The Real Memphis Mike (don't settle for imitations)

Every now and then, I like to think I got a little wood on the ball. (yeah, I know...I used a sports metaphor!) One of the secrets I've found to ensure a happy marriage is to not question things that really don't require it. Case in point, watching YouTube on our TV. The wife set up the streaming channels, and they're all under her name. I have no reason to question this. Our TV displays her YouTube profile, not mine. This means I get to experience more of her algorithm than mine. I'm A-OK with this. My own searches on there continue to confound the algorithm. While she might search for cutting edge comedy, I go looking for theology, old blues, indie horror short films, and Bulgarian real estate videos.  Somewhere at YouTube HQ, someone is in a meeting displaying this algorithm and asking, "Are they messing with us?" YouTube is predictable most days. I know it will suggest comedians, tech and space news, and liberal politics (my wife's preferences) and it ...

Please permit me to open with this: I am more amazed than anyone that my first book BODIES is selling. While definitely not headed for the bestsellers list any time soon, it is selling.  Yesterday I received an email from a reader in Canada. I guess he hit some minor hurdles ordering the book - but it finally arrived and he's pretty darn excited about it. However, he's probably not as excited as I am.  I've heard from a number of folks in the UK and Australia. Barnes and Noble, for whatever reason, seems to fail at overseas sales/shipping. I knew this was a potential issue when I opted to publish through them but now it looks like I have to look into outside distribution in addition to B&N. Fear not, I think I've figured it out! I'm going through all the details this week and will hopefully have things sorted soon.  Of particular interest, this new line of distribution will allow readers to (at least) order my books through their favorite local bookstore, regard...

The Man in the Moon is a fucking jagoff. There, I said it. I can't stand him. Always staring down, judging, smirking, questioning. He's unbearable. And I'll never get away from him. That's the hardest part for me to reckon with. When I was a little kid, he'd stare at me through my bedroom window. He'd cast terrifying shadows on the wall, making sleep almost impossible. I used to pray for cloudy nights. To me, there just wasn't enough air pollution to block his stares. When I reached the age of bodily self-exploration, of course - there he was. Staring through my window at my every move. Watching. Judging. My parents kept making me take down the old newspapers and tin foil I taped to the window to block him out. They thought I was nuts. They took me to a doctor. At first the specialist diagnosed me with scopophobia, an irrational fear of being watched. Further visits narrowed it down to a diagnosis of selenophobia; an irrational fear of the moon. In my mind, ...

I've always got on well with gas station people. I can't really tell you why; maybe it goes back to my teenage years. I would often hang out at the Clark station, shooting the breeze, and smoking Marlboros or for a time, Lucky Strikes.  It probably started when a friend of the family started working there. He was my brothers' age, and sort of a big brother figure in some ways. Through him, I got to know the couple who owned and ran the franchise, and the other employees. Most importantly to me, it was a place I could hang out, smoke cigarettes, and people watch. The steady drip of customers and conversations always held my interest. A gas station is one of those places where, on a long enough timeline, you're going to meet everyone - and I did. Everyone had to stop for gas at some point. This was a time before gas stations began to focus on being convenience stores, although they already were, in a way. They were just more efficient. You could gas up the car, grab smoke...

There are some who believe public transportation is, somehow, beneath them. This is a very American way of thinking. The US has a long, well-documented car culture. The infrastructure is designed to necessitate owning a car. Therefore, owning a car is part of everyday life for most. The nicer the car, the higher the social status - at least that's how it's always been marketed. Most don't realize it's a con, but that's a story for another day. We own two cars. Once upon a time, that would give the impression, to most people, that we are doing well. In reality, it's just necessity.  We live in a relatively quiet suburb of a medium-sized city, by American standards. And yes, we do have public transportation. By global standards, ours isn't great. It's overpriced and limited. Out where we live, I can catch a bus once an hour. The bus is usually relatively clean and there are rarely more than a handful of riders. Most of my neighbors probably feel they'r...

Hotel Oldsmobile. That’s what all of us kids called him. Yeah, kids are cruel. He was just a guy in a really bad spot in life. With our clean-cut all-American upbringings, we treated him the way we’d been taught. We treated him like garbage . He was maybe in his 40s or 50s. White guy. Eyes like a husky. Dirty. Needed a haircut and a shave. He was a short guy - maybe 5'4 - and had the build of a man who had spent a lifetime doing hard labor - the sort a man does because it’s his only option. None of us really knew him. We didn’t know what his story was. None of us were smart enough to even try to make one up. All that we really knew was he was dirty and lived in a rusted-out Oldsmobile. These days, the media uses bullshit terms like “ unhoused ”. Fuck that, the man was homeless. Without that car, he’d have been sleeping on the streets. Our streets. This was the early 1980s. The real boom of homelessness hadn’t kicked in yet - at least not in our little river town. He was our ...