Adam Renfro

Escape from Suck City - A desert noir serialized novel.

The Night Desk is a periodic late-night dive into ideas that linger long after the day ends.

Wisdom After Dark

"The only way to deal with an unfree world is to become so absolutely free that your very existence is an act of rebellion."— Albert Camus

Camus, the French-Algerian philosopher and writer featured in the banner image, wrote The Rebel in 1951 when the world was still picking shrapnel out of its skin from fascism and war. He talked about defiance not as hollow outrage or empty theatrics, but as acts of creation—standing up, doing something, building something, or just flipping off the status quo. The absurdity of life, according to Camus, isn’t something you beat; it’s something you face, head-on, with a laugh and a little swagger.

Fast forward to now. Different battleground, same fight. We’re up against algorithms and digital surveillance that know us better than our parents. Then there’s the exhausting drone of same-same opinions, split neatly between echo chambers. Camus’s advice still holds: be so unapologetically yourself that the world can’t ignore it. Write the book no one asked for. Make the indie film that scares Hollywood. Heck, keep hammering away at whatever it is I’m doing right now (Dear God, please don’t be a blog). Because in a world addicted to comfort, conformity, and scrolling through infinite feeds of someone else’s life, living on your terms—your raw, imperfect, messy, human terms—is the loudest act of rebellion there is.

Digital Tremors

Here’s a curveball: archaeologists are using Stable Diffusion’s AI not to create images, but to reconstruct ancient frescos. By analyzing brushstrokes, pigments, and artistic patterns, the AI helps match scattered fragments and even predicts missing sections based on the artist’s style. Historians are taking it further—applying the same tech to analyze handwriting, spot forgeries, and track how writing evolved. I love this type of innovation: using a tool in ways no one ever intended and uncovering something remarkable.

Deep Currents

Here’s the deal: analog is making a comeback, and it’s in the form of escapism. Vinyl records, typewriters, and film cameras aren’t just retro quirks—they’re deliberate rejections of the relentless hum of the digital world. Sure, some of those vintage typewriters on eBay end up as shiny collectables on somebody’s shelf, but vinyl? That’s a different story. I had a massive record collection back in the day—dragged it through apartments, overseas moves, and finally ditched it when CDs were “the future.” Big mistake. Fast forward, and my daughter discovers the music from my era, and guess who’s back to buying the same records I swore I didn’t need anymore?

Why does it matter? Because it’s a reminder that people crave something real, something they can hold, something that doesn’t vanish with a swipe. Writers, take note: ditch the screen, pick up a pen, and feel the weight of your words again. Give your brain time to think. It doesn’t need to see that blinking cursor on your monitor. In a world of infinite scrolling, slowing down isn’t just quaint—it’s revolutionary.

Screen Time Worth Your Time

This is a movie about friendship, identity, and rolling with life’s changes. Will & Harper follows Will Ferrell and Harper Steele as they hit the road after Harper comes out as a trans woman. The two longtime friends navigate their evolving bond on a cross-country trip that’s funny, raw, and full of awkward, heartfelt moments. It’s a reminder of how messy, surprising, and beautiful real friendships can be.

Through the Lens

This poster screams mid-century 20th-Century style—big, bold lines, loud colors, and that slick Art Deco flair. And as cool at the poster’s art is, it is propaganda, plain and simple, selling the fantasy of Ceylon (Sri Lanka today) as a sun-drenched paradise where good tea practically grows itself. But the truth? It was sweat and suffering. Tamil laborers, shipped in under brutal English colonialism, worked endless hours for scraps while plantation owners got rich. That muscular godlike figure? He’s not real. The woman bending over the tea leaves? She’s the one who built the tea industry, one back-breaking day at a time. This isn’t art—it’s a postcard from a rigged system.

Writer's Underground

Outlines are great for mapping out your intentions, but once you start writing, things tend to evolve. Characters in fiction might take on unexpected traits, themes might emerge organically, or new evidence in nonfiction might push your argument in a slightly different direction. The result? Your finished draft may no longer align perfectly with your original plan. Bring in the reserve outline. A reverse outline helps you evaluate what your draft actually says versus what you intended to say.

The reverse outline forces you to confront your writing’s architecture—the invisible framework holding it all together. When you write, especially in the heat of inspiration, your ideas may flow in fits and starts. You can easily end up with a piece that feels complete but lacks cohesion. By summarizing each paragraph or section into a single sentence, you can reverse-engineer your work. This process exposes the critical structural issues, like these pitfalls:

Weak or Missing Transitions: Does one idea logically lead to the next, or are you abruptly shifting gears without signaling the change to the reader?

Redundancies: Are you circling back to the same point repeatedly without adding new depth?

Structural Gaps: Did you unintentionally skip over critical steps in your argument or story, leaving readers feeling lost or unconvinced?

