But also, if you’re the type of person who just enjoys a good internet dumpster fire, this’ll be a good opportunity for some rubbernecking.

Ready? Let’s do this!

Four Things I Learned From My Most Viral (And Most Hated) Post

#1: If you want eyeballs, come up with a catchy headline

We all live in the attention economy now. People are busy. Everyone’s distracted. Right now, you’re probably reading this post while also listening to a podcast, watching YouTube, lifting weights, and pooping.

If you want to create something that’ll get noticed, you need to lasso the audience’s eyeballs before they have the chance to wander away. How do we do that?

With a catchy headline!

Would you like to know the headline that helped my post blow up? Of course you do! Feast your eyes on this little beauty:

Some Ways In Which America Is Clearly Superior To Europe

Nice, right? Very clickable. It takes a strong position. It’s topical. It’s bold and abrasive.

The article itself is satirical. It’s written from the POV of an American expat in Europe (that would be me) and it’s filled with silly banal complaints about silly banal things. I could’ve also headlined the title, “I Quite Enjoy Living In Europe, But I Have A Few Minor Quibbles.” That would’ve been more accurate. And it also wouldn’t have attracted nearly as many readers.

So, I stumbled into a catchy headline. Good for me! But it also came with a big downside. Because...

#2: Nobody actually knows how to read anymore

Like I said already. Everyone’s busy and distracted. Our attention span is constantly being pulled in a million different directions. Just since you started reading this post, a new war broke out, Donald Trump named himself Grand Emperor Of Greenland, and one of the Real Housewives Of Beverly Hills was arrested for marketing black market butt implants on Instagram.

The point is: It’s hard to stay focused. Some people clicked on my bright shiny headline, but when they got to the article, they forgot to read the actual...you know...words. They were too incensed by my provocative claim. America? Superior to Europe? BLASPHEMY!!! They charged into the comments to correct what they believed I was saying, rather than what I was actually saying.

It was frustrating to feel misunderstood and villainized. But it was great for my numbers! The algorithm doesn’t care why people are commenting. All it knows is—they’re engaging with my content. Which leads us right into the third thing I learned from this experience.

#3: The Middle doesn’t sell

I once worked as an assistant at a literary agency. My boss represented a wide range of clients, including several political figures on both sides of the aisle. Early on in my job, she said something that’s stuck with me ever since. “When it comes to politics, the only way to move books is by being on the right or the left. The middle doesn’t sell.”

And that was before social media took over our world. Nowadays, there are a billion different people crammed inside your phone, all waving their arms around wildly, yelling “LOOK AT ME!!!” If you’re a wannabe influencer, one of the most effective ways to stand out from the crowd is by staking out the most bonkers extremist positions imaginable.

Let’s run a little test. I’m going to throw a couple of headlines at you, and you tell me which one grabs your attention more.

Headline #1:

Immigration Is A Complicated Issue That Should Be Approached With Care And Nuance

Headline #2:

Illegal Immigrants Literally Want To Kidnap Your Baby!!!

Headline #1 is obviously the one you know you should click on. The only problem is your eyes glazed over about halfway through. Luckily, you were jolted out of your daze by the sheer insane terror of Headline #2. Does it matter that it’s untrue? No. Does it matter that making these claims amounts to a cynical ploy for meaningless clicks that will slowly chip away at your soul and leave you an empty husk of a human? Also no. Because it got your attention, and that’s all that matters, baby!

Like my old boss said: The middle doesn’t sell.

Okay, so now we have our formula:

Catchy Headline + Crazy Extremism – Basic Reading Comprehension = Lots Of Attention.

Follow these steps if you want to grow your audience. But be warned:

#4: In The End, Nothing Really Changes

Sorry, folks. I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but viral fame doesn’t bring you happiness. It might not even deliver as many subscribers as you’d expect. Out of the 14k views for my big, beautiful post, would you like to know how many new subscribers actually signed up?

Fifteen.

Don’t get me wrong. I’m incredibly grateful to everyone who taps that little subscribe button. You guys are awesome! But these aren’t life-changing numbers. My article lured in over 12,500 nonsubscribers. People who’d presumably never heard of me before. Which is awesome. Except almost all those people looked at the little subscribe button and were like, “Nah, I’m good.”

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And even if they had all subscribed, even if thousands of new people had poured in to support Lee Bacon Enterprises, Inc., I don’t think it would’ve made much of a long-term difference in terms of my own emotional state.

Substack offers a whole bunch of really neat data. But, at least so far, they don’t have anything in the dashboard that lets you measure “Personal Happiness & Fulfillment.” (Although I could be wrong. Let me know, and .)

Go ahead and slap a catchy title on your work. Do whatever you can to grab people’s attention—preferably without selling away every last bit of your integrity. Just keep in mind that if/when your thing blows up, it’s not going to make you a happier person.

This might all sound a little bleak, but I actually think it’s the opposite. It’s liberating. Now that you know there’s no direct correlation between Clicks and Contentment, it frees you up to ignore the formula above and just focus on creating cool stuff. Do work that makes you proud. Instead of twisting yourself into knots trying to attract new people, write things that’ll appeal to your existing audience.

And if it doesn’t go viral, which it almost certainly won’t, because most things don’t...that’s okay!!! It wouldn’t have brought you much joy anyway.

That said, I would one hundred percent stomp on a pile of kittens if you’d just tap the little like button. I would push someone’s sweet elderly grandma down the stairs in exchange for your subscription. I would invent a crypto scheme to defraud a school of orphans if you’d just share or restack this post.

Thanks so much! See you again soon.

Lee

My last post, Some Reasons Why America Is Clearly Superior To Europe, is now my most-read thing on Substack. Ever. By a wide margin. Lots of people thought it was funny. Lots of other people got offended and cursed at me in the comments. If you haven’t had a chance to check it out yet, you should totally do that. I’ll put a little link at the bottom to remind you. If you subscribed to this newsletter after stumbling upon that post, welcome! If you’re just here to curse at me some more, that’s fine too.

Enjoy.

My daughter recently turned seven. To celebrate, we got a bunch of kids sugared up and then handed them long, pointy sticks.

The sticks were for a party game in which children compete to see who can build the best marshmallow house. There were two teams. Boys vs. Girls. Each team was given:

1. A gigantic bowl of marshmallows

2. A whole crapload of bamboo kebab skewers

The goal of the game is to work together as a team, using skill and strategy to build a structure that’s able to stand on its own for at least 20 seconds. But what actually happens is, everyone gorges themselves on marshmallows and threatens each other with little bamboo spears. Fun for everyone!

Beforehand, we needed to get the supplies for this fun, deadly game. Luckily, marshmallows are easy to find in a grocery store because here in Germany, where I live, the package is always, ALWAYS, marked with an American flag.

As an American, I feel a weird sort of patriotic pride, seeing my nation so closely associated with big blobs of sugar and gelatin.

It’s always interesting to see what items are considered “American” in German grocery stores. It usually means a product is going to wage a unilateral war on your gastrointestinal system. The three key signifiers tend to be: Extreme sweetness, XL sizing, and/or BBQ or fast food vibes. In addition to marshmallows, some other examples include:

• Burger buns

• Hot dog buns

• Crispy fried onions

• Chocolate chip cookies

• Tortilla chips

• Sliced bread (which Germans call “toast,” even if it hasn’t been toasted)

The American flag also happens to be found on two of my favorite food products in existence: Popcorn and peanut butter. I consider that a big win for Team America.

Okay, so that covers the marshmallows. But what about the long, sharp sticks that could easily blind a child for lifeprovide structural integrity to our marshmallow houses? We would need a whole bunch of these suckers, and they wouldn’t be as easy to spot on the shelf as the marshmallows. Luckily, I know a guy.

While I try to avoid Amazon for book purchases, this is the type of thing I can buy on Amazon guilt-free. I’d think differently if there were a thriving ecosystem of independent wooden skewer shops. In that case, I’d support those shops, a hundred percent, even if I had to pay a little extra. But as it is, I can order online without worrying that I’m driving some sweet mom-and-pop store out of business.

Oops.

So I breezed on over to Amazon and I typed in something like, “sharp wooden sticks for marshmallow houses (not for murder)” and, lo and behold, there are hundreds, maybe thousands, of companies out there that provide exactly this thing. How can the marketplace possibly support not one, not two, but ten thousand unique companies that all sell bulk packs of sharp wooden sticks? Is there really enough demand? Clearly the marshmallow house industry is booming.

I browsed the digital aisles for approximately one second before settling on a product.

A thousand skewers??? For less than ten euros??? What a deal!!! With this quantity, we’d be able to build a couple of decent-size marshmallow houses, with enough left over to cook shish-kabobs for ourselves and nine-hundred of our closest friends.

A few days later, the order arrived. Despite the confusing description (“barbecues in cardboard box”), there was no cardboard box. We received a sealed paper bag with a thousand skewers inside. At least—I’m assuming there were a thousand. I didn’t actually count. For all I know, the PapStar corporation only gave us 978 skewers and pocketed the savings for themselves. That kind of thing would never happen with Ma & Pa’s Long Pokey Stick Emporium (RIP).

Hey, Lee, you may be wondering. How long ARE these long, pokey sticks?

Good question. Here’s a selfie I took with one of them.

Hey, Lee, you’re probably thinking now. This image isn’t helping a lot. You’re obviously holding the stick closer to the camera, which makes it look larger than it actually is. Also, do you have a giant pimple on your forehead?

OK, first of all, yes, I do have a minor blemish on my forehead. I’d prefer not to talk about it, thank you very much.

And second—that’s a good point about the deceptive size. If I’d have held the stick right next to my head, you would’ve seen that it’s exactly as long as said head.

So…look at the picture again (please ignore the pimple), while keeping in mind that I have a rather large head. From the tip of my chin to the top of my hair—that’s how long the long, pokey stick is.

I hope that helps.

The day arrived. My daughter’s seventh birthday party. We started off the festivities with a scavenger hunt. Then came the cake. Followed by a game of pin-the-tail-on-the donkey, during which some blatant cheating took place.

And then it was time to build the marshmallow houses. My wife and I filled two Pyrex bowls with marshmallows, dumped 400 skewers onto the living room floor, and told the children to get after it.

What came next was a mad frenzy of sticky, frantic construction. The boys’ design resembled a spiderweb, if the spider had been smoking meth for three days straight.

Meanwhile, Team Girl oriented their house around a vertical load-bearing beam that rose up in the center with dozens of sticks jutting out haphazardly.

As the structures rose higher, so did the tension in the room. Both groups seemed to be losing faith that their structures would ever pass inspection. But rather than acknowledging the obvious architectural flaws in their designs, they responded by eating their building materials. One after another, kids popped marshmallows into their mouths, chewing happily.

What were they doing? Didn’t they know they were eating into their inventory? Literally? To make matters worse, some of the kids were starting to get a little reckless with the way they were handling their skewers. I worried that this was headed in a dark direction. It’s generally considered bad birthday party etiquette when one of the kids gets impaled.

