Keith Tippett: Prog God, Plus
Sean MurphyRIP to a musician's musician, a complete and utter original, and icon of the underground. Beautiful tribute to Keith Tippett courtesy of The Guardian here. (I've written about him --and…
Original Poem: Notes from Underground
Butch Warren One enters writing contests the same way one plays the lottery: with hope but no real expectation. I was, therefore, surprised and delighted to be awarded 2nd Prize…
I Can Breathe (for George Floyd)
I Can Breathe Of course I can. I’m white. I can breathe. I can also bear arms with impunity, vote in absentia or in person. I can shop without eyes—electronic…
Long Live Rock; Long Live Pete
Happy 75th, Pete Townshend! Inspiring? Pete Townshend, arguably, is the ultimate rock hero. He had the Lennon & McCartney songwriting skills; he played the hell of those guitars he ultimately…
A Portrait of the Artist as a Middle-Aged Man
Fifty. Five-0. Fiddy. Half-Century. Five Decades. Old. Actually, one thing I can declare with the certainty of a man undeniably ensconced in middle-age is that, in many significant ways, I…
Murphy’s Laws: 50 Infallible Observations on the Occasion of Turning 50
“With age comes wisdom, but sometimes age comes alone.” That, from the ever-quotable Oscar Wilde. Does age impart wisdom? Maybe. It definitely provides opinions. Some of them, perhaps, are worthwhile.…
Every Day is Mother’s Day (Revisited)
I’m fortunate, in a sense, to be the type of person that gets more sentimental about the times I read a certain book or heard a particular album than I…
THE ORIGIN AND ANATOMY OF A STORY
Write what you know: at once the best and worst counsel offered to the aspiring fiction writer. It is insufficient, if not too smug and certain, too limiting, and possibly…
April 15, 1985: THE FIGHT (35 Years Later)
IT PROBABLY SAYS SOMETHING about evolution that younger generations see the future as expansive, malleable and positive while the older generations eventually—and inexorably—see the past as safer, simpler and more…
Essay: Backs to the Future
Here's a piece I've returned to several times, since first writing it in 2008. It was inspired by some real-time B.S. involving a true story, and names are withheld to…