Tim (TJ) LaFave Jr

HITTING THE GROUND CRAWLING

When I began college at IIT (Illinois Tech) @illinoistech.bsky.social, I arrived already three semesters behind.

🎧 LISTEN to an excerpt below

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Curiously, I just found an old boombox of mine in the basement a few hrs ago. Plugged it in. Soon will be digging into my CD collection to annoy some 20-somethings.

Sadly, I gave up my 500+ cassette collection (TY Columbia House) to a couple a decade ago to help with baby adoption expenses.
💿

YouTube video by Bruce Springsteen Bruce Springsteen - Streets Of Minneapolis (Official Audio)

I wrote this song on Saturday, recorded it yesterday and released it to you today in response to the state terror being visited on the city of Minneapolis. It’s dedicated to the people of Minneapolis, our innocent immigrant neighbors and in memory of Alex Pretti and Renee Good.

Stay free

Arriving in Chicago for college in 1992, my parents took a wrong turn on the southside.

I learned more about my parents from their reactions.

We arrived at Illinois Tech--my home for the next four years.

Subscribe at somethingaboutcoffee.substack.com/p/arrival

#writing #writingcommunity #booksky

First City

Leaving everything you know and realizing distance isn’t measured in miles.

Backseat.

Highway.

A city rises where the future begins to feel real.

The opening of
Clarity: Emergent Phenomenon
→ somethingaboutcoffee.substack.com

#memoir
#prose
#autobiography
#college
#writing

Keep speaking up. Keep informing others and spreading the word about this abusive white house regime. You've got my support and the support of the nation when you speak up against all this abuse. This horror show. This white supremacist Nazi circus.

No one thinks anything you have to say any more is credible. You've lost. And the rest of us are going to be sure it stays that way. That's the American way. Hate always loses here. That's how our history has unfolded. Today isn't any different.

Continued. . .

Many of you STILL are doing those Olympics level mental gymnastics to defend ICE and Trump's policies even going so far as to say that Americans shouldn't be carrying guns to peaceful protests while you supported and defended so many other Americans who did EXACTLY that.

Continued. . .

. . . most expensive anti-American propaganda campaigns in history. You fell for all of it. And now you're seeing how abusive he planned to be all along.

Continued. . .

Anyone who is here has Constitutional rights. Trump has been denying us those rights for no other reason than because he doesn't want to go to prison for the crimes for which he was being indicted before he won reelection based on some of the biggest lies and . . .

Continued . . .

Then there are those Trump supporters who STILL have magical thinking that all this will merely blow over and they can keep hating other Americans and immigrants who are here undocumented. The US Constitution protects the rights of ALL of us. Not just American citizens.

Continued. . .

I'm losing count of how many people have found it within themselves to speak up and say this is too far, we've had enough, that they just can't continue to sit back and hope things change. Most were pro-Trump voters who somewhere along the way the last year realized they were conned.

Continued. . .

I'm genuinely proud to see even more friends, family, former classmates, and colleagues speaking up against this abusive white house administration the last couple days.

Continued . . .

#speakup #proudofyou #writing #UnitedStates #America

Zeus, who's almost four months old, loves sleeping next to me by the window as I work.

Zeus and Athena were born October 1, 2025.

#cats #Catsky

I've been having MOMENTS OF CLARITY about my life and writing them down online as a scaffold of my autobiography.

I'm on my way to college.

Have a listen to Moment 312: First City.

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#writing #writingcommunity #booksky #personalessay

The directional sign in the modern day image is poetically sound advice for all Americans.

CLARITY. My online autobiography.

Part 5: Emergent Phenomenon.

It's punchier. Sharper. Tighter. Deeper.

College begins. I left the cornfields for Chicago.

Moment 312. Appropriate.

Have a listen.
Subscribe:

somethingaboutcoffee.substack.com

#writing #writingcommunity #booksky #personalessay

As a grad student at UNCC, I lived near N Tryon/Sugaw Creek. The 'hood had many outages one year. By the time an ice storm hit, our neighborhood had power during and after. All the weak points had already been repaired.

Some rich people complained: why a dilapidated hood had power but they didn't.🤣

CLARITY. My online autobiography continues today with part 5: Emergent Phenomenon.

Have a listen to Moment 312.

somethingaboutcoffee.substack.com

#writing #writingcommunity #booksky #personalessay

On a brief break from my online autobiography, I came across some old photos I took in the late 80s, early 90s in my rural bedroom.

Have a look.

My story continues with college years in Chicago on Monday.

#booksky #writing #writingcommunity

somethingaboutcoffee.substack.com/p/peek-in-my...

The newest members of our house.

ZEUS and ATHENA were adopted tonight and they're acclimating beautifully.

About 3.5 months old.

This video was within minutes of their arrival after a 30 min car rise.

We played with them for a couple hours.

#cats #catsofbluesky #kittens #10lives #petadoption

Glad I'm not the only one exceptionally parched by lackluster Democratic messaging.

However, if he hit hard and true, he'd have to provide evidence--a standard to which Republicans are never held.

When he provides the evidence, as he undoubtedly could, those who need it will baselessly dismiss it.

Glad he explicitly explained it for the many who didn't understand what Mark Kelly and others meant.

DUE PROCESS distinguishes her fom this white house.
.
DUE PROCESS means she had a moral high ground compared to the moron. It was more of a moral space elevator compared to the blathering racist, domestic terrorist, convicted felon, and pedophile.
... But continue defending the moral bowels of Hell.

If anyone is keeping a printed list of crimes committed by the Trump regime, you're probably on your second or third set of toner cartridges.

How's your paper budget looking?

You good?

If anyone is keeping a printed list of crimes committed by the Trump regime, you're probably on your second or third set of toner cartridges.

How's your paper budget looking?

You good?

Nice.

App?

I'd use PPT for something like this. I hate wasting time.

Iran has self-declared "war" against the US for decades.

Haven't we now set a precedent allowing Iran to kidnap the Trumps and try them in an Islamic court of Iranian Law?

Bondi said Maduro would “soon face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts."

When can we expect Trump to "face the full wrath of American justice on American soil in American courts” for his crimes against the US on January 6 2021 and his other crimes?