Under the Influence: The Story of My Life, Cont’d
Sean MurphyQ: What did Holden Caulfield do when he grew up? A: He got a job. That is the elevator pitch of my novel Not To Mention a Nice Life, reduced…
Remembering the USS Indianapolis, Robert Shaw and The Scene
On July 30, 1945, the USS Indianapolis, which had just delivered key components of the Hiroshima atomic bomb to the Pacific island of Tinian, was torpedoed by a Japanese submarine.…
July 28, 1979: The Long Way Home (Revisited)
If I ever need to check myself and consider what a privileged life I've led, I simply need to recall that moving across town in the summer of '79 was…
Amy Winehouse: Lack of Love Is a Losing Game (Revisited)
Last year I had the opportunity to write about Amy Winehouse via Howard Sounes' book 27. (Full review here.) Here is the crux: For his new book, 27, Howard Sounes researched…
Not To Mention a Nice Life: Another Day at the Office (Reading)
As I navigate the familiar route, I almost drive off the road when I see a building that I’ve never noticed before, waving to me from the side of the…
Not To Mention a Nice Life: Area 51 (Reading)
Listen: there are people who actually believe that the moon landing never happened. Lots of people. Not that it didn’t happen, necessarily, but that it was an elaborate, carefully staged…
Not To Mention a Nice Life: The Dreaded Day Trip (Reading)
These day trips ask a lot of you, almost so much that you find yourself fondly reminiscing about the good old days you never knew, the days when horse-drawn carriages…
Hell’s Not Gonna Be Hot Enough: Johnny Winter, R.I.P. (Revisited)
Hell is not gonna be hot enough for this cat. R.I.P. Johnny Winter, an American bad-ass of the first rank. An albino playing the blues? Duh. Most young, uninitiated punks…
Trump, McCain, Kerry and the Not-So Swift Boats
Listen. No one is a bigger hater of the human dung pile that is Donald trump than I. Obviously what he said about McCain is outrageous yet entirely consistent…
Borne Back Ceaselessly Into the Past: Steinbeck, Nostalgia, Empathy and Amtrak (Revisited)
WHEN I FIRST read John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charley: In Search of America I was not quite old enough to drive. Still, I felt I could appreciate his somewhat elegiac…