It could have been my youthful love of spandex that led me to join the gymnastics team as a kid, but most likely it was it my fondness of the foam pit, where a strapping lad could catapult through the air and land in a soft sea of unbroken bones. Regardless the motivating force, my…
The night started after a day filled with writing deadlines and then rushing to the Bronx for work in the afterschool program. It led me back home to grab my guitar for a show at The East village and then to a train platform, waiting for the M train—the little train that often can’t, or…
Last night a friend of mine was stabbed several times in the face. He was also stabbed in the bicep while stripped naked. Another friend had his shirt taken from him and people–girls as young as sixteen–stapled his body with a wood stapler. And then there were the fireballs. Raging, manic clouds of flame that…
Fifth graders, I have decided, from a marginal sample size in an unscientific setting, have trouble with understanding cause and effect. Take this conversation: “Did you hit him?” “No.” “I saw you hit him.” “Because he hit me first.” “Why did you hit him first?” “Because it was a redo and he said it wasn’t.” No,…
Reading Ralph Waldo Emerson to any length is a lot like spending an afternoon in a pottery museum. Imminent disinterest is moments away in every pottery museum on earth. Half the time they are not even pots, just shards of dirty glass under clean glass. But let’s put away the dirty dishes from the museum, I’m here to give Emerson…
If this weekend were an animal, it would be an eight legged dragon bear wearing a sombrero, gyrating to the rhythm of a rain dance, imploring the gods to shower the earth with the laughing tears of El Señor Cuervo. If this weekend were a school bus, it would be the Magic School bus and…
CNN’s headline report on the collapsed building in Bangladesh, stated that such incidences are not an “isolated problem.” Shoddy construction standards in the third world claim lives like any natural disaster, unfortunately. I witnessed a situation like this earlier this year when January, 16th a four story building under construction in the Kenya’s third largest…
Originally published in Range Magazine. Photo Credits: Matt Stabile. Though I grew up in North Dakota, a place with a Western history or rough riders, it was abroad, galloping on the back of Flaca that I discovered one spirit of the West I’d never found at home. The other horses had a healthy robustness that said, “Bring it…
Game of Throne fans, you are about to love this analogy. Imagine living in a city, we’ll call it Meereen, (wink, wink people who’ve gotten through the fifth book) where you lived in constant fear of dragons swooping down from the murderous skies to attack and kill you. There is also a distinct possibility that…
I am Facebook friends with my thirteen-year-old brother John and was recently doing a little low grade stalking of his profile to see what he was into what I could that I did not already know from being his brother. It turns a whole lot. My brother is widowed. What heart-breaking news for Facebook to…
