Self-doubt and Fingernails

In my head, I did the math and reckoned there are between sixty-three and seventy-two pounds of toe and fingernails spread throughout the Buttermilk and Chalk Bluff Boulders in and around Bishop, CA. Decades of clipped keratin strewn about the high desert. With all the degradational speed of an empty two-liter plastic bottle, it’s all […]

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It’s What We Do

Seven hundred miles on a motorbike has a way of taking the fight out of even the most ardent germophobe, so I twisted the throttle and sped toward the weak lights of the hotel up ahead. A dim-lit sign above the marquee read $39.99, which looked like a deal to my road-weary eyes. And though […]

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And This Sad Day

Why do we do it? Why do we willingly Forge this strong bond With something that we know won’t last? It’s those good times. That companionship that Outweighs all the turds on the floor, All the skunk sprays, All the vet bills. And this sad day we know will inevitably come. It’s the cock-headed looks. […]

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Old Crab

The old crab faced the day blind. Algae grew from her shell and covered her eyes. She hoped either a fish would swim into her outstretched claws or a gull would swoop down and take her away. She was hungry. I stood next to her. The water, bright with the sun, lapped at my shins. We […]

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The Blood Nut

A Rough Start to a Long Career My first trad gear purchase was a nut so small it appeared, to these virgin eyes, to be strung with no more than a Les Paul little E. “Would you like to see something?” asked the clerk from behind the register. “May I see that little nut?” I […]

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Vague Directions

  “Park here, head down the creek, and you’ll find it–no sweat,” he said. I did–there was some sweat. But boy was it worth it! Eight ‘bows and a brookie. The brookie was alone in the still, backwater. I was in full-on stealth mode with the rod behind my back, on my hands and knees until […]

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Zen and Climbing

There is a koan about a Zen master who was being chased by a hungry tiger. He ran for his life with the big cat swatting at his heels until he reached the edge of a cliff. With nowhere to go, he lowered himself over the brink using a vine that grew from the soil […]

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Three Wishes

In this dialog, I took three things that three different people wrote on a “Before I die wall” a couple of years ago at the Millpond Music Festival and tried to bring them together in a little story.  Three wishes “What do you want to do before you die?” “I don’t know—that’s pretty heavy for […]

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Timeline

What if I said, I’ve created an app? I call it Timeline. It’s a life planner of sorts that seeks to make you aware of the time you have left in the land of the living so that you may plan the use of that time appropriately…even if it’s just a few seconds. To get […]

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