Monthly Archives: February 2013
Why don’t you write something happy?
When you’re building monuments pain makes a better medium than joy. It’s stiffer easier to shape more visually striking. Happiness just sits there like a lump of sparkly unicorn shit that can’t be molded and hurts the viewer’s eyes with … Continue reading
My name is Never-Was
Paul McCartney wrote most of his great music by the time he was 28. We’re talking “Yesterday” and “Hey Jude” and “Let It Be.” Era-defining work. 28. And I’m 32. What the hell have I been up to? I write … Continue reading
Raymond Chandler had a farm…
NOTE: Recently, a friend of mine shared a link purporting to be a rejection letter from The New Yorker to a persistent author. The letter seemed unduly cruel until I realized that the rejected author has submitted a poem called … Continue reading
You’re right
If Anne Frank had a gun she would never have died in that concentration camp. And if Martin Luther King packed heat James Earl Ray wouldn’t have wasted him on that balcony. Had Gandhi carried a revolver no Hindu extremist … Continue reading
Short-sighted?
Why is it that some responsibilities large as blue whales still seem like fun at the outset yet the simple task of doing the dishes feels like some sort of Herculean undertaking? I knew a girl of 13 who wanted … Continue reading
The roles we play
Mia is climbing on me and yelling ribbit! in my ear, despite the fact that frogs don’t generally attempt to irritate adult-sized humans. She has no commitment to character. Of course, why she’s a frog is beyond me, we’re just … Continue reading
She’s a pistol
My family is one strange clown-car full of oddballs. There’s my cousin Richie, the tinfoil-hat conspiracy libertarian, and my Uncle Bill, whose greatest joy is mowing his large yard. My Aunt Dona has a houseful of Dachshunds she’s fostering. My … Continue reading
Rock Bottom
Food. I need some food. I’m not talking cereal or ice cream or Double-Stuf Oreos. I need meat and potatoes and maybe a dinner roll. I’m goddam hungry! But small towns still operate much as they did sixty years ago, … Continue reading
This is not everyone’s favorite holiday.
“Happy Presidents’ Day,” I told my libertarian friend. He made a wanking motion and replied that they were all shitty so why celebrate any of them? Lincoln was the tyrant who suspended habeus corpus and FDR created Social Security (which, … Continue reading
A big misunderstanding
A stranger emailed me to say that she liked my blog and she asked personal questions as if we were family or long-lost friends. I answered, vague words dodging specifics because who is she? and even though I’m pretty open … Continue reading
...said the blind man... 