Jim Carroll died today. This is weird for me. But not in the same way that it was weird for me when David Foster Wallace died. Or Hunter S. Thompson died. Those two days were low points in a life that was already spiraling out of control. Dark, evil days. Those two writers were the […]
prologue. "It" is happening again. The "it" that is happens not as much as "it" used to. Which strangely isn’t comforting. The "it" is a creeper, lying dormant for long stretches of time. Hiding. Always watching. Waiting. Which is what "it" does. I know this about "it", which makes "it" not so terrifying anymore because […]
Nathaniel Hawthorne. F. Scott Fitzgerald. Hunter S. Thompson. David Foster Wallace. These are my mentors, the writers in my life who have shaped my thinking, my narratives, my words. They are the familiar community of comfort, the places I visit when I’m lost. That they tell, in some manner, stories about the American Dream — […]
Today was a good day. That’s happening more and more. I suspect those good days were always happening around me. I just wasn’t paying enough attention to it. Focused my energies in the wrong place. I still do that from time to time. Failure is part of being human so there’s no pretense that I’m […]
Buckle up. I’ve been reminiscing about the good old days quite a bit lately. Writing does that to me. Moving probably doesn’t help either. And trying to fill in the gaps with the Muse has been a big part of that as well. It’s been an interesting saga, these last 14 years. I tell these […]
(Inspired by Timothy McSweeney’s Very Intense Heated Passionate Battle/Embrace with They Might Be Giants) Simple Things: I’m sitting in my living room in Muncie, windows open, listening to the wind stroke the trees outside. The air smells like heavy electric. It’s one of those magical, farm country dark nights when you can imagine the demons […]
It’s T+1 in the Hoosier state. I’ve been a resident for just a bit more than 24 hours and my towne home is 95 percent unpacked. My parents actually arrived at my place before I did, setting up the kitchen and things. I was coordinating the move from Covington, which consisted mostly of me chatting […]
On May 25, 1961, President John F. Kennedy asked Congress to commit several billion dollars in funds so that America could lead the rest of the world to the moon. On September 12, 1962, Kennedy visited Rice University, in Houston, to outline the effort. The video is an art project celebrating the achievement of the […]
I’ve plotted out a 3-book arc for my life. Because that’s what writers do. It’s actually a very good gauge for writing, a test that I use on my students to see which of them has the bug and which of them is simply — to paraphrase what my mentor Bill Drummond said the other […]
“You don’t know me very well, but if you get me started I have a tendency to go on and on about how hard the writing is for me.” — “Californication”, Hank Moody The trouble with summer is that I have time to write. To sit for long periods of time, wringing my brain like […]
A long time ago there was a girl. And the future wasn’t something meant to be made. We were just waiting for the thing we could already see, arrive. We lived our lives together. That way. With few doubts. Directed. It was the first time I’d ever experienced that inevitability with someone else. My parents […]
I’ve been hearing about this show for some time. Since I don’t have cable I missed out until it hits Netflix Instant Streaming. (Because I would never advocate going to Bit Torrent and downloading — illegally, I might add — material that should rightfully be controlled by companies, you know, just like the Founding Fathers […]