Blog Posts
40–38 to 60: History Rhymes
16–18.06.2026 French president Emmanuel Macron dragged TFG* by the good ear to the Palace of Versailles to sign an Agreement to Accede, an Acquiescence, if you will, to bring a stop (a pause? a lacuna? a smoke break?) to open hostilities in the Persian Gulf that have pretty much fucked…
44–41 to 60: America Jumps the Shark
12–15.06.2026 The country was one year past its 200th birthday in 1977. Our living room televisions, when the adults let us near them, had all of three channels, one for each existing network. Every Tuesday night, however, the dial was set on ABC to pay deference to the unifying paragon…
47–45 to 60: When the Saints Come Marching In
09–11.06.2026 Taking a break from the news and the eternal doomscroll really does a mind and body good. If it wasn’t for the mysterious bug that had cut down myself and my co-workers like summer wheat, I would have had a better chance to feel rejuvenated by our road trip.…
51–48 to 60: Wagons North; or, No Sleep ’til Deadline
05–08.06.2026 This weekend, the missus and I took off up the 101 for some much-needed change of scenery, as well as a break from the news. For a couple of years now, when we head up to the redwoods, we have been staying north of our old Arcata stomping grounds…
52 to 60: The Ghosts of ’80s Retail
04.06.2026 Yesterday was a strange day, crawling up and down ladders all day while working on installing the museum’s summer show was really bringing back memories of practically living on a fiberglass stairway to the stars back in the ’80s. As if summoned by my verticality, two blasts from my…
53 to 60: Not Shit, Energy!
03.06.2026 Driving back home from the San Francisco Ferry yesterday, I passed my local gas station and the price per gallon had actually dropped from the $6.19 that it had topped out at in recent months— down to $5.99. I’m not complaining, but to me, it is just further proof…
55–54 to 60: Rabbit, Rabbit
01–02.06.2026 Make no mistake, we’re in a tight spot. Moving into the twinned summer months of June and July, the country feels like it’s just waiting for the next shoe to drop. The war/not a war/war in the Persian Gulf limps along while the president said today that he “couldn’t…
57–56 to 60: The Last Days of May
30–31.05.2026 Every year at this time, I have to pull out the old Blue Öyster Cult records and celebrate. Then Came The Last Days of May is the easily the most haunting song on probably the eeriest rock album ever made. BÖC’s portrayal of a true-life trio of young men…
58 to 60: Not Dark Yet
29.05.2026 Paul McCartney just dropped a new collection of music that his fans are warmly receiving as a late-career masterpiece. The forever Beatle will turn 84 next month. Neil Young, the baby here at a mere 80-years-young, released a new live set with his latest band, The Chrome Hearts, today…
59 to 60: It Was Later Than I Thought
28.05.2026 I don’t know how I always end up sprinting for the ferry every morning, but I do. My boilerplate weekday morning includes rolling out of bed at 6 o’clock, making coffee and toast, feeding all the animals, and checking in on the downfall of civilization. Depending on my capacity…
60 to 60: The Ride
27.05.2026 Welcome to a vain attempt to actually write everyday (apart from working on the new novel) in which I reflect on either the day’s batshit crazy events, random memories, or how it feels to be turning 60. Spoiler alert: It often, but not perpetually, hurts. So, I have that…
Shit From an Old Notebook: My Hometown
The 1970s were well established when I attended Mills Elementary School on the East Side of town—the other side of the tracks—that is if tracks had ever run down the middle of the quaint Main Street that effectively cleaved the town into West Side and other. Being the ’70s, we…
What I Saw On the Parkway On a Cold Autumn Morning
Upholstered cane back chair (1) Dead opossums (2) Sheet of aluminum that is going to be a real problem when the wind kicks up (1) Witch (1)
Once More Into the Breach: 2026 Edition
It turns out that “May you live in interesting times,” is not a Chinese curse after all, but rather—like most things that seem all neat and tidy but end up causing wide-spread pain and misery—from the English: Austen Chamberlain, older half-brother of Neville to be precise. Austen’s mother, Harriet, died…
The Next Civil War: Dispatches from the American Future—Stephen March
It has only been three years since Canadian writer Stephen March took a hard look at his country’s downstairs neighbor and found us… well, let’s just say that we aren’t going to get our deposit back. Like a tenant that has decided to start cooking meth in the kitchen at…
From Big Change to Big Crime in 229 Days
In January of this year, two days after President Biden’s Farewell Address, I flipped on YouTube to catch up, having long given up on network news. The first thing I saw is what looked to be an agricultural landscape complete with a tiny tractor slowly moving under a text overlay…
Happy 80th, Van the Man!
