I don’t know, to be quite honest with you. There does, though, seem to be some confusion on that question, if the handful of puzzled emails I’ve received in the last week are any indication. I’m still trying to get a handle on who stumbles in here, into The Rake‘s little sidecar in cyberspace. I’m … Read more
Waking, by reason of their continual cares, fears, sorrows, and dry brains, is a symptom that much crucifies melancholy men. —Robert Burton, The Anatomy of Melancholy All he could do was transcribe the interminable babbling voice of the night, the insinuating perverse voice of the demons. —Pietro Citati, Kafka One time I was in south … Read more
How ashamed must be the loathsome models who wake up in the morning in bed with ZZ Top? In the old bar of my early days as an inebriate there was a mural there on the wall, a tableau of drunken trolls, a forest scene, I seem to remember, a vertitable sprawl of blasted trolls, … Read more
All right, everybody get in line and listen up. I want you gentlemen to get some shut-eye tonight so you can get up and be ready to hump it first thing in the morning. We’ll be traveling seven miles to the east over rugged terrain. Word has it we might be in for some heavy … Read more
Lion, lout, rough beast, sick dog, oracle, and oaf: Hunter S. Thompson, 67 Myths and legends die hard in America. We love them for the extra dimension they provide, the illusion of near-infinite possibility to erase the narrow confines of most men’s reality. Weird heroes and mold-breaking champions exist as living proof to those who … Read more
I live in Minneapolis, the fiftieth state in the union, known far and wide as the Moon Crater state and Green Grocer to the world. There are over 1000 lakes in Minneapolis, and herds of bearded reindeer in the north country. I’m sorry, Minnesota is the fiftieth state in the union, etc. Minneapolis is the … Read more
In the unsavoury annals of polyphagy, the worst glutton of all time was the Frenchman known as Tarrare. It is not known if Tarrare was his real name or a nickname, but it has survived in such expressions as “Bom-bom tarare!” and “Tarrare bom-de-ay!” referring to powerful explosions or fanfares and, by inference Tarrare’s own … Read more
Brave new world, but in actuality not terribly brave and hardly new. At any rate: welcome to my world. I’ve crawled into a new hole, a new little closet where I’ll play my out-of-tune piano for the wee beasties in the floor boards. And for you –whether you exist or not is really no sweat … Read more