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At 25, She Owned 5 Rental Properties… and Still Managed to Learn the Hard Way That “Winning” Can Be Expensive

By Tony Hicks
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There’s a certain kind of headline that makes the internet collectively inhale through its teeth. “At 25, she owned five rental properties.” Pause. That’s the kind of sentence designed to make half the population feel like they’ve wasted their lives, and the other half open Zillow with a newfound sense of urgency and a dangerously inflated sense of competence. But then comes the twist—the part that doesn’t trend as well on social media: “…but says investing in real estate was her No. 1 money mistake.” Ah. There it is. The emotional plot twist. The financial equivalent of a rom-com where the dream guy turns out to be emotionally unavailable and deeply into crypto. And suddenly, what looked like a victory lap becomes a cautionary tale. Let’s talk about that. The Cult of Early Success We’ve created a culture that worships early financial wins like they’re divine intervention. Buy property at 23? Genius. Own multiple rentals before 30? Visionary. Use the word “portfolio” unir...
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Filibusters, Shortcuts, and the Art of Legislative Laziness: Why Even Republicans Are Side-Eyeing the SAVE America Act Strategy

By Tony Hicks
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There are few things in Washington more sacred than the illusion of principle. Not principle itself—let’s not get carried away—but the illusion of it. The Senate filibuster, that ancient relic of procedural theater, has long been treated as one of those sacred cows. Not because it always produces good outcomes (it doesn’t), but because it forces lawmakers to at least pretend they’ve thought things through. So when a GOP senator publicly calls the idea of gutting the filibuster to pass the SAVE America Act a “foolish and lazy idea,” it’s not just intra-party squabbling. It’s a rare moment where someone in the room says, “Hey, maybe bulldozing the rules every time we’re impatient isn’t the flex we think it is.” And in a city powered by impatience, that’s practically heresy. The Filibuster: Dysfunctional, Yes—But Also a Speed Bump Let’s start with the obvious: the filibuster is messy, outdated, and often abused. It has been used to stall everything from civil rights to routine appoi...
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I Bought Plants So I Could Feel Something: A Beginner’s Guide to Low-Maintenance Flowers That Won’t Immediately Judge You

By Tony Hicks
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There comes a point in every adult’s life when you stand in your kitchen, staring at a wilting bunch of grocery store flowers, and think: I could do this myself. Not because you have any actual gardening skills, but because you have optimism. Dangerous, delusional optimism. That’s how it starts. You don’t wake up one day knowing how to garden. No, you wake up one day convinced that buying soil in a bag is a personality trait. You scroll past a few “Plant Mom” TikToks, see someone misting a fern like it’s royalty, and suddenly you’re in your car Googling “how hard can plants be.” Let me save you some time: plants are harder than they look—but some are surprisingly forgiving , like that one friend who keeps inviting you out even though you cancel every time. If you’re a beginner—meaning you’ve either killed a plant before or are about to—these five flowering plants are your best shot at redemption. They’re low-maintenance, resilient, and most importantly, they won’t dramatically collaps...
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“Arms and Legs Are Very Expressive, Especially With Bruises”: The Absurdist Photography of Yorgos Lanthimos

By Tony Hicks
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There are photographers who want to make you feel something. There are photographers who want to make you think something. And then there’s Yorgos Lanthimos , who seems determined to make you feel like you’ve just walked into a room where everyone agreed on a joke you weren’t told—and now you’re expected to laugh, nod, and possibly remove your shoes. This is not photography that comforts. This is not photography that explains. This is photography that quietly rearranges your sense of what a body is allowed to do in a frame—and then leaves you there with it, like an uninvited houseguest that refuses to make eye contact. The line—“arms and legs are very expressive, especially with bruises”—isn’t just a description. It’s a thesis. A mission statement. A warning label. Because in Lanthimos’s world, limbs aren’t passive. They’re conspirators. They bend, contort, collapse, hover, and occasionally look like they’ve just been emotionally betrayed by gravity itself. And the bruises? Those ar...
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BigXthaPlug Didn’t Just Close a Showcase—He Bulldozed It With Bass, Bravado, and a Whole Lot of Texas

By Tony Hicks
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Let’s get one thing out of the way: when BigXthaPlug closes a show, it’s not a polite “thank you, goodnight.” It’s more like a controlled demolition where the stage, the speakers, and your expectations all get reduced to dust—and you’re somehow grateful for the ringing in your ears. So when he stepped in to close Rolling Stone ’s Future of Music showcase, the premise sounded clean and respectable. A curated lineup. Industry buzz. Emerging artists. You know—the usual polite handshake between artistry and branding. What actually happened? Texas kicked the door in. The Myth of the “Future of Music” Showcase Let’s talk about these showcases for a second. They’re supposed to be prophetic. A crystal ball. A velvet-rope preview of “what’s next.” You get industry insiders nodding thoughtfully, people pretending they discovered artists before they blew up, and an overall vibe that screams tasteful relevance . But here’s the thing: showcases are often wrong. They’re safe when they shoul...
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Opinion | I Love the Movies. Here’s How to Save Them.

By Tony Hicks
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There was a time—not so long ago in the grand scheme of human absurdity—when going to the movies felt like entering a temple. The lights dimmed, the curtain pulled back, and suddenly you were somewhere else. Mars. Middle-earth. Brooklyn in the 1970s. A spaceship full of emotionally complicated robots. It didn’t matter. The point was escape. Collective imagination. The shared ritual of strangers sitting quietly together while something magical flickered across a giant screen. Now the average movie theater experience feels less like a temple and more like a slightly sticky airport terminal that happens to show films between advertisements for luxury SUVs. If you say you love movies today, people assume you mean streaming. They picture you half-watching something on a laptop while scrolling your phone and occasionally pausing to reheat leftovers. That’s not loving movies. That’s background noise with a plot. And yet, despite everything—the $18 popcorn, the pre-movie lecture about turni...
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