Blogging

  • Picture yourself in a dimly lit room. A light bulb hangs from the ceiling, swinging slowly to and fro, as if an ethereal skeletal hand had reached down from the inky shadows and tapped it. Beneath the light are a series of faces with dark shadows for eyes and grim, black lines for mouths. The…

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  •   There are plenty of paths to success when on deadline. Some prefer to wait until the last minute, as pressure makes them produce. Others prefer the slow boil, working at a snail’s pace until it all comes to a head, but only one of these techniques helps when it comes to historical non-fiction, particularly…

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  • Gulls and Goobers

    Gulls have been on my mind lately. Why I don’t know. Maybe it’s because I have these two paintings in the living room that I haven’t finished yet. Maybe it’s because the babies born this season in Pacific Grove are beginning to stretch their wings and take flight, yet they still lower their heads and…

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  •   When asked what I mean when I write “In Curmudgeon” for a particular story, I usually say something about how too many writers, bloggers, social media scribes, etc., focus on the positive and very rarely rant on about a problem. To me, that’s a problem. No one has a perfect life, and pretending you…

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  • “The cutest thing we’ve seen all day!” Social media said. “But wait a minute,” Uploader said. “How can we top baby sea otters?” Social media screamed in orgasmic bliss. “Oh my God, they’re so darn cute! Sharing, liking, trending!” “Got it. How about baby sea otters with fluffy white kittens? Put them in a plastic…

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  • Chapter Doodles

    We all love stick figures – to the point our hearts will explode in our chests and kill us. So I doodled a few to illustrate each chapter in my upcoming collection of rants, In Curmudgeon (taken from my blog posts over the years), and wanted to share them here. The Saint offered up the best…

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  • Interviewing actor Jon Voight during a fundraiser (and after a monsoon soaked everyone) for the Granite Mountain Hotshots in 2013. These days it’s trendy to blame the messenger. The media is stirring the pot, inciting violence, lying to you, etc., as if they were a giant hive-mind not made up of men and women toiling…

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  • I long… I long to breathe in my son’s boundless energy – his youth and exuberance about damn near everything, while I still have the chance. I long to walk in England and get all giddy on Baker’s Street, to explore the pubs and streets of Ireland, while I still have the chance. Let me…

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  • Dear Open Letter Writer, We all care so much about your opinion. We want your open letter so bad.  Please write it as long as possible, as passionately as possible, and tell us all how you feel. Of course we know you have no real connection to the topic, no stake, but don’t let that…

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