By some miracle, we made it through the game without anyone requiring medical attention. Not only that, but both teams managed to get their marshmallow houses to stand up on their own for the full twenty seconds. In the end, their tottering towers of tasty treats turned out looking quite impressive.

The kids celebrated their victory by immediately wreaking havoc on the houses they’d spent the last 45 minutes meticulously constructing. Sticky bamboo skewers clattered to the floor. More marshmallows were devoured. Before too long, parents started arriving for pick-up. The house emptied out. Soon all the guests were gone, and the cleanup could begin.

Thanks so much, as always, for reading! If you enjoy these posts, you might also enjoy my books. You can find them at both indie booksellers and Amazon. Find out more by heading on over to my website.

Before you rush off to buy all my books, don’t forget to hit the subscribe button. While you’re at it, you can also tap the little heart button, post a comment, or share it with everyone you know. Heck, go crazy and do all those things. I’d really appreciate that.

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And as promised, here’s a little reminder to check out my last post, which went mini-viral and made lots of people say mean things to me. Here’s a link to that.

See you again soon!

Lee

But it’s not all breathtaking cathedrals and weird fuzzy calf socks. As much as I appreciate Europe, there are just certain things we do better in the good ol’ U-S-of-A. Herewith I present my highly subjective and incredibly disputableauthoritative and irrefutable...

List of ways in which America Is Clearly Superior To Europe

Number One: Europeans Just Can’t Seem To Keep It In Their Pants

One weekend morning last summer, our family put on our swimsuits, packed the car with snacks, and set out for a day at a lake near home in Southern Bavaria. We’d never been to this particular public beach, but Google promised that it offered a scenic spot to lay out the blankets and splash around in the water. What Google failed to mention was that our fun family outing would also feature a festival of dongs.

To my horror, when we arrived at the location, we discovered that the pebble beach was populated by naked people. Dozens of naked people. They were everywhere. Men strutting proudly, wearing nothing but a pair of sensible sandals. Women lying on their backs, sunning their privates with total ease.

Obviously, we have nude beaches in America. But they tend to be clearly-designated spaces, exclusively for those who want to let it all hang out.

That wasn’t the situation here. It was a mixed crowd. I’d say about 75 percent of the people were wearing swimsuits, while the other 25 percent had decided to flaunt their flesh for all to see.

I should mention that my children didn’t seem to mind the nudity. They’re still young and innocent, willing to accept the wild variety that the world has to offer.

Me, on the other hand? I was raised in a Puritan society that instilled in me a basic moral code, which is that the human body is shameful and wicked, and public nudity went out of fashion around the time that Eve took that first sinful bite of the apple.

Come on, Europe. Get with the program and put on some swimsuits!

And no, Speedos don’t count.

Number Two: The Roads Are Too Skinny

When it comes to walkability, the Old World has America beat. Hands down. But there’s a downside to all those charming cobblestone streets and narrow village roads. They were built for horses, not Hondas.

Just going for a simple drive to pick up my kids from school is a slow-motion vehicular farce. Here’s how Google Maps would provide navigation directions if it were being honest.

Exit your driveway by performing an elaborate 8-point turn in order to avoid hitting the wooden fence that’s approximately four feet in front of your driveway.

But be careful because there are chickens behind that fence. Sometimes they’ll get out and stroll around in the street.

Congratulations. You’ve managed to make it out of the driveway.

Gently ease your car into the two lane road (which is half a lane wide) and begin your—

Oops, hold on. Another car’s headed toward you from the other “lane.” Jerk your car onto the sidewalk in order to allow the other car to pass without knocking off your side mirror.

Okay, the car’s gone. Now gently ease your car into the—

Wait. Never mind. A bike’s coming.

Once the bike zooms by, gently ease your—

Ugh! Seriously?!?! Now a whole stupid family has rounded the curve! They’re leisurely strolling down the middle of the road, talking and laughing, making no effort to get out of your way.

Remain where you are. Resist the temptation to flip off the family.

Are they gone? Good. Quickly steer your car onto the road before anyone else shows up.

THUMP-THUMP.

Crap. That was the chicken.

This doesn’t happen in America. We have big roads to accommodate our big cars. And don’t give me any excuses about how your ancient European town was built during the Roman Empire. America’s transportation grid phased out horses a hundred years ago. Bust out the construction equipment and supersize those lanes already!

Number Three: European Town Names Are Just Plain Weird

If you take a tour of our local region, you’ll encounter lovely villages and Medieval castles, tall maypoles and even taller church spires, charming biergartens and a view of the majestic Alps. Just don’t try to pronounce any of the towns you see along the way.

Höllriegelskreuth.

Straßlach-Dingharting.

Höhenkirchen-Siegertsbrunn.

Oberpframmern.

And those are just the towns nearby. Zoom out the map and you’ll see a panoply of unpronounceable places.

Szczebrzeszyn (Poland).

Gasselterboerveenschemond (Netherlands).

Fligeriorfiogmerrligln (Sweden).

Kirkjubæjarklaustur (Iceland).

Okay, I’ll admit. One of those was completely made up. There is no Fligeriorfiogmerrligln, Sweden. I literally just jabbed random keys on my laptop, and the fact that you breezed right past without even noticing tells you everything you need to know.

Why do all these towns sound like they were named after a sneeze? What were the founders even thinking? Didn’t they know that fer’ners like me would never be able to say their names out loud? Was that their whole point? Were they trying to make me feel bad? Because it worked.

And the granddaddy of them all, the world champion of impossible town names, a destination that draws tourists just to snap pictures of their ridiculously whimsical train station sign:

It doesn’t have to be this way, Europe. There’s no reason to turn your towns into tongue-twisters. I grew up in College Station, Texas. When they were naming my hometown, I’m guessing the conversation went something like this:

GUY #1: Cool town. What should we name it?

GUY #2: Hm. Well, it’s got a college and a train station. How about “College Station?”

GUY #1: Great. Let’s get burgers.

See how easy that was?

America’s not perfect. If you’ve checked the news at any point in the last year (or just the last five minutes), you know that already. But to all my American readers out there, you can hold your head up high, knowing that our land also has many wonderful things to offer. Our streets are vast, our people know how to keep their clothes on, and our mailing addresses don’t contain any weird umlauts.

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I don’t regret packing up our lives and moving the family to Germany. Not even for a second. We’ve loved the opportunity to learn about the history around us. Our kids are bilingual. The longer I’m here, the more in sync I feel with European culture. Heck, with enough time, I might even consider squeezing into a Speedo. In the most American way possible.

Thanks as always for reading! If you want more Lee Bacon in your life, you can pick up one of my award-winning middle grade novels or check out my bestselling Audible Originals.

See you again soon!

Lee

Remember the early days of Facebook? The thrill of receiving a friend request out of the blue from someone you haven’t thought about in 15 years. Sharing pictures from your most recent vacation. Finding out that your old buddy from high school who once did a 3-minute keg stand pantless is now a married father of three who organizes a weekly men’s Bible study. Hopefully while wearing pants.

It was truly special!

For a while there, it felt like Facebook was actually doing what it professed to be doing. Connecting the world. Bringing us all closer together, no matter how far apart we might be. Creating a big ‘ol virtual community.

And it was good for writers too. Back when my first book came out, in 2012, Facebook was my number one resource for setting up author visits at schools. Many of my old friends had become teachers. Or their moms were librarians. Or they knew someone who ran the annual school book fair.

Connections were made. Emails were exchanged. And six months later, I’d find myself up on a stage, delivering my author presentation to 300 fifth-graders in a cafeteria that smelled vaguely like burned beef.

All thanks to Facebook!

Then things changed. Initially, the site had felt like a big, fun reunion. Everyone was making jokes, sharing pictures of their kids. But somewhere along the way, the reunion got ugly. People started getting into fights. Heated political debates broke out. Your old buddy from high school downed his drink, whipped off his pants, and yelled “Obama’s a Muslim!”

The decline of Facebook has had many sad consequences, sewing discord within societies and creating a toxic environment of hate and distrust. But there’s one tragedy that eclipses all others.

It’s made it harder for me to promote my books.

Anyone working in a creative field today knows that you’ve got to sell yourself because, in many cases, nobody else will.

This poses a problem for your average writer. We tend to be an introverted bunch. We’d rather write dialog on a page than go out into the real world and hold down an actual conversation with an actual human. Writing a book requires months and years of isolation. But apparently, selling a book requires you to become the Kardashians.

And it’s not just writers. Many of us feel the pressure to promote ourselves. Maybe you’re selling your homemade wares on Etsy. Or you’re a realtor trying to attract clients. Or you’re a fitness trainer looking for new people to torture. Everyone has their special skill set, and those who don’t have any skills at all become life coaches.

Does this mean we all need to develop a social media strategy? And if so—which app should we focus on? There are a lot out there, and you’re anything like me, the thought of spending time in most of these places sounds about as fun as being pitched on a new crypto coin by Donald Trump’s least favorite kid.

Let’s figure it out together, shall we?

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I did a video interview with fellow writer and Substacker ! We talked about all sorts of interesting and writerly things: my bumbling career path from barista to published author, self-publishing advice, failures, successes, and balancing writing with parenting.

If you’re a writer—or you’re just curious to see a video of the guy behind these goofy newsletters—feel free to check it out by clicking on this link. And while you’re at it, subscribe to Michelle’s Substack. She’s a great!

And now…on to the main story!

In the Year Of Our Lord Nineteen Hundred and Ninety Two, the motion picture Beethoven was released to great acclaim in cinemas around the world. It would go on to earn $147 million worldwide on a budget of $250 (that’s my ballpark estimate), spawning a franchise that would include eight films and a TV series.

Despite its massive success, I didn’t watch Beethoven when it first came out. I was thirteen at the time. I’d recently aged out of the “Fun-For-The-Whole-Family” category and graduated to the “Falling-Over-Laughing-Because-Some-Guy-Got-Kicked-In-The-Nuts” category. I was the reason why the MPAA created the PG-13 rating and Wayne’s World (also released in 1992) might as well have been engineered in a lab just for 13-year-old me.

Hilarious.

So, I missed Beethoven. And in the years after its release, the film faded into a blurry sludge of other Kid-Friendly dog content (see: Clifford, Marmaduke, et all).

Until about two weeks ago.

That’s when I sat down with my wife and our two daughters (ages 4 and 6) for family movie night to watch Beethoven. You see, my wife was 9 when Beethoven came out. Back in 1992, she was exactly the right age for its wholesome blend of innocent humor and cute canine hijinks. She had the VHS at home and claims to have watched it at least a dozen times. She’s also German, so she watched the dubbed version that was entitled Unvorsichtiger Hund Sorgt Für Ärger (translation: Reckless Dog Makes Trouble).

Okay, that’s a joke. A little lighthearted play on Germans’ reputation for humorlessness. Although—the actual title is only slightly less rigidly descriptive. The real German title is Ein Hund Namens Beethoven, or A Dog Named Beethoven.

