death

It Always Comes Back to “Hey Joe”

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Hey Joe
(Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Today marks the 44th anniversary of Jimi Hendrix’s death. He left this world when he was just 27. Thanks to my good friend Derrick Baldwin for reminding me of this. Derrick is one helluva keyboardist and I love it when his band gets him to sing.

Some people think you’re pathetic if you gush even just a smidge about Jimi. Those people don’t know shit and probably think people on “America’s Got Talent” are artists to follow for life. There’s more to art, though, than standing on stage and having yourself electrified into people’s homes.

Watch the video below and listen to what Jimi says about practicing. What separates Continue reading →

What Happens When Indie Authors Die? The Problem of Digital Archives and the Avenging Prius

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Even in death some don't find peace.. #coffin...
Even in death some don’t find peace (Photo credit: Gulfu)

I’m working on ten separate book projects these days — four novels, two memoirs, two collections of related stories, and two titillatingly weird erotic chronicles about masturbation in the modern world. These last I intend to publish under pseudonyms. 90% of the work I do is on my laptop, a rather trustworthy MacBook now seven (7) years old.

In addition to the ten big projects I’m working on I have over fifty short stories in various stages of undress that always seem to be shivering on the white screen I look at every day. Some of these stories are just notes and scraps of dialog, but the majority are nearly finished drafts or, perhaps, completed first drafts that I am not so happy with.

By the end of 2014 I hope I’ve got a publishing deal or two for a few of the books I Continue reading →

The Rhythms Fall Slow

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Source: purpleclover.com

A friend recently sent me a link to a very moving first-hand remembrance of Jeff Buckley called “Be Your Husband” from over at PurpleClover.com. The piece stayed with me all day until I recalled an alternative prologue to my novel Beyond the Will of God written a few years before I went to press with it. I decided against this particular prologue because at the time I didn’t want to insult the memory of Jeff. I hope that is not your perception here. I offer it just because I think it’s a great tribute in and of itself, and, in the end, this same spirit finds its way into my novel — a spirit you should not forget.

The Rhythms Fall Slow: On Jeff Buckley and the Eternal Life of Music

On May 29, 1997, exactly 660 days after the day Jerry Garcia died, Jeff Buckley decided to cool off in the Mississippi River on his way to a recording session in Memphis, Tennessee. According to the only eyewitness, Buckley, fully clothed, waded into the Mississippi for a swim right around dusk. He went out to where the water came up to his waist, lay back, began to float and sing at the top of Continue reading →

When Novels Become Assassins: The Problem with Writing on the Edge

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Not feeling so good...
Not feeling so good…

A version of this essay was adapted for The Huffington Post. Read that here.

I nearly died just after completing the first draft of a novel called Beautiful Morning Blues. The story I came up with is unnerving, possibly amoral, anarchic, and, certainly, nihilistic as hell — but it still tries to say life is a magnificent and magical journey. I’m convinced that this dualism, this story at play with big metaphors and dark issues, was working to assassinate me — the messenger — from the moment I conceived it.

I struggled for two years to bring the whole 438 page draft into existence. Beginning with writing the first paragraph on a whim in 2002 (a guy gets offered $300 by a neighbor to have sex with her), over the next two years I battled depression, a growing addiction to alcohol, struggles in my marriage, sexual insecurity, and a weird sort of self-centered lunacy that you really have to call psycho-narcissism. On top of all that, every few months or so I just felt really crappy. I would run a low-grade Continue reading →