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Three straight white guys walk into a poetry reading ...



I was on Facebook one day when I happened to see an event schedule for the super-woke nonprofit Literary Arts Bookstore we have here in Portland.

I looked through the store's calendar. Most of the events were what you would expect: a young woman presenting her trauma memoir, a BIPOC reading night, a Chinese woman’s immigration story, a female brain surgeon’s journey through the sexist medical field ...

All three of them knew exactly what they were allowed to write about. And they stayed inside those bounds.

Then I saw something strange. It was an event that featured three young white guys.

You don’t see a lot of literary readings by white guys in Portland. Or anywhere else. We’ve been at a low ebb of white guys in any kind of literary undertaking in recent years, unless they have written a book about their own toxicity or are revealing the secrets of the patriarchy.

Maybe they were gay, or trans, or of some unusual ethnicity. Maybe they claimed to be Native American, like Elizabeth Warren.

But their descriptions didn’t include any of those things. They were just three normal-looking white guys. They were poets.

But that couldn’t be right. There had to be a catch.

The good, the bad, and the certified

Reading through the listing, I saw they had a lot of credentials. That made sense. You couldn’t just have three white guys reading poetry, unless they were seriously vetted and certified.

All three of them had master’s degrees in the fine arts. One guy had a Ph.D. They had all won various poetry prizes. They had received poetry fellowships. They had held prestigious teaching positions. They were associate editors of important journals.

In short, they had jumped through every hoop, subjugated themselves in every way, to be accepted into the woke academic poetry community — which typically hates people like them.

Eyewitness to the improbable

Of course I went to the reading. I wasn’t going to miss this. And anyway, I still assumed there was some angle. Some extenuating circumstance.

I arrived and took a seat. There were a lot of people there. Were the other attendees thinking what I was thinking? How did these guys get this gig?

They were all young and good-looking. That probably helped. The first guy was from Los Angeles. His poetry was about his difficult childhood under his football-coach father. Now he had a son of his own, which he had complicated feelings about.

The next guy looked like he might be gay. But he too had a son. And a wife. And a house, apparently. He was smartly dressed and very personable. He looked like a young literature professor, back before such jobs became contentious and problematic.

The last guy was younger than the other two. He did interesting things with poetry “on the page,” blacking out words and then crafting poems out of those that remained.

He was clearly talented, but appeared oblivious to the ill-will he no doubt generated within the poetry community — taking up space as a privileged white male, while disadvantaged bodies struggled against systemic oppression.

RELATED: 5 poems by Joseph Massey

O.W. Root

Silos

The one thing I noticed about all three of the poets: they were “siloed” in what they wrote about. They rarely addressed anything outside their immediate familial situations. Their homes. Their sons. Their fathers. Their memories of those things.

They did not write about their neighbors. Or the unrest in the streets. Or the identity politics that rule over all of us.

They had learned to stay very close to home in their writing. No politics. No social commentary. Nothing controversial. No unruly thoughts. No sex or desire or horniness. It was all extremely contained.

All three of them knew exactly what they were allowed to write about. And they stayed inside those bounds.

One small step for man

Still, they were there. They were reading in public. The Literary Arts woman who introduced them — gay, nose-ringed, POC — even made a joke about how shocked her colleagues were by their presence.

Afterward, they signed books and mingled with the public. I stayed around for that. I felt a sense of relief from the crowd and from the poets themselves. Nobody had protested their presence. Nothing bad had happened.

It seemed like white dudes were back. Within limits. And as long as they stuck to the script. And knew their place. And didn’t, you know, act too much like men.

EXCLUSIVE: A year after Charlie Kirk’s death, Sabo’s 'controversial' tribute finally goes on display



One year after the murder of Charlie Kirk, the VFW in Denver has allowed me to hang the art that I created in tribute to him.

I’d presented it four months ago, but it was suggested that the story was too hot, that not enough time has passed for people to be comfortable with the content. I could have pulled the old line, “I thought that was the whole point of art, to challenge people,” but even I could appreciate their trepidation, especially in a city as captured by liberal dogma as Denver.

I learned a while back that when a liberal says that art should never be censored, what they really mean is art that they agree with should never be censored.

A year has passed since the murder, and we've heard just about every conspiracy theory you could imagine: exploding mics, palm guns, a bullet fired from a drone, it was Israelis, it was the FBI, it was his wife.

Nonetheless, it was determined last month that the case against the official suspect will be going to trial. Without a doubt, it will be the most watched legal proceeding since OJ’s. This art will be on display in October on First Friday in Denver. I hope that you’re able to see it.

Over the target

As with the COVID art I revisited this summer, I dedicated a good amount of time to getting the pieces together, all the while with an increasing sense of dread that my time — the last thing I have to waste — would be in vain: There was no way in hell the VFW was going to allow me to hang the work.