Tangent Traps: Are there detours that stray from your central theme, no matter how clever they seem?

Think of the reverse outline as a diagnostic tool. It helps you identify what’s there and what’s missing.

Night Track

Leave with this night track, and until next time, keep your lamp burning and your mind wandering. The best insights often come after dark.

The Night Desk is a periodic late-night dive into ideas that linger long after the day ends.

Wisdom After Dark

"In the desert, there is no sign that says, 'Thou shalt not eat stones." —Sufi proverb, attributed to various mystic teachers

Here's why this hits different: Unlike the rigid "thou shalt nots" of organized religion, this proverb suggests that some truths are so blindingly obvious they don't need rules. The desert, harsh and unforgiving, teaches its own lessons without signposts. It's about natural consequences versus artificial restrictions —something both Sufis and modern philosophers have grappled with. In our world of endless disclaimers and warning labels, there's something refreshingly brutal about this ancient wisdom. You don't need a manual to know eating stones is a bad idea, just like you don't need an influencer to tell you what's authentic in your own life.

Bob Uecker and David Lynch on the same day? What a strange cosmic coincidence which oddly makes sense. Uecker taught me about self-deprecating humor. If you’ve not noticed, I LOVE making fun of myself. I’m my favorite target. I give myself a lot of material. And David Lynch, holy cow. What an appreciation for the weird-ass world of mystery he gave me. LOLing out loud at the thought of Major League being paired with Twin Peaks. 

Ah, 1968 and 1969—the years the world cracked open and spilled its guts onto the sidewalk. Rock music was still in its infancy, but so many songwriters saw the Vietnam War as a reflection of all the ugliness and lies that “The Man” was feeding them about freedom, patriotism, and heroism. The Stones, CCR, The Who, Crosby, Stills, Nash & Young, Zeppelin, Country Joe and Fish, and so many others took that anger and fear, and wrapped it in incredible riffs and damning lyrics. National leaders were shocked: the young generation being drafted to go die in Vietnam was protesting! In the streets! We had never protested war before! Not in the streets. Not like that.

Songs like Gimme Shelter weren’t just tunes—they were battle cries, warnings, and laments all rolled into one. It was a revolution! Songs like that, those protests, all changed the nation’s view of the war, and that helped us bring that idiocracy to an end. What a time to be alive! I mean, right now is a pretty amazing (read: scary) time, too, but ohhh … ‘68 and ‘69. All of that was on top of the assassinations of MLK Jr. and RFK Jr. two months apart in ‘68.

I hear a lot of people crying about the NCAA's transfer portal that allows athletes to move from one team to another and about NIL deals that put money in athletes' pockets. They cry and complain like this is somehow the athletes' fault.

In 2021, United Health denied nearly 39% of in-network claims (in-nework!)—more than double the national average. And while people mourn the death of the company’s CEO (“He’s a real person! He’s a father. He’s a husband.”), remember that behind every one of those claim denials is a real person, a real family, struggling to get the care they need, the care their insurance is supposed to cover. These weren’t the uninsured. These were the insured. Mothers, fathers, spouses, children—all left to suffer, and many died because of an algorithm, an email, a PDF, an attachment, and a digital signature—a cold, compassionless, calculated, and ruthlessly efficient corporate gun.

The CEO’s death is undeniably a tragedy, but what about everyone else’s deaths? Even Joseph Stalin—yes, Joseph Fucking Stalin—recognized that one death is a tragedy, but a million deaths? That’s just a statistic. That's how you're being played here. Forget the middle-class deaths. Those are just statistics. They real tragedy is just this one guy. He was just doing his job. His job was to collect your premiums and co-pays and then reject your claims. You've got pockets. Just take the money out of there.

“Stay positive!”

You know, there’s a time and place for positivity, for sure. Like when the waiter forgets your fries or your cat pukes on your shoes. But when tragedy strikes, maybe don’t serve up a plate of “positive vibes only!” Hand them a tissue and sit with them or give them space as they deal with their pain. Because pain is real, and it doesn’t go away just because you posted a quote served up by some Instagram Influencer who runs an outlet store at the Motivational Industrial Complex.

“Stay positive” is the hallmark of every wannabe life coach who thinks slapping a smiley face on a dumpster fire will make it stop burning. Poorly timed "stay positive" can be toxic optimism wrapped in a Hallmark card. It’s the emotional equivalent of putting a Band-Aid on a bullet wound and saying, “You’re good, champ!”

Grieving isn’t a glitch in the matrix—it’s part of the program. It’s what happens when your heart breaks and your brain tries to piece together the meaning of it all. But the positivity peddlers want to short-circuit your grief with empty slogans: “Don’t cry—it happened for a reason!” 

There's something very ASMR satisfying about coming home, putting on a vinyl album, and spending the evening listening to music. The experience was so much more intentional back then.