There’s a golden age for everything, and an inevitable bubble burst that follows. Get in at the right time, and out at the righter time, and you’re laughing. For musicians, it was 1991-2003¹, boom to bust. $20 CDs were being
A long, not that long time ago, a young boy and dainty girl bumped into each other and liked each others smiles because they had the two best smiles in the world. They held hands and talked about stuff then
Even being a famous, popular rich guy, you still have the wherewithal to pin this Horace Greeley quote to your Twitbox: “Fame is a vapor, popularity an accident, riches take wings. Only one thing endures, and that is character.” And
“The Chicago Tribune says it’s the most original film of the year!” No it doesn’t. Michael Phillips does. A single person who happened to get a job or an assignment from the paper does. The blurbs are intended to lend
You don’t become a musician for the money. You become a musician because your love of music collides with practice, taste, hard work, expertise, originality, community. Learning how to play instruments, conspiring with your friends, capturing euphoria in the sound,
Casting a pod from your garage gave you your second wind on a calm day. You get interesting people to willingly open up about their lives and struggles and successes and idiosyncrasies and complexities, and this minimizes the chasms we’ve
It startles me awake. Unmistakable. Your smile assures me I am not wrong. The sound of water trickling down to earth. We know what this means. The wells will fill up, the crops will sprout, we will be fine. We
[Author’s note: Today’s message was supposed to be the actual story written and rejected from the Arts and Letters Awards, the one that spurred yesterday’s piece. And normally I don’t mind releasing work from years ago, even if I can
It’s been over four years since I last saw Mom. Two years ago we all found out she had cancer. I should have visited then. But I never had enough money to come home. And I couldn’t get the time
There is a growing problem in upstate New York, and it is affecting its most important wild animals. Over the last several years, the region’s bison population has surged at a rapid rate, more than doubling over the last decade,