Ever since I’ve been showing art in Denver, my website has been getting hacked, making it difficult for me to be able to support my family. As much as it sucks, these attacks remind me of the saying, “You take flak when you’re over the target.” In other words, I must be doing something right.

In light of what happened to Charlie for standing up for his beliefs, getting a site hacked and losing a couple of bucks pales in comparison. Don’t get me wrong — it's not that these people don't want the worst for me. If my wife and I ended up living under a bridge, they would laugh and throw things at us as they drove past. It’s sobering to realize how joyfully some people embrace hate. I may not be Charlie Kirk, but I am certainly closer to him than our self-proclaimed enemies.

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Violent reactions

I put these Charlie Kirk pieces on the streets not long after Charlie’s murder. The tattered, textured look is meant to represent the violent reactions that he inspired from those who disagreed with his views, as well as how often my street art is ripped down just as quickly as it’s put up. I put my posters up at night and never wait for better light to document them, aware that they may be torn down before the sun comes up.

I learned a while back that when a liberal says that art should never be censored, what they really mean is art that they agree with should never be censored. Everything else is fair game, and as Charlie learned, no tactic to silence someone is off limits.

I also decided to include my Iryna Zarutska pieces; perhaps these would make the cut even if the Charlie pieces proved too much. Who was I kidding? I thought, as my anxiety increased. This series is even more brutal.

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Screaming 'stop!'

Taking over a stop sign is not as simple as it looks. I’ve seen many half-hearted attempts at repurposing one. My approach is to not add a single word to the piece. I want the art that I add to scream, “STOP!!!” The art should belong on that sign. I think I pulled it off with her murderer half a second from plunging that knife into her neck. I want everyone who views this piece to scream that one word in their head. Included are photos taken from the street hit in Hollywood. One piece boldly and purposefully includes the name IRYNA ZARUTSKA so there is no question as to who this person is. Everyone who views these pieces will say her name, even if just in their thoughts.

I CAN’T BREATHE! I’ll admit to the art being cluttered. The pieces should have more room to breathe. I was so surprised and blown away at being allowed to show these pieces, from both series, that I took the opportunity to throw as much of it up as I could, fearing I'd never get such an opportunity again. But if all goes well, next month I’ll curate the display to include only the Charlie Kirk pieces, some of which are absent. The month after that, I intend to reshow the Iryna pieces, also including those photos I didn’t have room for this time around.

RELATED: Sabo returns to Denver — this time with Jeffrey Epstein hanging on the wall

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The small “ALL LIVES MATTER” piece is a deliberate reminder of this truth. I mean to provoke those who cheered the murder of Charlie because he did not agree with them and dismissed the murder of Iryna simply because she was white and her murderer was black. This is what I mean when I include the word “DOGMA” in the Charlie Kirk piece. What good is art if it only confirms what you already believe?

Never AI. Always reality. Only film: The 6-word promise that's building a worldwide community.



What is real?

I know that sounds like I'm trying to "blow your mind, man." But I don't mean it in some kind of hippy-dippy, dorm-room philosophizing kind of way.

They want a place where they know they'll be seeing the world as it is, where they can drop their defenses against being fooled.

In 2026, "What is real?" is a very pressing question.

Won't get fooled again

If you've spent any time on X, Instagram, or Facebook, you've probably gotten used to thinking about reality. Namely when coming across the countless AI-generated photos and videos flooding your timeline.

Some, of course, are obviously fake. A penguin shaking hands with a polar bear on a dock while a moose looks on from a sailboat? Most likely AI. But with others it's not so easy.

Take that photo of the beautiful sunrise over those shining snow-covered mountains. Looks real ... but it isn't. Neither is that perfectly convincing woman talking about the scheduling app that helped her organize her life.

Unless you are exceedingly discerning, you've probably been fooled by AI, even if just for a few seconds. You shouldn't feel bad, and you shouldn't feel like a dupe, even though you probably do. We weren't made for this world of images that look 99.99999% real but are 0% so. What in our past would have ever prepared us for this world? Seeing is believing? That may have been true once upon a time, but no more.

Shutter island

There are a lot of implications here for society. How do we live in a half reality, half anti-reality world? How do we organize a society around truth when the truth is constantly muddied by false images and videos? How do we even talk to each other if we can't reach a consensus on what's in front of us? These are big questions without clear answers.

But on a smaller, more granular, human level, I think something interesting is happening: People find themselves aching for more truth, more reality. Not everyone, of course. Some are going full steam into the Kafkaesque world of reality-nihilism. But others see the trap, the chaos, and the shallow ugliness of anti-reality.