For my wife, Beethoven holds a strong nostalgic resonance. But even though she’d seen it so many times, this would be her first time hearing the actors deliver their lines in their native tongues. Would she be shocked to hear Charles Grodin’s real voice? Time to find out.

It was late in the afternoon. Outside, the world was cold and snowy. Inside, our living room was warm. After discovering that Beethoven wasn’t available for free anywhere, we opened up the Amazon app on our TV and saw that it was available to rent for 2.99 euros. Or—for 3.99 euros, we could just buy the thing.

We bought it.

I popped some popcorn. Everyone gathered on the couch. As the world went dark outside, the flickering glow of the TV filled our living room.

And Beethoven began.

I’m not sure if you’ve seen Beethoven before, or how long it’s been since you’ve checked in on the franchise. If you’re unfamiliar with the IP, then I’d like to issue a SPOILER ALERT for this 34-year-old movie. From this point onward, I’ll be revealing major plot points and generally examining this trifle of a film with a level of depth that it certainly doesn’t deserve. So let’s get into it.

Some shocking Things You Didn’t Know About The Hit 1992 Film “Beethoven”

#1: It was written by one of the most famous filmmakers of the last fifty years—but you won’t see his name attached to the film.

According to the credits, Beethoven was written by Edmond Dantés and Amy Holden Jones.

Amy Holden Jones has several credits to her name. She wrote Mystic Pizza and Indecent Proposal, among many others. She’s a very successful screenwriter who’s been working for decades. Good for her.

But what about the other name? Edmond Dantés? Why does that ring a faint bell?

Well, for those who aren’t well-versed in the classics of French literature, Edmond Dantés was the protagonist of the Alexandré Dumas classic The Count Of Monte Christo. So how did the protagonist of a Nineteenth-Century French novel become attached to a kids’ movie about a slobbering Great Dane?

Because Edmond Dantés is a pseudonym belonging to none other than John Hughes. The filmmaker behind the classics The Breakfast Club and Ferris Bueller’s Day Off came up with the idea for Beethoven. But he’d recently been embroiled in a messy breakup with Universal Pictures. After creative conflicts on some of his earlier movies with the studio, he stipulated that they could only proceed with the film if it was credited to a pseudonym.

But why that pseudonym? Hughes never officially commented on the matter, but the assumption is that he felt “imprisoned” by his success, much like Edmond Dantés was kept prisoner in The Count Of Monte Christo. But instead of being framed by a group of secret conspirators as a Bonarpartist spy in a twisted swirl of revenge and jealousy, Hughes was upset that some studio executives messed with the editing of his teen movie.

What a drama queen.

Here’s another thing you might not know about the early-nineties cinema sensation Beethoven:

#2: This movie is LOADED with famous actors who weren’t famous yet.

A key subplot of Beethoven involves a pair of bumbling and dim-witted goons tasked with...[checks notes] stealing puppies from a pet store so that...[checks notes again] an evil veterinarian can perform illegal animal experiments in his secret lab, and then later, this same villainous vet will need a fully-grown Great Dane because...[frantically searching notes] he’s signed an agreement with an ammunition manufacturer to...[notes go flying into the air] test a new kind of bullet by firing it directly into the head of a large-skulled dog.

But back to the heinous henchmen. When they appear for the first time, near the beginning, my wife and I both sat up straight like we’d been electrocuted and exclaimed “THAT’S STANLEY TUCCI!”

The last time Tucci had graced our screen, he’d been on a gastronomic grand tour of Italy, looking suave as he sampled regional cuisines and conversed with chefs in fluent Italian. He’s one of our most celebrated and accomplished performers, an actor whose sharp intelligence and wry humor are evident on every frame. Offscreen, he exudes an easy charm and sophistication.

And in this movie, he portrays a slack-jawed moron with terrible teeth who says things like, “We gotta start gettin’ da dawgs.”

At the time that he was cast in Beethoven, nobody knew who Stanley Tucci was. And he’s not the only famous face. This movie’s jam-packed with actors who would go on to do huge things.

Tucci’s fellow henchman is played by Oliver Platt. Yet another character actor known for his charisma and intelligence reduced to a role as a shambling stooge who exists as a comic-relief chew toy for dogs.

And then we have the yuppie couple who show up halfway through the movie because they’re interested in...[picking up notes from the floor, examining the mass of papers] investing in Charles Grodin’s air freshener firm. These two smug a-holes are played by...

David Duchovny and Patricia Heaton!

One year later, Duchovny would first appear on TV as Fox Mulder in The X-Files. And not long after, Heaton would land a leading role on the hit sitcom Everybody Loves Raymond. Their careers were about to blast off. But not before this happens.

We’re not quite done yet. Beethoven also marks the feature film debut of one Joseph Gordon-Levitt! He was 10 at the time, appearing as “Student #1” in a blink-and-you’ll-miss it background scene.

But enough about these small roles and background actors! Let’s move on to the top of the call sheet. No, not the dog. I’m talking about Charles Grodin and Bonnie Hunt, who play George and Alice Newton (and no, I didn’t just look up those names on Wikipedia, why would you think such a thing!).

This leads us to the third and final thing you probably don’t know about Beethoven.

#3: The ages of Charles Grodin and Bonnie Hunt when they were starring in the movie

Take a look at this picture of them. How old do you think they are?

It’s hard to tell, right? Charles Grodin definitely looks older, but maybe that’s just his character. George Newton is the buttoned-up “patriarch” who sits at the dining room table in a suit and tie. So it kind of makes sense that he’d have an older vibe.

So, back to the question.

How old are they?

I’m going to tell you in a moment, but first—let’s do a fun little game. Why don’t you guess? Just to help you out, here’s another picture (of them shaking hands with Patricia Heaton and David Duchovny):

It’s really tough, huh? With the old-fashioned haircut and the early-nineties style, I feel like Bonnie Hunt could be anywhere from 22 to 67. And Charles Grodin was diagnosed as a young child with a medical condition known as Old Man Face (OMF). The whole thing’s a real mystery. This was torturing me as I was watching the movie, absolutely driving me nuts.

HOW OLD ARE THESE PEOPLE???!!!??

Okay, do you have your answer? Take another moment. Peruse the photographs. Make your final guess.

Are you ready to find out?

After checking their birthdates of birth online, I have determined their official ages. Here it is. The big reveal. I’m opening up the envelope now.

Bonnie Hunt was thirty.

And Charles Grodin was...fifty-six.

First of all, that’s a pretty hefty age gap. Twenty-six years. Good for them for making it work. Also—I’ve got to say: Grodin looked good for his age. I doubt he was in the gym, working out, or reading books on how to lower his epigenetic clock, but he kept it together.

So, how’d you do? I genuinely want to know. Feel free to drop your guesses in the comments, along with all your thoughts and memories about the hit 1992 film Beethoven.

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Thanks so much for reading! If you enjoyed it, please hit the heart and share it with others.

See you again soon,

Lee

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This was the case with Carnival, known in Germany as Fasching. I didn’t grow up celebrating Carnival, so it’s all a bit of a mystery. It seems to be mostly a thing in Catholic parts of the world (which Bavaria most certainly is). Kids dress up and eat candy. Adults dress up and get wasted. This seems to be what Carnival’s all about.

Because of Fasching/Carnival, our older daughter’s school was closed for an entire week. Imagine my surprise, and sheer terror, when I discovered this news at the last possible second. Luckily, my wife had it in her calendar. Not only that. She’d meticulously planned a trip for us months in advance. Four days and three nights at an all-inclusive family resort a few hours away.

We arrived at the resort on a snowy Thursday evening. And that’s when the weirdness began.

Welcome To The Labyrinth

I knew things were going to get strange as soon as I shambled into the lobby. The first thing I noticed was the music. Live music. A kids’ concert was happening one floor down. I went downstairs for a quick look. Which is when I saw a German lounge singer up on a stage, surrounded by dancing children, belting out “Achy Breaky Heart.”

Was I hallucinating? Had I slipped on a patch of ice and hit my head in the parking lot? Was there a big audience for Billy Ray Cyrus among the 4-year-old German demographic? I don’t know, and before I could investigate the matter further, my wife was handing me a key and saying, “Apparently, it’s a bit of a walk to get to our room.”

This was an understatement. The hotel wasn’t one building. It was in fact 19 distinct interconnected buildings, all nestled into the side of a hill at varying elevations.

The lobby was actually at the highest point of this strange, mazelike configuration. Meaning that, even though we’d walked in from the parking lot, the lobby was somehow on the eleventh floor. Our room was six buildings away, on the fifth floor. To get there, we would have to walk through a twisting maze of carpeted hallways and take—I’m not kidding—four different elevators.

Luckily, I had this highly-detailed map, including helpful annotations from the employee at check-in.

Getting to our room would require both endurance and cartography expertise. Over the next few days, I would be forced to make this long, confusing trek many more times. If one of our kids forgot their water sandals or we needed coins for the pinball machine, I would set off through the well-lit labyrinth on my journey back to our room. After about the eighteenth or nineteenth time, I didn’t even need the map anymore. I’m smart that way.

Into The Maw

The next day, after eating a sensible breakfast gorging ourselves at the all-you-can-eat buffet, we went to check out the indoor playground. It had everything you could ever want. Slides. Trampolines. A climbing structure. But the highlight was this beauty:

The alligator’s mouth was roomy enough to accommodate anywhere from 10 to 400 children. Through some mysterious combination of air and magic, the giant toothy maw slowly opens and closes, over and over again, as dozens of young children scramble desperately to get inside before the mouth shuts completely. After they’ve had enough, the kids can either tumble out of the creature’s mouth or slide down its backside and emerge from its enormous inflatable butthole.

I’m happy to report that both our children survived their time inside the alligator. After lunch and a quick, easy long, interminable odyssey to our room, we put on our swimsuits and set off for the pool.

Aquatic Confusion

Before we even got to the pool, I started getting odd vibes from the place. As you’re passing through the entry turnstiles, this is the painting that greets you.

Why does the pool at our all-inclusive family resort feature a scene that would be too steamy for Love Island?

Also, just from an environmental standpoint…That’s a lot of water just for washing your shins. Someone probably spent a lot of time and effort filling up that cistern. Maybe grab a washcloth, huh? Save some for everyone else.

I’m getting off topic.

The point is: I’d been under the assumption that this was a pool for parents and their children. So then why am I getting an eyeful of butt and side-boob? Is this a family-friendly splash zone or a Roman orgy?

But maybe I was just being a prudish American. We all know Europeans are less hung up on nudity. I hurried my children past the frolicking naked people and we made our way into the locker room.

Once we got to the pool itself, I breathed a sigh of relief. Everyone was fully clothed. Toddlers toddled around in floaties. Kids lined up for the water slide. Laughter filled the air. There was even a whole area for babies to splash around.

Everything seemed nice and wholesome. Until I turned my head.

