What are the essential songs for a first-rate jukebox? If you were to find yourself locked up for the rest of your days with a trio of fourteen-year-olds and a bunch of musical instruments and amplifiers would you join the band or bash out your brains with a tambourine? Have you ever heard clearly conspiring … Read more
I slid unwelcome into this world, unbroken, but battered by the disappointment of those to whom I was delivered. I scrambled above their unhappiness and learned to believe. I found a place to stand, and kept moving. I had one man’s truth, and flung it like a stone at this world. I cried in … Read more
Holy shit, I’ve been wasting a lot of time watching baseball the last few weeks, and it’s been nice to have a few days off, even if that hiatus is the result of one of the least dramatic first rounds in recent memory. Like my pal Britt Robson over at On the Ball I can … Read more
Most nights Hurley would sit up late, drinking, and would fall asleep looking for God. He heard leaves falling and trapped, swirling, in the alley out back. And then: the rattle of piss beneath his window and someone warbling a sad song. Some days he saw gulls, so many gulls, with no water anywhere around, … Read more
No birds. No flowers. No bees. No moon. No water, moving or still. Nothing growing. Nothing stirring in the shadows. No history. No satisfying toil or contemplation of love. No memories. For no one. Dreams of leaving, I suppose. And the cold shoulder, sure. Or if interest, so fervent as to be suspect, if not … Read more
I’ll be honest with you, I don’t know what a dream is anymore. I got a lot of shit kicked out of me. Have you somehow made your peace with this world? I’m curious: without getting all religious or flaky on me, can you tell me how you did that? Once upon a … Read more
I learned early that I’d never be the king of anything. I can for damn sure live with that the short time I have left. Nobody needs to tell me what I am, and I don’t have the time of day for a notion so foolish as who. Leave that horseshit to the pansies. I … Read more
Fifty songs for fifty states. Not bad, but I’m sure we could swap out better choices for at least half of these.
We shall find peace. We shall hear the angels. We shall see the sky sparkling with diamonds. –Chekhov, Uncle Vanya It’s all just history now, that still incomprehensible day six years ago, history buried under history, with more awful history heaped on top of it. It gets buried deeper all the time. Rubble and ruin … Read more
It’s kind of nice when a headline can make your day, and even nicer when the story is even better than the headline: “Beauty Contestant Bitten By Rattlesnake.”