The Affectionate Display
“Greg Swann has insights into emotion on levels that really make you think. He can pluck that one annoying gray hair with pinpoint accuracy. He is a philosopher of sorts and he says and does what philosophers do. He shakes you to the bone, bumps your cup and lets you see what spills out. You see what you see and he sees what he sees. I’ll bet they are dramatically similar and extraordinarily different.” –Jeff PriceMy favorite job title is Poet. Why? No license, no union, no credentialism. If you can learn, you will. If you can't, you won't waste my time. I grow regardless.
I’m not like you. That’s why you should listen to me. I’m in an empathy of opposites with everyone: All they see are reasons to complain, when all I want to do is dance. I know why we are the way we are and how we can learn to do better with each other – making everything better.
I am fomenting a philosophical revolution that will change everything for everyone in due course. How? By finally fully redeeming Western Civilization.
You’re going to help.
Save the world from home – in your spare time!
Disintermediate the ruling class: Read the free book that tells you how to do it.
Disintermediation means cutting out the middle-man, and, by teaching you a new way of thinking about human nature and about your own unique self, the free book Man Alive! puts you in charge of your own philosophical affairs.
The book's objectives are precise and concise: To take the claim of justice away from the state, the mantle of intellectual authority away from the academy and the experience of reverence away from the church. It puts all of those things back where they belong — in your mind. There is no middle-man on truth.
Jihad Watch
- For sane Muslims:
- For the other kind:
- For the rest of us:
More by Greg Swann
FREE Willie
A 100% FREE collection of some of the best of the Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie stories. You will want to read all of my books, but here is a cost-free way to get started.Buy my books at Amazon.com
Dusty
An elegy of hope and love.
Kindle
Traindancing
Bedtime stories for your inner child from The Mall of Misfit Families.
Kindle
Las Vegas Redemption
Pastor Trey Coyle and the reincarnation of Sarno’s Ghost.
Kindle
Shyly’s delight
Work, play and love like a Labrador.
Print | Kindle
Nine empathies
Apprehending love and malice.
Print | Kindle
Father’s Day
More Married. More Husband.
More Father. More Man.
Print | Kindle
Loving Cathleen
A Love To Live Up To
Print | Kindle
Sun City
Loved ones die. Life goes on.
Print | Kindle
Losing Slowly
How Las Vegas lost its mojo – and how to get it back
Print | Kindle
Christmas at the speed of life...
Ramblin' Gamblin' Willie's Christmas stories
Print | Kindle
The Unfallen
A love story
Print | KindleMy other writing isn't collected in one place, but here's a shopping list for finding the best of it:
- Greg Swann writes – fiction and early essays.
- PresenceOfMind.net – a weblog I maintained in the early years of the new millenium.
- BloodhoundBlog – a national real estate weblog I started and contribute to. Much of the content there will be real estate related, but everything I write is focused on the self, and this is best represented in the longer essays.
- SplendorQuest.com – a weblog devoted to celebrating the uniquely human life.
Category Archives: Willie stories
Taster’s Choice, for the richest kind of love-making in your marriage.
“True marriage is a love so big that no one else can even see it — and so big that you and your lover can’t see anything else. But it’s little things accumulating every day that make it so big, … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
A girl and her bat go shopping.
But on Saturday shopping for food is a serious business. The Saturday shoppers have one day, a couple of hours really, to do the whole job for the whole week, and they have to get everything just right. The market … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Where there’s smoke, there’s firepower.
“I take full responsibility,” said the Guidance Counselor.“She takes full responsibility,” said the Dean.A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story January 4, 1996 It was the plume of smoke that drew me, of course. A great black finger of despair pointing blame … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Reflecting His Radiance…
“We are not here to crawl. We are not here to grovel. We are not here to plead and suffer and mourn.”Socceraholic / Foter.com / CC BY-NC A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story “Imagine yourself larger,” said His Radiance. Stopped me … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
The police making war on the taxpayers: “I cannot think of a worse place to pick a fight.”
“Don’t you see? You are the bad guy. You are the only person in this whole town that I need protection from. You are making war on this community with your behavior. You are the enemy to the peace. The … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Putting the independence back in Independence Day: “When you chase a kitten away…”
“When a kitten jumps up into your lap, it’s like a smile from the gods, isn’t it? The kitten can’t speak, but if she could, she would say, ‘This is what you needed most. Now your life is perfect!’ And … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Putting the independence back in Independence Day: Love among the nerds.
They took one of those meandering little tarmac paths that lead down to the lake where the Swan Boats are. If I hadn’t guessed their intentions, I would have known by that alone: they were headed into a place of … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Remembering everyday heroes in a world at war with heroism.
“When a job comes along that only a man can do, the world rediscovers what it loves about men.”A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story May 26, 2013 “You think it’ll go away someday, but it never does.” The Master Sergeant said … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Reunion.
They stood looking at each other, the boy and the man, and neither knew quite what to do. They didn’t hug, they didn’t even shake hands, and neither of them could decide where to fix their eyes. Finally Tim’s father … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Feeling lucky in Las Vegas? That’s the kind of optimism that built this town.
“I got that beat,” said The Stickman. “We had this Barney, nothing but purple chips, and he would not come off of hard-eight. Lose, lose, lose, bitch, bitch, bitch, but he just keeps coming back at it. He goes, ‘I … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
How a simply gorgeous woman took the prize at The World Series of Poker.
“It’s funny, isn’t it?” I said that, without quite making eye contact with her. “Over on The Strip, all the single women are wandering around the casinos and the clubs looking for guys. And over here, all the guys are … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Scouring the streets of Sin City looking for the itinerant raconteur of my youth.
The view from my fleabag.A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story Let’s hit the road, toads. Home loves me, and, surprisingly enough, I love it, but I’ve been chained to a dog for ten years, and it’s time for me to put … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Singing the death of my Nasogirl at a Sun City garden party.
Sun City is mid-century-modern suburban elegance as witnessed nowhere else. Where, snide hipsters, do you suppose the always-hipper-than-you Don Draper lives by now? Golf in the morning. The pool in the afternoon. And grilled steaks and chilled cocktails on the … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Love me, hate me, I don’t mind. I can work with anything except indifference.
“The diametrical opposite of love might be hatred, but the absence of any emotion is simply blank indifference — what you feel after all the love, even the affinity, is gone. People can feel a sort of storgic hatred, where … Continue reading →
Share the Splendor!
Mary Canary on her way to feed the pigeons.
True fact: My fellow citizens have outfitted me with the most fundamentally perfect disguise. They refuse to see me, and therefore they don’t see me. Except they do. Except they don’t want to. So they don’t, damnit!, no matter how … Continue reading →