Which is when I saw this:

This painting was part of a bigger mural that spans the entire wall alongside the pool, depicting an ancient Italian villa that just happens to include this lady’s wardrobe malfunction.

And don’t get me wrong. I appreciate art as much as the next guy. I fully realize that artists from long ago weren’t exactly big on modesty. Walk around the Antiquities section of a museum and you’re going to see a whole lot of muscley dudes with little dongs. But those artworks were created hundreds or thousands of years ago. This painting probably went up around 1994. At a kids’ pool. Twenty feet from the cartoon gorilla.

I was really starting to wonder about this place. First, you’ve got the amorous couple showing a blatant disregard for water conservation. Then the lady flashing me while I try to play Marco-Polo with my kids. You’d think it couldn’t get any weirder.

You’d be wrong.

Check out this mannequin behind a window near the entrance.

Why’s he making that face? Why’s his hand down there? What’s even going on???

It’s like they brought in Hugh Heffner to collaborate on the interior design of the pool area. Everything just feels…off. As if the people behind this resort couldn’t decide what they wanted. Should it be a fun place for families to play in the water, or a grotto of Dionysian debauchery. Pick a lane! And I’m not talking about swimming laps!

Despite all the adult content on display at the pool, my kids and I had a great time. That evening, after eating a light dinner devouring unhealthy amounts of food at the buffet, we noticed that the kids’ concert was happening again. When we arrived, the singer was halfway through a song that I’m sure is close to every German child’s heart. I’m speaking, of course, about John Denver’s 1971 classic, Take Me Home, Country Roads.

Soon he switched it up, playing some songs that the intended audience actually knew. More children flocked to the stage. Including my own kids. They joined the throng, and we danced the night away. By which, I mean we stayed until 7:45.

Bedtime was coming up, and it was still a long trek back to our room.

Thanks for reading! If you enjoy Mistakes Were Made, maybe you’d like to upgrade to a premium subscription. It’s just $6/month (less if you get an annual subscription).

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You can also support this newsletter by liking and sharing this post so others can discover it.

I also write children’s books. They’ve been published in 25 different languages, selected for state reading lists, optioned for the screen, and none of them feature weird mannequins touching themselves inappropriately. Find out more by heading over to my website!

I hope you had a nice Fasching, even if you didn’t realize it was happening.

See you again soon!

Lee

Welcome to the first edition of Recs and Wrecks! This is discuss three recommendations (“Recs”) of some things that I’ve enjoyed recently. These include:

1. an audiobook that turns my morning jog into a wild post-apocalyptic adventure,

2. a spy show about screw-ups who save the world, and

3. bread

After heaping accolades onto these three worthy objects of my affection, I’ll begin heaping something else entirely. The next portion (“Wreck”) refers to one thing that I do not recommend. I’ll be offering gentle and nuanced criticism an insane unhinged rant about this object of my hatred, which in my humble opinion, should be banished to the deepest pit of hell, where Satan himself will use it as toilet paper for the rest of eternity.

Here’s a hint: It’s a very popular picture book.

Okay, let’s get right into it.

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I originally published this post around the time of last year’s Super Bowl. Some of you may have seen it then, but a lot of newcomers have joined the party since then, so it’s going to be new for a lot of you. Despite the posts’ vintage, there’s nothing in here that makes it feel out of date. No in-depth sports analysis. No game predictions. Just a whole lot of pure silliness. And a video at the end featuring yours truly.

Enjoy!

The Super Bowl is coming up, and here in Germany, the excitement is...what’s the opposite of palpable? Palpless? Unpalped? Whatever the word, Germans just aren’t getting into the Super Bowl spirit. They prefer the other kind of football. The one where the players actually use their feet, at least when they’re not reenacting the Battle of Verdun in an effort to draw a penalty flag.

But no matter where I might live, American blood still pumps through these veins. I’ll always prefer good ol’ American football. The hulking men, the pads, the head trauma. Is there anything in the world more American than (American) football? Everything about the sport confirms Europeans’ worst stereotypes about Americans. Extreme obesity? Check! Silly units of measurement (ie, yards)? Check!

And the blatant commercialism. In soccer, they play for over 45 minutes before the first commercial break. Then they go for another 45+ minutes. That would NEVER fly in America. In the NFL, you get three, maybe four, minutes of solid gameplay, and then you’re blasted with the commercials.

Oreo-flavored Coke Zero!

Dorito-flavored Bud Light!

A Dodge Ram that can handle a 40-ton payload and pull six tractor trailers across the Mojave desert!

But speaking of commercials...

This is the Super Bowl. The game’s almost an afterthought. The much larger cultural conversation revolves around the commercials. Brands go all-out to pitch themselves to the massive audience. They spend big money and hire brilliant ad agencies to create something truly great, something that taps into the zeitgeist, that transcends the medium to become an art form unto itself. Or if that fails, they bring in Snoop Dogg.

According to the New York Times, an average 30-second commercial spot during the Super Bowl is 7 million dollars. That’s a lot of money. But for many companies, it’s worth it. As the Times puts it: “In a time of fragmentation, advertising during the game’s broadcast is still a reliable way to boost company revenue and familiarize viewers with a brand.”

Well, guess what! I’m a brand too! I write books! I just launched this hilarious-but-also-helpful newsletter! I’m constantly hustling to get noticed in the crowded attention economy. All of which makes me wonder...

What if I made a Super Bowl commercial?

This could be an opportunity to reach a wider audience. To finally break through. To prove to those guys from high school the world that I have something worthwhile to offer.

And also: I bet I’d stand out. Seriously, has there ever been a Super Bowl commercial featuring a children’s book author? Or a funny-yet-heartfelt-newsletter-that-you-should-definitely-subscribe-to-if-you-haven’t-already?

I can just imagine the conversations around the water cooler on Monday.

“Did you watch the Super Bowl?”

“Sure did! The game was fun, but you know what my favorite part was?”

“What’s that?”

“The commercials!”

“Me too! What was your favorite?”

“Tough to say. I liked the one where a crane dumped six giant boulders into the bed of a Dodge Ram pickup truck.”

“Yeah, or what about the one for Oreo-flavored Bud Light?”

“Snoop Dogg was great in that one!”

“But now that I’m thinking about it, there’s really only one commercial that stands out for me.”

“I bet I know which one you’re thinking of.”

“Should we say it at the same time?”

“Lets!”

At this point, the two office workers smile at each other from opposite sides of the water cooler. Then they begin to count. “One...two...three!” And in perfect unison, they both say, at the exact same time:

“The commercial from award-winning midlist children’s book author and writer of the humor newsletter Mistakes Were Made, Lee Bacon!”

Can you see it? People all around the globe, having this exact conversation? I sure can! A Super Bowl commercial is not just a good idea. It’s THE BEST IDEA I’VE EVER HAD! Now I just need to scrape together the funds to make it. I asked my financial adviser wife if we had 7 million dollars lying around. She said we don’t. This was a crushing blow to my plans.

But I didn’t give up.

It occurred to me that the seven million figure is for thirty seconds. What if I only bought part of that air time? A fraction of the thirty-second spot? Do you think the National Football League would cut me a deal? From the way they’ve handled the whole concussion situation over the years, they seem like decent folks. I bet they’d give me a discount.

I didn’t have seven million dollars, but I did have two working kidneys. And according to a surgeon I met on Craigslist, that’s one more than you need. After a long, excruciating quick and painless medical procedure, I acquired the funds I would need to create my commercial! It wouldn’t be the full thirty seconds. But it would be enough to shamelessly promote myself share my important message with the world.

Now that I had the funds, it was time to get started on my commercial. I bought some expensive recording equipment. (Okay, fine—I signed up for a free trial with Adobe Premiere Rush.) Afterward, I assembled a writer’s room of the finest creative minds in the marketing world: ChatGPT, Gemini, Perplexity—me and my crackerjack team of AI bots locked ourselves in a room with a pot of coffee and several charging cables...

And we got to work!

Our goal was to craft a commercial that was hilarious and sincere. Something that would convey an Important Societal Message without alienating a single solitary person. Something that would be both deeply subversive and completely inoffensive to middle America. A commercial that would appeal to all the key demographic groups:

• Boomers

• Zoomers

• Soccer Moms

• Costco Dads

• TikTok Teens

• Socially-Damaged Gen Z Activists

• That Lady On Facebook Who Posts In ALL CAPS About How Flu Shots Contain Mind-Control Serums

• Your Uncle

• 12-Year-Olds Who Can’t Make Eye Contact

• Babies

• The Elderly

• Dogs

How hard could that be?

Once we had our script, the next step was to find someone to star in my commercial. If you’ve watched a Super Bowl in recent years, you’ve probably noticed that basically every ad features some kind of celebrity—lots of celebrities, as many as your brain can fathom, a totally random mix of famous faces that will attract a stratospheric level of attention and generate maximum online chatter.

Here are some recent examples that come to mind:

• Matt Damon, Dale Earnhardt, Jr, and the Pope.

• Tom Brady, Ice-T, and the kid from the “Charlie Bit Me” YouTube video.

• Lady Gaga, Jake Paul, and the computer-generated likeness of Boris Karloff.

If my commercial was going to make an impact, I would need some celebrities too. I brainstormed every possible celebrity connection I could think of. Hmm, okay. I got John Elway’s autograph when I was twelve. Do you think he still remembers me? And one time, Timothée Chalamet walked right past me on the sidewalk in Chelsea. Should I email his agent?

Actually, never mind! Getting a celebrity would just seem desperate. I don’t want to be like all the other commercials. I want to stand out.

New plan: I’ll be the star!

Finally, I had everything I needed. A script. A star. A creative concept to promote myself, my brand, my books, my newsletter, peace, prosperity, togetherness, and a better world—all within the extremely limited timeframe that my budget allowed.

I scrapped my plans for the weekend. My sole focus would be finishing this commercial in time. When my wife got home from work, I told her the news:

ME: “Do you think you could take care of the kids this weekend? I’ve got important work to do.”

MY WIFE: “Your shirt’s soaked in blood. Please tell me you didn’t get surgery from that weirdo you met on Craigslist.”

For the next 48 hours, I worked tirelessly to bring my vision to life. This was going to be my crowning achievement. The Super Bowl commercial to eclipse all other Super Bowl commercials. Soon the entire world would be talking about ME!

When I was done, I sent it off to NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell. At least, I’m assuming it was Roger Goodell. I sent it to rogergoodell@hotmail.com and it didn’t bounce back, so I’m guessing it worked.

And now...the day is almost here. The Super Bowl is this Sunday. My commercial will finally see the light of day. And as a special treat for my loyal readers, I have exciting news:

You get to be the first to see it!

You read that right. You’ve been loyal to me. You’ve stuck with this newsletter through all the ups and downs, the rebrand, the dizzying highs (when I wrote about going for a walk with my kids) and the devastating lows (that time I only got one like). To reward you for your allegiance, I’m giving you EXCLUSIVE EARLY ACCESS.