Belfast’s beloved son Van Morrison has been a recording artist longer than I’ve been alive. Them’s first, and penultimate, album—having dropped in ’65—preceded me by a full year. This is to say that the mystic blues shouter has always been around as far as I’m concerned. Growing up on AM…
Shit from an Old Notebook: Odds and Sods
Sometimes when writing a long-form piece like a novel, you find yourself wandering down paths that don’t end up going anywhere, at least anywhere that helps the story. This one of those digressions that I rediscovered while cleaning out an old laptop that is not long for this world. I…
Shit From an Old Notebook: Squid Game
While sitting at my favorite taqueria, enjoying my tacos dorados and reading the ruminations of Billy Collins on the death of the masculine hat, I overheard this dadaist conversation: “Squid.”“Have you ever had a really excellent squid steak?”“Negative, ghost runner.” Either the conversationalists in question were spies and were sizing…
Post #100—Looking Forward
Well, the ol’ materfamilias has said a lot of goofy shit since… well, since I’ve known her, but I’m going to take this little piece to heart from now on. I think I must have been breaking her balls over Mother’s Day or something, and I prodded, “When is my…
The Prince is Dead, Long Live the Prince (of Darkness)
John “Ozzy” Osbourne made quite a career out of the moniker, “Prince of Darkness.” The guy knew a good hook when he saw (or heard) one, but he was more than that to a few generations of fans now. Ozzy was a hero to every misfit who struggled to find…
Submission (A Correspondence in Three Parts)
(1)Greetings XXXX XXXXXXXX editors, I wanted to thank you all for sending my return envelope back; I’m just not sure what kind of message you were trying to send. Was the empty envelope a metaphor for the howling void that we all must someday face? Or perhaps my submission just…
What’s in a Name? [Pt. 2]
I was born Raymond Andrew Larsen in late-July of 1966, closing in on six decades ago as of this writing. Raymond is a family name, after a great-uncle on my father’s side, one of five born to an immigrant couple from the Azores. I think he helped keep my father…
What’s in a Name? [Pt. 1]
I was enjoying the dubious honor of teaching English to Vallejo freshmen when, while getting ready one morning, a national news program featured a fellow word warrior from somewhere in the Midwest who had been fired when it was discovered that she had the temerity to have been writing Harlequin…
Shit From an Old Notebook: Open Letter to the Guy Playing James Taylor Covers at Peet’s Coffee
I’m sorry if my wife’s inappropriate comment and our sudden departure may have upset your delicate sensibilities, but what you are doing, sir, is an affront to nature. Just because you play a Taylor guitar does not mean—under any circumstances—that you need to run through the catalog of a similarly…
Black Cats and the Rocket’s Red Glare
I was 10 years old in the bicentennial year of 1976. America had just been through the Watergate-spurred spin-out of the Nixon presidency, the fall of Saigon, an oil crisis, and the resulting economic stagflation. We needed a reset, something to celebrate, and along came our 200th anniversary. My father…
Shit From an Old Notebook: Boomerang Fins
There are few situations more awkward than someone who wants to collar you to tell you about their weird dream. Nothing can jinx the old water cooler vibe than an unexpected plunge into your cohort’s psyche when all you want is a cup of coffee. That said—bear with me, now—this…
Shit From an Old Notebook: Springtime Haiku
I had been student teaching 12th grade English at a high school in Vallejo for a couple of weeks. It was a relatively new campus built close to the last vestige of green hills left in that part of the Bay Area. To celebrate the first day of spring, the…
Shit From an Old Notebook: Dancing with Mr. D
So, I’m sitting on the patio of a coffee shop in Arcata… and I know what you’re saying, “Of course weird shit is going to happen, it’s Arcata,” and that’s fair, but hold on. I’m outside with my wife and the pup, just kicking it after a stunner of a…
Shit From an Old Notebook: The Future of Music
The music magazine where I used to work once received a questionnaire on the future of music from a group of college students doing some sort of art project. Somehow it fell to me to fill it out and send it back. I approached it in my usual flippant manner,…
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If you seek the mystery instead of the answer, you’ll always be seeking. I’ve never seen anybody really find the answer. They think they have, so they stop thinking. But the job is to seek mystery, evoke mystery, plant a garden in which strange plants grow and mysteries bloom. The need for mystery is greater than the need for an answer.
— Ken Kesey
Román Leão 