Essay: Backs to the Future
Sean MurphyHere'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…
How to Kill a Cliché: Celebrating Sam Shepard (One Year Later)
Lee: …That’s stupid. That’s one a’ those?—whadya’ call it? Whadya’ call that? Austin: What? Lee: Whadya’ call it when somethin’s been said a thousand times before. Whadya’ call that? Austin:…
Rebel’s Rebel: RIP Anthony Bourdain
I'm gutted, like seemingly everyone else in the world (for all the right and obvious reasons) by the sudden loss of Anthony Bourdain. In addition to being sad, shocking, and…
50 BULLET POINTS CONCERNING AMERICA’S GUN PSYCHOSIS
Note: It makes me physically ill that this piece, written in 2016, is still not only relevant, but --inconceivably-- a bit outdated. Don't overlook the pathetic fact that the (very)…
Sorry, Charlie (on the Charlie Hebdo Attacks, Three Years Later)
i. OF COURSE RELIGION IS the problem. For anyone who, understandably, would say it’s a political issue and not a religious issue, I aver that so many of our political…
50 BULLET POINTS CONCERNING AMERICA’S GUN PSYCHOSIS
Let’s politicize these acts, if for no other reason because, in America, we politicize everything else. Of course it’s a mental health issue. For starters, the mental handicap of anyone…
Donald Trump: The Man in America’s Mirror
i. Orwell, Again (Obviously) Even before the Reality TV circus American politics and, by extension, American life, degenerated into late last year, George Orwell was the go-to guy for…
How to Kill a Cliché: Celebrating Sam Shepard
Lee: …That’s stupid. That’s one a’ those?—?whadya’ call it? Whadya’ call that? Austin: What? Lee: Whadya’ call it when somethin’s been said a thousand times before. Whadya’ call that? Austin: Um?—?a…
July 20, 1969 or, One Small Step for Man’s Mind
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…
Memorial Day: A Poem
Unanticipated clouds advance, shifting the weight of the world—or at least the measured objectives of so many compulsory affairs—nonplussed after all this time by their capacity to inspire, interrupt, or…