Okay! Here it is! The moment you’ve all been waiting for!

THE WORLD PREMIERE OF MY SUPER BOWL COMMERCIAL!

There it is! My commercial! Three million dollars well spent!

I’m feeling dizzy from the blood-loss and I can no longer feel my hands, so I should probably wrap this up. But feel free to share with your friends and loved ones. Gather ‘round the water cooler and start spreading the news.

And enjoy the game!

See you next week!
Lee

MY WEBSITE!!!

PS: There’s the risk that not everyone who watches the Super Bowl will see my commercial. What if it comes on when someone’s at the fridge, grabbing another Dorito-flavored Bud Light? These poor souls won’t get to see it. But you can change that! Just click the little share button below!

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PPS: Feel like letting me know what you thought of my Super Bowl Commercial! I welcome all honest opinions glowing praise!

Leave a comment

Just a quick note up top to let you know that the very funny Greg Nix and I are working on a top secret project. Okay, it’s a podcast. We’re working on a podcast. We realized that there are approximately 10,000,000 parenting pods from moms, but almost none from dads.

So we’re launching one.

In each episode, we’ll be answering questions about parenting, fatherhood, and life. Our goal is to be funny and maybe just a tiny bit informative. But to make it work, WE NEED YOUR QUESTIONS! We’ll keep your identity anonymous. If you have a question you’d like us to answer, feel free to DM me on Substack, or email me at leebaconbooks@gmail.com.

Thanks in advance, and stay tuned for more!

In 1947, a 19-year-old Holocaust survivor arrived in New York City. By this point, his family had already fled Berlin, lost their home in Paris, and been forced into hiding in occupied France. His father died of cancer. His mother was killed in Auschwitz. Soon after arriving in the city, he found an entry level job at a literary agency. His name was Georges Borchardt.

In 1967, Borchardt founded his own literary agency, which would go on to represent five Nobel laureates, eight Pulitzer Prize-winners and the French president Charles de Gaulle.

He introduced American readers to Samuel Becket. A few years later, he came across a French-language memoir by a Holocaust survivor named Elie Wiesel. After being rejected by 14 American publishers, “Night” was finally acquired by a tiny publisher for $250. It would eventually sell 14 million copies around the world.

In 2005, when I was 26 years old, I arrived in New York City. I’d only ever lived in Texas, and the adjustment to my new home was rough. Or at least, it seemed rough for someone like me, someone who’d experienced none of the turmoil Borchardt had seen by my age.

I shared an apartment with four other people. (Five if you count the rat.) At night the broken radiator would clang nonstop, filling my tiny room with suffocating hot air straight from the depths of hell.

After working two unpaid internships and moving to a new apartment, I found my first job in publishing: As an assistant at a tiny literary agency that shared its office with a larger and more prestigious agency called Georges Borchardt, Inc.

I had little to do with the other agency, and knew absolutely nothing of Borchardt’s tragic, remarkable story. But I was deeply impressed (and more than a little intimidated) by the small, urbane man with a French accent. Borchardt was in his late-seventies by then. He moved gracefully through the office in a suit and tie. I was lucky if I made it through the day without spilling yogurt on my shirt.

After I left the literary agency, our paths only crossed one other time. I saw Borchardt at a book event in Brooklyn. We chatted beforehand, and even though there were many more important and impressive people in the room, he seemed genuinely interested in speaking with me. He was kind and gracious with his time, and just as urbane as ever. I hope I didn’t have any yogurt on my shirt.

Yesterday I came across Georges Borchardt’s obituary in The New York Times. He was 97 years old. It was only after his death that I fully grasped how extraordinary his life had been. I’m grateful my story crossed with his.

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This post just barely scratched the surface of Borchardt’s incredible life. There’s so much more to his story that I didn’t include. Those who’d like to find out more should totally check out his obituary in Times. It’s well worth reading.

If you like this newsletter, you might also enjoy my books. To find out more, head on over to my website.

And don’t forget to send your in your parenting questions! You can DM me on Substack, or email me at leebaconbooks@gmail.com.

“Why did you want to become a writer?”

I’ve done hundreds of author visits over the years, and this is the most common question I get from audiences.

There are lots of ways that you could read into it. Were they questioning my abilities? (“Why did YOU want to become a writer?”) Or perhaps they’re wondering about the profession in general? (“Why did you want to become A WRITER?”) Or maybe they’re doing a Christopher Walken impression? (“Why did? You WANT? To become a writer?”)

Whatever their reasoning, I always give the same answer: “Because I couldn’t NOT be a writer.” Literally, it’s that simple. I’m incredibly fortunate to be able to earn a living from writing. But even if I had never managed to earn a penny from writing, I would still be calling myself a writer—just with caveats. I’d be a writer who teaches English. Or a writer who sells insurance. Or a writer who fixes roofs.

Okay, maybe not that last one. Nobody would be dumb enough to let me fix their roof. Or anything else. My wife can attest to this.

Before I became a full-time writer, I shuffled through a deck of these caveats. I was a writer who bartended, a writer who worked at a literary agency, a writer who translated dull business documents from German into English.

Because I can’t NOT be a writer.

And I’m not the only one. Not by a long shot. I meet fellow writers all the time. Some are full-time writers, but most are caveat writers. The tax consultant with a very unremunerative side-gig as a poet. The daycare teacher who dreams of publishing a picture book. The serial entrepreneur who’s self-published a 16-book series of historical novels about Captain Hornswaggle’s erotic exploits on the seven seas (hi, Uncle Carl!).

But how many of us are actually making any money from this writing racket (wracket?). And if we are earning an income—how much? Well, in 2023, the Authors Guild, the leading professional organization for writers in the United States, released a survey of author incomes. There’s all sorts of interesting data to be found, but here were my main takeaways:

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NOTE: I usually write humorous stories filled with jokes and dubious advice. This one’s different. There are jokes, and there’s some advice near the end. But there’s also a lot of sadness. I promise I’ll get back to silliness soon. Thanks in advance for reading!

The day after my brother died, I bought a car.

One day earlier—on the day of his death—just a few hours before receiving the worst phone call of my life—my wife and I visited six dealerships, all haphazardly arranged along New Jersey’s ugliest motorway. A place called Route 22. A brutal thoroughfare of big box stores, fast food chains, car dealerships, mattress shops, carpet merchants, Starbuckses, a trampoline park, a Guitar Center, and everything else you can imagine, all stretched out along a nightmare snarl of traffic.

We Ubered to the first dealership, then walked to the rest. It was a bitterly cold day in late December 2017. The background noise was a nonstop rumble of cars and honking and people screaming for their lives as they veered across multiple lanes, desperate to reach their exits.

Kia. Toyota. Volkswagen. We were looking for something practical, something small, a hatchback. We didn’t know that my brother was going to die in a few hours and at the time, our biggest problem was crossing the road.

See, we had already visited a few dealerships on one side of Route 22. Now we needed to get to the Honda dealership, which was located on the other side of Route 22. And because this road was designed by Satan, crossing the street was a cruel impossibility. Standing between us were (1) three lanes of uninterrupted traffic going in one direction, (2) an island in the middle of the traffic with a bunch of random shops and restaurants located on it, (3) three more lanes of uninterrupted traffic going in the opposite direction, and (4) absolutely zero crosswalks, overpasses or traffic lights.

Below is a highly detailed illustration:

We could see the Honda dealership. But getting there? On foot? Impossible. We would need a car to reach the other side of the street. But in order to acquire said car, we would have to cross the street. It was a Catch 22. A Catch Route-22. It was a cruel joke.

Q) How does the married couple without a car cross the road?

A) By ordering an Uber, then waiting around for 25 minutes in the parking lot of a defunct Italian food restaurant, shivering in the cold, while—for some unknown reason—a maintenance worker shuffles around nearby, blasting the frozen snow of this abandoned parking lot with a leaf blower, and when our car finally does arrive, it turns out my wife ordered an Uber Pool, with another passenger already in the backseat, and the algorithm has determined that this other woman should get dropped off first, so—guess what!—after merging onto Route-22 and then performing a turn, our Uber will drive past the Honda dealership, the one where WE’RE SUPPOSED TO BE DROPPED OFF!!!!!, and I will watch it drift by in the passenger window, wanting to laugh at the absurdity, the insanity, of the situation, and a bit later, we’ll drop off the other person at a PetCo, before performing another turn, and another, to get us back on the stretch of road we were just on, and then—finally!—after 45 minutes, we arrive at the Honda dealership.

[CUE LAUGHTER.]

Below is another extremely detailed illustration:

At the Honda dealership, we found our car. The perfect car for us. Or maybe we were so exhausted by this point that we couldn’t bear the idea of crossing the road again.

A Honda Fit. That’s what we decided on. A 2015 model, certified pre-owned, in great shape, only 14,000 miles on it. We went into a back office and signed the paperwork. But because you can’t buy a $15,000 car by swiping your debit card, we had to get a certified check from the bank. We ordered another Uber (this time, not Pool, thank God) and soon we were back on the road, barreling through a treeless hellscape of pavement and consumerism, frustrated but also pleased, and completely unaware of the darkness and heartache hanging in our future, waiting for us, waiting.

At the bank, we got our certified check. But now it was too late to get our car. The dealership would close soon. We would have to wait until tomorrow.

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So we went home.

We made dinner.

We watched a little Netflix.

We got ready for bed.

And then the phone rang.

It was my parents. As soon as I heard their voices, I knew—something was wrong. They told me the news. My brother had died. Except—no, that can’t be right. My brother can’t be dead. He’s younger than me. He’s so very funny and so very intelligent. We’re always goofing around together, both of us cracking each other up. My brother, the human Wikipedia, able to spout off random facts with uncanny recall. The history of the aerospace industry. The scientific advantages of Fahrenheit over Celsius. The rulership structure of the Ottoman Empire.

My brother is the most interesting person I’ve ever met. Like, did you know he’s ambidextrous? When we used to play tennis, as kids, he would literally switch the racket from one hand to the other to avoid the backhand. He has a girlfriend. He has a career. He is 31 years old, with a whole future ahead of him. He can’t be dead.

Except.

He is.

This is what my parents are telling me.

After the shock wears off, sadness hits. That’s how it feels. Like it literally hit me. This huge, horrible force slamming me in the chest, knocking me onto the bed behind me. All the air escaping my lungs so my breaths come in little choking gasps. My parents’ voices are sad, but also determined. They’re keeping it together, as much as they can. For me. For the other people they’ll have to call tonight. For each other.

At least my wife is there. After getting off the phone, we collapse onto the bed together, both of us crying like we’ve never cried before, anguished, animal sobs. After an hour or two of this, we can’t cry anymore, and so we just hold each other, until the reality comes howling back, and we begin crying again.