Earlier this year, I started a project by the name of Film 20. Essentially, it’s a place of pure reality in the form of film photography. It’s an archive of photos from real people and real places all around the world. No iPhone photos are allowed, no digital photos from DSLRs either. Only film; only reality.

RELATED: The Kids Are Outside

O.W. Root

Reality hunger

At first, our followers were mostly film photographers and film aficionados. But an interesting thing happened in the past few months. The account blew up in a substantial way. There are now nearly 29,000 people following Film 20, an account dedicated to documenting reality through the eyes of film photographers.

Those 29,000 people aren't all photographers, though some are — our DMs are flooded with submissions from wonderful photographers from all over. They aren't just following for the nice photos either. I know because the primary sources of growth have been derived from posts underscoring the purpose of Film 20.

"Never AI. Always reality. Only film."

People — 29,000 people — want a feed of reality and only reality. They want a place where they know they'll be seeing the world as it is, where they can drop their defenses against being fooled.

Cultivating authenticity

I know that everyone doesn't have this same kind of yearning for reality. I understand that these 29,000 are not representative of the general population in 2026. But I don't think this desire is going away, and I don't think the awareness of the shallow falseness of digital AI imagery is a short-term blip. The further we move into the AI world, the stronger this yearning for reality will be.

The bleed of fake video and imagery into every corner of our digital world will continue for the foreseeable future. It will be annoying. Next year you will only see more fake videos than the last.

So whether it is film photography, live music, local food, or real people with real emotions, the future of reality is one that will need to be cultivated and earnestly sought out. Just like we try to eat healthy and read good books, we will need to consciously make the choices that lead us toward reality in every way we can.

Reality is good for the body, mind, and soul.

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A Catholic company was using AI — but a message from the pope made the company change course



A Catholic company with an "extremely popular" product said it has decided turn away from using artificial intelligence, no matter the cost.

A well-known Catholic retailer called the Little Catholic Box said the company's decision to use AI received passionate opposition from its consumer base.

'AI can be a valuable tool that requires vigilance.'

The company took out a Facebook ad on Tuesday that discussed its extremely popular Saint Trading Cards and said they "were prototyped using AI."

After using AI-generated images for the cards, the company's leaders said the backlash inspired them to do more research and even reach out to real, human artists for their input.

However, what truly seemed to change the company's mind was words from the pope on AI and the direction of humanity in the face of emerging technologies.

Referring to the pope's May 15 encyclical entitled "Magnifica Humanitas," Little Catholic Box wrote that while "AI can be a valuable tool that requires vigilance" it can "never replace the human person."

From that point forward, the company decided not to use AI for its art and vowed to start commissioning original art from "human artists."

In the face of a longer timeline and higher costs, the leaders of the Catholic company — founded by parents of seven — said they believed the change would actually result in a better product and "stronger Catholic community overall."

RELATED: A real nation knows who is in and who is out

AI-generated art previously used by the Little Catholic Box. Image courtesy the Little Catholic Box

Pope Leo XIV's letter thoroughly discussed the rapid increase and digitalization of the world through AI and robotics. However, he left room for grace, even for AI, and said technology should not be considered, "in itself, as a force antagonistic to humanity."

"On the contrary, it has formed part of our history since the beginning as 'a profoundly human reality, linked to the autonomy and freedom of man,'" he added.

The pope stressed being "profoundly human" in an era of AI and called on Catholics to "safeguard the grandeur of humanity bestowed upon us."

"Let us not be afraid to get our hands dirty," Leo continued, "on the 'construction site' of our time."

This included placing the human person "at the center of our choices," while making the "rejected stones" of society the cornerstone, which he listed as including "the poor, the sick, the migrants, and the least among us."

RELATED: Brazil sends off its World Cup team in the most Catholic way possible

Human-created art now used by the Little Catholic Box. Image courtesy the Little Catholic Box

The Little Catholic Box said the company is still going to sell through its original set of AI works, but has now paid out human artist commissions for the new products.

"We feel really good about the direction these products are headed, but it honestly bothers us that Set 1 is still for sale," the company claimed.

In a comment to Blaze News, owner Greg Johnson said AI was initially used to generate images of the saints because the company "believed it was the fastest and cheapest way to bring them into existence with extremely limited resources."

Johnson said they immediately discovered that a large segment of their market was "adamantly opposed to the use of AI" for this purpose, and when further research was conducted into AI ethics, they "concluded that we could no longer use it."

"While our initial decision to use AI seemed to make sense at the time, we did not fully understand how its use would alienate a significant portion of our audience, some of whom we will never win back," he added.

At first, Johnson also explained, he did not fully understand the arguments against the use of AI around sacred images.

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