Time slips away. Night somehow becomes morning. We haven’t slept. We drag ourselves out of bed and perform all the ordinary tasks that you have to perform, even on the worst day of your life. Brush your teeth. Shower. Get dressed. Even as this awful reality trails us every step of the way. Not to mention the arrangements. We’ll have to book flights. Take time off work. Find a cat sitter to check in on our—

Oh, crap. The car.

We bought a car yesterday. Back when our biggest problem was how to cross the road. We bought a car, and we still need to pay for it. We told the guy at the dealership we would come first thing in the morning to drop off the certified check and pick up the car. Can we tell him never mind? Is that possible? Sorry, this is gonna sound like an excuse, but my brother just died, and my life will never be the same, so oopsie! I won’t actually be needing that certified pre-owned 2015 Honda Fit.

But we already signed everything. We put some money down. Legally, the car is ours. Or...halfway ours. I don’t know how these things work. Soon—later today, or early tomorrow—we’ll be in California, with my parents, my grieving parents, dealing with this awful thing that we’re still coming to grips with. No telling when we’ll be back to drop off that stupid certified check for the stupid car that we bought before we knew that our lives were about to tumble off a cliff into grief.

Okay, then. No time like the present. We’re sleepless and wracked by sadness and we’re going to get a car! We order an Uber. Another Uber. A few minutes later, it pulls up outside our house. My wife and I climb into the backseat, and that’s when we discover that this is no ordinary Uber. Oh, no. The driver of this Uber just happens to be...

THE MOST UPBEAT PERSON IN THE HISTORY OF THE WORLD.

Before the back doors even slam shut, he’s talking—fast, loud, exuberant, in love with the world and desperate to share his joy—

“HOW Y’ALL DOIN’ THIS FINE MORNIN’??? DANG IT’S COLD OUT THERE!!!! BUT DON’T WORRY, I CRANKED UP THE HEAT!!! IT’S GONNA BE GOOD AND TOASTY IN HERE!!! I GOTCHALL COVERED!!!!! WHAT KINDA MUSIC Y’ALL WANNA LISTEN TO????”

His grin beams at us from the front of the car. Can he tell that something is wrong? That we haven’t slept all night and we’re grappling with a terrible tragedy? If he does, he certainly doesn’t act like it.

“HOW ‘BOUT SOME BRUNO MARS??? Y’ALL INTO THAT??? YEAH, MAN, EVERYONE’S INTO BRUNO MARS!!!! Y’ALL FEELIN’ THE HEAT YET??? IF Y’ALL WANT, I GOT WATER BOTTLES IN THE CENTER CONSOLE!!!!!”

“Uptown Funk” begins to blast at full volume. The car jolts into motion. My wife and I are huddled beside each other in the back, holding hands. The certified check is in my other hand and the world outside is a blur and nothing makes sense anymore and my brother is dead and my brother can’t be dead and Bruno Mars is singing—

Stylin’, wilin’, livin’ it up in the city

Got Chucks on with Saint Laurent

Gotta kiss myself, I’m so—

and it’s starting to snow and now we’re entering Route-22 and we’re careening across lanes of never-ending traffic and WATCH OUT FOR THAT VAN!!! and we swerve and a horn blasts and brakes squeal and God, can you imagine if we died in a horrific car accident right now, how much it would suck if my parents got that call, but it’s okay, the van misses us at the last second and how are we possibly going to go on living when my brother isn’t a part of the world and—

“HEY, Y’ALL GOT PLANS FOR NEW YEARS??? ME, I’M KEEPING IT LOW KEY!!! ME AND MY GIRL GONNA ORDER SOME FOOD, MAYBE WATCH THE BALL DROP, WHAT ABOUT Y’ALL??? GOT ANYTHING FUN GOIN’ ON????”

This is what happened next. We made it to the dealership. We bought the car. We drove home in the snow. We flew to California. I hugged my parents. More family arrived. We held a memorial. Most of the family left. My wife left. I stayed in California to help my parents with all the profound, mundane tasks that follow death. Clearing out his apartment. Setting up a scholarship fund in his name. Getting through today. And tomorrow. And the day after that.

Eventually, the pain began to recede. It was no longer a constant dark presence. It drifted into the background. A gray smudge in the corner of my mind. Always there, but manageable.

As the weeks and months and years went by, I began to view my brother’s life not as a tragic loss, but as a collection of mostly good, happy memories. Sad and happy at the same time.

This is how I think about him now. His name was Evan Carl Bacon. He was the most extraordinary person I’ve ever met. I will always miss him.

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If you’ve experienced the death of someone close to you—I am so, so sorry. I hope maybe this helps in some small way. I hope you find ways to deal with your grief. I hope that, if you need to use a ride-hailing app at the lowest point in your life, the driver’s personality will match your overall vibe better than ours did. At the very least, I hope he will not play Bruno Mars.

I’ll end this with the advice my dad gave me on the night they called with the news. He ended the call by saying, “Give Eva a hug.” (Eva is my wife.)

We don’t know when we’re going to receive that call. When our life will change in ways we could never expect.

We can’t control the universe.

But we can always give a hug to someone we love.

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See you soon,

Lee

Hi everyone! To celebrate the holiday season, I’m unlocking this paid post for ALL subscribers.

Happy holidays!

On November 8, 2016, the day that Donald Trump defeated Hilary Clinton to become President of the United States, when the attention of the world was focused entirely on THIS ONE THING, when literally NOTHING ELSE MATTERED because the FATE OF THE PLANET hung in the balance—on this momentous, historic day...

My fourth book was published.

You’ll be shocked to hear that the book’s release wasn’t at the top of most people’s minds. Conservatives were out in the streets, cheering. Liberals were frantically checking Zillow for available real estate in Canada. And exactly zero people were rushing out to bookstores to buy themselves the hilarious new middle grade novel from Lee Bacon.

Here is a visual representation of what happened next:

Legendtopia never recovered. Despite positive reviews, it failed to gain traction with readers over the following months. Sales were abysmal. Marketing and promotion were nonexistent. And to make matters worse—there was a sequel on the way. Which is almost comical, when you think about it. Like being tossed a flaming hot turd, and when you reach out for a fire extinguisher, someone hands you...another flaming hot turd.

I don’t want to call out my publisher here. For the sake of anonymity, we’ll just refer to them as Blandom Blouse.

Now, this unnamed giant corporate behemoth could’ve sought out ways to turn things around—for example, by releasing a less expensive paperback with a new cover. This might’ve attracted the audience that had missed the book on its first go-around.

Instead, they abandoned the paperback edition altogether. The book vanished from the market. When Giant Flaming Turd #2 was released 14 months later, it too failed to catch on. Who could’ve seen that coming?

It wasn’t supposed to be like this. My previous 3-book series (also with Blandom Blouse) had done well, racking up good sales, getting translated into seven languages, landing on multiple state reading lists, and getting optioned for the screen.

I’d spent the past few years visiting schools and bookstores all across the country, meeting-and-greeting with kids, parents, librarians, and booksellers. I’d made a name for myself. I’d assumed some of this success would carry over into my next series.

Silly me.

All of a sudden, my career was on the ropes.

Whatever success I’d gained with my first series had been obliterated by the failure of my last two books. By this point, I’d finished a new project. Something entirely different from what I’d done in the past. A mystery about a girl searching for her missing friend, told in the form of a blog. My agent shared it with Blandom Blouse because we were contractually obliged to do so, even though we all knew they were going to pass. Which they did. Which meant we would have to find a new publisher.

The timing couldn’t have been worse. Publishing is a subjective business, driven by instincts and unknowns. But there is one way to assess the potential of a prospective book: by looking at the sales of the author’s previous books. When publishers checked the sales of my books, what they saw was—

And we had another disadvantage. After years of consolidation and retraction in the publishing industry, there aren’t many big houses left. There had been six major publishers, but the two biggest names in the business had recently merged. My publisher, Blandom Blouse, had swallowed Blenguin. (Yes, I’m granting them anonymity too.) It had already been determined that we weren’t submitting to Blandom Blouse. And now Blenguin was off the table too. We hadn’t even submitted my book yet, and already my options were dwindling away.

Being on submission puts an author in a constant state of unease. Knowing your manuscript is floating out there, just waiting to be judged. Every new email comes wrapped in a combustive layer of excitement and dread. Is it from your agent? Is she writing to tell you an editor wants to make an offer? Has a publisher passed? Or—

You check your inbox. It’s from Jiffy Lube. Ten percent off your next oil change. This news is both a letdown and a relief.

During the day, I would obsessively check my email. At night, I’d lie awake, staring at the dark ceiling, wondering if I was ever going to work again. Would I have to find another job? I’d been a full-time writer for nearly a decade by this point. With my patchy resume, my prospects on the job market were grim. I wondered if Jiffy Lube was hiring.

I spent a few miserable, nerve-wracking days in this tailspin. Questioning my future, fearing my inbox, googling “how i get job at jiffy lube.” I knew I needed to find another way before I lost my mind completely. That’s when I came up with a plan. Which I would like to share with you now. Herewith, I present:

A Detailed Plan For Restoring Your Sanity And Getting Your Life Back On Track When Your Future Is In Flux:

1. Get back to work.

That’s it. That’s the whole checklist. My entire master plan. Just that one thing: Start writing again.

So many factors were out of my control. I couldn’t go back and change the terrible timing of my book’s release. It was too late to boost the sales of the Legendtopia series. That ship had sailed. (Or, to be more accurate, sunk.) Now that I had a new project on submission, there was nothing I could do to change the manuscript. It was on editors’ TBR pile. Would they like it? Would they hate it? Would they ignore it? I didn’t know.

But there was one thing I had complete control over: Writing.

When I’m deep in a manuscript, everything else goes away. All those worries and fears—they’re replaced by the book. The world I’m creating. The characters, the plot, the voice. My future might’ve been uncertain, but this—these words on the page—they were mine.

And so I stopped checking my email so often and I got to work. The worries didn’t go away entirely, but they faded into the background. I’d found something new to obsess over. My newest book began to take shape: A middle grade novel about a world inhabited by robots. A world without humans. A story narrated by a robot. Who meets a human. A human who shouldn’t exist.

Here's what happened next:

My book that was on submission—the one about a girl searching for her missing friend—was picked up by Audible. They were expanding their line of Audible Originals and had recently brought on an editor for kids’ titles. My project was going to be among their first releases.

The Mystery Of Alice featured a full cast of voice actors, along with sound effects that brought the story to life. It reached #3 on the overall Audible bestseller list, was optioned for development as a TV series, and currently has nearly 23,000 ratings on Audible. If you have an Audible membership, it’s free, in case you’re curious to check it out:

The Mystery Of Alice

And as for the book I started writing while The Mystery Of Alice was on submission? The one that helped get me out of the quicksand of worry and fear? My funny little robot apocalypse book for kids? That became the biggest hit of my career.

Before its release, The Last Human was optioned by Sony for development as a film (which is still in the works, btw). It was translated into 23 languages and spawned a sequel.

The lowest point in my career became the launching pad for some of my greatest successes. This doesn’t mean that my future is assured. Anyone working in a creative field today knows—the only certainty is uncertainty. But no matter what obstacles might arise, what failures we face along our path, there’s one constant, one way to gain some measure of control in a precarious world.

By getting back to work.

And if that doesn’t do the trick, there’s always Jiffy Lube.

Thanks so much for supporting Mistakes Were Made! If you enjoyed this post (and I hope you did!), feel free to tell your friends! And if you want more exclusive paid posts (like this one!), get yourself a premium subscription.

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See you again soon!

Lee

Are you looking for a holiday gift for a young person in your life? If so, I can recommend a gripping and hilarious children’s book by one of my favorite authors. ME!!! In addition to this newsletter, I also write novels for young people. I’ve written about supervillains, imaginary friends, monsters, and robots. Find out more on Amazon or by checking out my website.

I launched Mistakes Were Made on January 1, 2025. At the time, I had no idea what I was doing. But I stuck with it. Week after week, month after month. And now, nearly one year and 42 posts later, I still have no idea what I’m doing.

But that’s okay. I’ve had a lot of fun. I’ve connected with tons of amazing people, plus a few very attractive bots. I appreciate all of those who took a chance on this newsletter over the past year. Thanks for letting me hang out in your inbox. I’ve enjoyed the opportunity to mingle with some of your other emails. And by the way, you just received a terrific deal from Pottery Barn. Might want to open that one up soon!

With 2025 coming to a close, this is the perfect opportunity for a newsletter retrospective. In today’s issue of Mistakes Were Made, we’ll be looking back at some of the most impactful posts of the past year. Plus some of the turds.

In the interest of transparency, I’ll be including the statistics that aren’t usually public, so you can see exactly how many people are reading these posts, and whether anyone is actually clicking that little “Subscribe” button.

As I was researching this piece, I was often surprised by which posts connected with readers—and which completely whiffed. It’s helped me get a little more big-picture insight into what kind of writing works on the internet, what flopped, and what we can learn. Let’s dive right in!

My Most-Viewed Post Of 2025

The stats: 9 new subscribers / 6.27k views / 32% opened

What it was about: Screens are winning the war for kids’ attention, leading to a decline in reading among young people. But there are other factors at play. This post looks at what else is impacting children’s reading habits—and what we might be able to do to reverse the decline.

Why it worked: Every parent wants their kid to read. Even if you don’t have kids, this is a topic that’s crucial for the future of humanity. In other words, it’s Big and Important and Relatable and Clickable. Plus there are some funny fake tweets about Matt Lauer and Logan Paul.

Quote:

This is bad news for parents who want their children to develop an appreciation for the value of books. And for schools trying to educate kids. And for the world. Because a generation that doesn’t read is a generation less equipped to imagine, empathize, or think critically. But most importantly, it’s bad for me. I’m trying to sell books here!

The Least-Viewed Post of 2025

The stats: 1 new subscriber / 371 views / 51% opened

What it was about: The one pokes fun at biohacker Bryan Johnson, whose quest for immortality involves injecting himself with his teenage son’s blood plasma, eating dinner at 11 AM and measuring his own urination speed.

Why it didn’t work: There isn’t a strong hook in this post. Nothing personal. No important insights. Unless you have an interest in this insane longevity freak, you’re probably not super compelled to click. Also, just on a practical level, this was one of my earliest posts, so there were far fewer subscribers as a whole.

Additional note: Even though the number of views is much lower, the open rate (51%) is significantly higher than that of the previous one (32%). How is this possible? If a higher proportion of people were opening my newsletter, why is the view count so much smaller?

It all comes down to the overall number of subscribers. “How To Live Forever” was published on January 20, 2025. At that time, I had 268 total subscribers. This newsletter has grown a lot since then. By the time “Why Isn’t Your Kid Reading Anymore” hit your inbox, Mistakes Were Made had 1,504 subscribers. Which is great. I’m happy that more people have discovered me. But a whole bunch of those people pretty much never open my emails. They subscribed on a whim and now they ignore me, just like you’re ignoring that Pottery Barn email. You really should open it soon! That great deal isn’t going to last forever!

Quote:

Obviously, Johnson is not normal. He’s a mad scientist who experiments on himself. He’s Dr. Frankenstein and the monster. He’s like if Edward from Twilight had a weird uncle. Edward would be all, “Yeah, I’m a hundred-year-old vampire who goes out with a teenager and sparkles in the sunlight. But Uncle Bryan? He’s a bit much.”

The One That Stirred Up The Most Controversy

The stats: 3 new subscribers / 3.96k views / 49% opened

What it was about: Last year, my wife and I bought a Tesla. A few months after our purchase, Elon Musk started campaigning for some guy named Donald Trump (ever heard of him?), which turned our car into a political statement on wheels. Not fun.

Why it got people talking: Why do you think? This was at the height of the Musk-Trump bromance, and everybody had an opinion.

Quote:

I have my political opinions, but I’d rather not make a whole thing about them. Except that, when I’m driving around in my Elonmobile, I’m making a political statement, whether I want to or not.

Deep Cut You Might’ve Missed

The stats: 8 new subscribers / 647 views / 54% opened

What it was about: It’s right there in the title. I tried to take my two young kids for a walk and things immediately went off the rails. This one didn’t step on any political landmines or offer insights into bigger cultural issues. It was just a funny story that ends when my 3-year-old takes a poop at the playground.

Why you might’ve missed it: The post was published on January 28, 2025—less than a month after the launch of Mistakes Were Made. Many of you may not have discovered this newsletter yet. If that’s the case, now’s your chance to open up the archive and catch up on some classic Lee Bacon content.

Quote:

My kids peer up at me with canny expressions. They think I’m trying to manipulate them. Because I am trying to manipulate them. That’s like 75% of parenting. Mind-games and manipulation tactics.

What Have We Learned From All This?

As I was looking back at the year, it was totally fascinating to see which posts people opened and which they ignored, what prompted the most comments, what got the fewest likes. Along the way, a few things became clear:

• The posts that work best blend personal stories with larger cultural insights. “Why Your Kid Isn’t Reading Anymore” is a perfect example. This is something lots of people care about, and as a kids’ book author, I also have a very deep personal connection with the topic.

• People want the juicy details. Two of my most popular posts were “This Is What Happens When You Go Viral” and “This Is What Happens When You Sell Your Book To Hollywood.” Both posts offer a behind-the-scenes glimpse at experiences that are (A) familiar, but also (B) rare. We’ve all seen viral content on the internet, but what’s it like when someone’s going through that? We’ve all seen big Hollywood movies. But what’s it like when your own book is thrown into that weird world? These posts were able to offer those unique insights.

• It’s impossible to predict this stuff. A couple of months ago, I published a post entitled “Should I Just Write A Romantasy?” Before it came out, I thought to myself, “Get ready, Lee. This is it. The post that’s going to make you a Substack celebrity. You’re finally going to buy that yacht you’ve always wanted.” It seemed to perfectly capture the formula I mentioned above: A story that was both (A) personal and (B) about a topic people care about—in this case, romantasy novels, which are basically the only books people are buying right now. Should be a hit, right? WRONG! This post tanked. Just absolutely landed with an empty thud. And I still don’t totally understand why. My best guess is: Although horny dragon books sell like crazy, my audience is just too sophisticated for such mainstream foolishness.

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So there you have it. My biggest hits. My most humiliating flops. The year 2025 in a nutshell, at least as it concerns this newsletter. Which, let’s be honest, was the most important thing happening in the year 2025.

Thanks to all of you for reading. I’m looking forward to lots more fun in 2026. And don’t forget...

That Pottery Barn email is still waiting in your inbox.

See you again soon!

Lee

Are you looking for a holiday gift for a young person in your life? If so, I can recommend a gripping and hilarious children’s book by one of my favorite authors. ME!!! In addition to this newsletter, I also write novels for young people. I’ve written about supervillains, imaginary friends, monsters, and robots. Find out more on Amazon or by checking out my website.

You’ve probably never heard of my famous friend. He’s not LeBron James or Taylor Swift, so settle down everyone. His fame is specific to the world of children’s books. A world I inhabit too. If you have kids, you may have seen his books. Or listened to his popular podcast. Or watched the Netflix show that was adapted from his work. He’s that kind of famous. A big deal in a small niche.

Which just happens to also be my niche.

I’m far less famous inside our shared circle. While my books have done very well over the years, they’ve never hit the New York Times Bestseller List.

Meanwhile, my famous friend has made the list. Multiple times. I’ve won some awards along the way, but nothing as big or prestigious as the ones that’ve been bestowed upon my famous friend. He’s gotten the kind of award that earns a pretty silver seal on the cover of his book.

My famous friend is down to earth, generous, and supportive of those around him. He’s a genuinely good guy.

And I hate him.

Wait, that came out wrong. I don’t hate him. I hate his success. He has something I want. And to quote my 4-year-old daughter, “IT NOT FAAAAIIIIRR!” But instead of collapsing into tears because my sister has a random stuffed animal I didn’t care about until five seconds ago, I’m getting upset about a post on social media: My famous friend, up on stage, delivering a keynote to a huge crowd of adoring fans.

How come he’s up on that stage, receiving applause and accolades, selling tons of copies of his latest book, while I’m lying on the couch in my sweatpants, swiping my phone and trying not to get too much Dorito dust on the screen? IT NOT FAAAAAAIIIIRRR!

I’m not going to tell you the name of my famous friend because it doesn’t matter. If it weren’t him, it’d be someone else. There’s always going to be someone who’s achieved more, gotten farther, gained greater recognition.

In other words: It’s not him. It’s me.

The funny thing is: My famous friend has his own famous friend. A fellow author whose success outshines his own. Someone with a bigger platform and better sales numbers. And that person’s fame is dwarfed by someone even more accomplished. No matter how much money you’ve made or how many followers you have in the kids’ book world, there’s always going to be someone above you on the ladder of success. At least until you arrive at J.K. Rowling. And she’s busy dealing with other issues.

From a rational standpoint, I understand all this. But from a human standpoint, there’s still this toxic burst of resentment that activates whenever someone else gets something I want.

It’s a story as old as time. Cain and Abel. Iago and Othello. This guy.

And it’s not just people. The animal kingdom is a soap opera of jealous feuds and toxic love triangles. When an emperor penguin tries to steal a mate from another penguin, the scene quickly turns into WWE on ice. I’m talking penguin-on-penguin flipper fights. Which, I’m not gonna lie, sounds pretty cute.

What sounds less cute is a chimpanzee’s approach to conflict resolution. Jealousy can result in violent screeching and angry attacks. They’ve also been known to urinate on themselves, and others. So next time you’re at the zoo and the chimps get riled up, maybe take a step back. Unless you want monkey pee all over that new sweater of yours.

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Wait. Why did I start talking about monkey pee?

Oh right. Jealousy.

It’s something we all experience. Whether it’s a coworker getting the promotion, or the neighbor pulling into his driveway in a brand new Porsche, or a penguin coming along and stealing your girlfriend—everyone has felt the toxic pull of jealousy. But how do we handle it? How do we deal with resentment—ideally without urinating all over ourselves and everyone around us?

Here’s what I try to remember:

• Success isn’t a zero-sum game. In a highly competitive landscape, a scarcity mindset kicks in. The feeling that there’s not enough to go around. As if something gained by Person A = something lost by Person B. But your famous friend’s success doesn’t take anything from you. In fact, it’s usually the opposite. If they do well, they’re better positioned to help those around them. Including you. Don’t forget: All boats rise together.

• Reframe the narrative. Instead of “They have what I want,” try “Their success shows me what’s possible.” Your famous friend doesn’t have to be a repository for all your inadequacies. They can also be a blueprint. A map that points in the direction of your own goals. Look to them for inspiration instead of resentment.

• Take a step back from social media. Everyone on Instagram is glamorous. Everyone on TikTok is a viral sensation. Everyone on LinkedIn runs a hugely successful business that’s definitely not a pyramid scheme. This is the vibe on social media. The rest of the world is thriving, and you’re not. But social media isn’t the real world. It’s a highly airbrushed, extremely curated, carefully staged highlight reel. When you see your famous friend online, you’re only seeing the brightest, shiniest moments. All the other stuff—the dull, dreary, depressing stuff—lands on the cutting room floor.

There will always be some part of me that wants to screech with rage when someone else gets something I want. But I’m trying to be a better person. And to remember: When you unleash a torrent of urine in a fit of violent jealousy, you just end up peeing all over yourself.

I hope you’ll carry these poignant words with you as you go about your day. Thank you for tuning in for another edition of Mistakes Were Made. I’ll see you next week!

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The most famous example is E.L. James, who turned her erotic Twilight fan fiction into Fifty Shades Of Grey. She went on to sell 150 million copies worldwide, whipping up a frenzy in the publishing world.

But for every millionaire, there are untold numbers of self-published titles that go ignored, sinking in an ocean of competition and AI-generated slop. The odds of making a fortune in self-publishing are vanishingly small. But it does happen.

And maybe it would happen for me.

Early in 2025, I decided to take the plunge, leaping head-first into the choppy waters of self-publishing.

I didn’t go in blindly. I studied up beforehand, joining Facebook groups, slogging through blogs, and subjecting myself to the peppy promises of YouTube experts. I searched for cover illustrators and auditioned audiobook narrators. I spent untold hours exploring Amazon’s KDP (Kindle Direct Publishing) platform.

Even after all that preparation, I felt woefully unready. But I published my book anyway: A middle grade novel about a group of monsters who meet in a super-secret government facility known as Area 52, then go on to save the world from an alien invasion.

It’s possible to self-publish your book for zero dollars. You can steer clear of freelance editors or designers, slap on an AI-generated cover, and—boom!—you’ve got yourself a book.

But if I was going to attach my name to something, I felt a responsibility to release a book that would look as close as possible to something you’d see from a traditional publisher. I also wanted to release an audiobook and to promote the books with Amazon ads. All these things cost money.

But how much money? And did it pay off in the end? Am I raking in the cash like E.L. James? Or did I have to tap into my kids’ college fund to pay for my costly misadventure?

Let’s find out!

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Are you looking for a holiday gift for a young person in your life? If so, I can recommend a gripping and hilarious children’s book by one of my favorite authors. ME!!! In addition to this newsletter, I also write novels for young people. I’ve written about supervillains, imaginary friends, monsters, and robots. Find out more on Amazon or by checking out my website.

The final season of Stranger Things premieres on Thursday. Not the whole final season. Unlike its usual strategy (dumping the entire season at once), Netflix is really milking this thing, spreading out the fifth season into three separate batches, spanning three separate holidays: Thanksgiving (4 episodes), Christmas (3 episodes), and New Year’s (the finale). I can appreciate this strategy. It gives audiences multiple opportunities to enjoy the hit series while also avoiding their loved ones.

The lifespan of Stranger Things has been...well...strange. It came out of nowhere and became a monster hit, turning its cast into celebrities and churning out mountains of merch.

When it debuted nearly ten years ago, nobody expected Stranger Things to turn into a cultural sensation. While there’ve been hits over the years, no other Netflix show has had the same lasting impact, and most have been utterly forgotten by time.

Why did Stranger Things succeed when obvious masterpieces like Haters Back Off didn’t? Well, first of all...

There aren’t any capes or CGI animals

I tried to think back to the year 2016, but at this point, it’s all a Trump-shaped blur. I couldn’t recall whether our culture had already been swallowed by Big IP at the time of the show’s release, so I asked the internet for a list of the top-grossing movies of 2016. Here they are:

1. Captain America: Civil War

2. Rogue One: A Star Wars Story

3. Finding Dory

4. Zootopia

5. The Jungle Book

6. The Secret Life of Pets

7. Batman v Superman: Dawn of Justice

8. Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them

9. Deadpool

10. Suicide Squad

Looking over this list, two things stand out:

1. Only two of these movies are original. The rest are reboots, sequels, or IP.

2. What’s with all the freaking animal movies? Finding Dory, Zootopia, The Jungle Book, The Secret Life of Pets. If we throw in Fantastic Beasts (sure, why not?) fully half of the top ten feature furry or finned creatures. I vaguely remember some other stuff happening in 2016 (again—there’s that Trump blur), but I’m taking a stand, here and now: 2016 was The Year Of The Animal.

Wait. What was I talking about? Stranger Things. Right. In this forest of the familiar, the show stood out. And yet...

Even though it was original, it wasn’t TOO original

Stranger Things wasn’t based on familiar IP, but it felt familiar. Drawing on eighties nostalgia, the show blended the DNA of the eighties’ favorite Steves (Spielberg and King) to create something that tapped deep into the neural pleasure centers of a certain kind of viewer.

And that viewer was this guy.

I can’t name the last three shows I watched on Netflix—although I have a vague memory of attractive dummies drinking exclusively from golden goblets—and yet, the day I discovered Stranger Things remains fixed in my memory. It was a Friday, and because (A) I’d finished my writing for the day and (B) I didn’t have children yet, I went down to the basement where we had our TV. With the carefree abandon only the childless can have, I plopped down on the couch and clicked over to Netflix.

And there it was.

Even though I had no pre-awareness of the show, the Drew Struzan-style illustration alone was enough to trigger a fireworks display of nostalgia inside my brain. I started watching. And because I didn’t have any tiny smelly humans to look after, I kept watching. Within two days, I’d consumed it all.

I suspect this was the experience for a lot of people of my generation. This harnessing of our childhoods for maximum enjoyment. But obviously, the show didn’t merely surf on a wave of approval from crusty old Gen-Xers like me. It appealed to people of all generations. Especially youngsters, who weren’t even alive in the eighties. So obviously, it wasn’t just nostalgia. Something else was going on. Which leads us to...

Those darn kids

Did you know that Noah Schnapp, who plays Will on Stranger Things, has a YouTube channel with 4.2 million subscribers. He also co-founded a sustainably-focused snacking company and launched a delivery-only virtual restaurant brand operated by IHOP featuring a menu consisting almost entirely of chicken tenders? It probably feels like that last sentence was created with a random word generator, but all those things are true.

And that’s nothing compared to Millie Bobby Brown, who has racked up brand endorsements with top name companies like Calvin Klein, Moncler, Samsung, and Converse. She was named one of Time’s 100 most influential people, appointed the youngest ever UNICEF Goodwill Ambassador, and founded a vegan, Gen-Z focused skincare and cosmetics brand. Plus she married Bon Jovi’s son.

You’d be right to say that Stranger Things launched its young cast into the celebrity stratosphere. But it’d be just as accurate to say that these kids are a big reason why the show works. They captured the same formula (vulnerability + relatability + wish fulfillment) that Spielberg brought to films such as E.T. and Jurassic Park: Kids in peril, getting chased by scary grown-ups and otherworldly threats.

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When you first meet Millie Bobby Brown’s character Eleven, with her shaved head and her big, deer-in-the-headlights gaze, barefoot and shrouded in an oversized hospital gown, you can’t help but want to protect her. But only if you’re an adult. If you’re one of the show’s many young fans, I’m guessing you see Eleven as an embodiment of your own vulnerabilities and potential. Misunderstood. Alienated. Fostering a secret power that could make some guy’s head blow up.

But even though I loved Stranger Things when it first came out, I have zero enthusiasm for its final season. All of these elements I mentioned above—the things that made it special—the originality, the familiarity, and the cute kids...all those things have vanished into the Upside Down.

Let’s work our way backwards.

Those darn kids? Yeah, they’re all grown up now.

The core cast of youngsters are all in their early twenties now. In those first episodes, they were squeaky-voiced adolescents. Now they’re old enough to buy a six pack and get locked out of the job market.

The familiar elements are no longer there

The first season had a fun, loose Goonies vibe. Nerdy kids hanging out, biking around town, occasionally getting chased by monsters. But have you seen the trailer for season five? The whole thing looks like a giant budget action movie, full of green-screen backdrops and expensive special effects. It’s less Goonies and more Marvel. And, hey. I get it. The show needs to evolve. But this also means that the elements that drew me (and lots of others) to Stranger Things have morphed into something almost unrecognizable.

It’s become pre-branded IP

Part of the appeal of this show was that we’d never heard of it before. In a landscape dominated by reboots and comic book franchises (not to mention all that animal content from 2016), Stranger Things was refreshingly new and original. And now?

Now we have Stranger Things: The Experience, a traveling immersive mini-theme park with rides and escape rooms. Now a prequel stage play (Stranger Things: The First Shadow) has opened on the West End and Broadway. Now there are official Halloween costumes and global immersive promotional stunts and, according to the internet, “a limited-edition collaboration between Kellogg’s and Stranger Things that features syrup-flavored, waffle-shaped pieces and Upside Down-themed marshmallows.” Yum!

I don’t blame Stranger Things and Netflix for cashing in on the global enthusiasm. If someone offered to develop this newsletter into Mistakes Were Made: The Musical, I’d say yes in a heartbeat. (Are you listening, Broadway?) Nor can you criticize the cute kids for growing up and becoming media-savvy adults who get married and start business that sell virtual chicken tenders, or something. The show was once overlooked and underestimated, like a group of misfits playing Dungeons & Dragons in a basement, and now, it’s become the popular jock everyone loves.

Does all this mean I’ll be skipping the final season? Whoa, whoa, whoa! Let’s not go that far. While I’m not enthusiastic, I’ve stuck with this show from the beginning, and I want to find out how it ends. And so, while my family is gathered around for Thanksgiving dinner, I plan to be in front of the TV, hunched over a heaping bowl of limited-edition Demagorgon Crunch, watching Stranger Things.

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Happy Thanksgiving, everyone! And happy Stranger Things Season Five to those who celebrate.

I’ll see you next week!

Lee