Fathers, Sons, Soldiers, and Poetry
We both hid a part of ourselves behind a soldier’s body armor and camo paint and when that didn’t work we retreated behind the smile of a beer drinking buddy.
Latest
El Paso
After thirty years how it all ended doesn’t matter. Those missed signals, my idiot roommate, Lorrie’s unrequited crush, a strange new soldier, and the United States Army don’t mean a fucking thing...
Past Sins
The inevitable Graham Platner rant.
Vancouver
So I kept walking, on to Chinatown long enough to see street signs with golden dragons on top, then back East toward the blocks that held hundred thousand dollar watches, Ferrari’s and the AKC French Bulldog people with their hard silicon faces.
The Squirrel Hunters
It’s a song about a man facing heartbreak who retreats to the winter woods. It’s a song about healing heartbreak on a cold morning with a Browning Auto 5. It took me back to Bienville Parish. It took me back to the first weekend in October. It sounded like my father’s voice.
Thoughts and Prayers and Thank You For Your Service
...I pity them. I feel genuinely sorry for all of them with their yellow ribbon stickers and “would’ve served but” because I experienced something else during those dark days, something they will never experience for themselves.
Fear and the World's Greatest Turkey Sandwich
It was little better than prison food. Three slices of cold roast turkey in between two sliced of white bread, no condiments, just a Styrofoam cup of water to wash it down and lime Jello for dessert.
An Outlaw's Prayer
For a long time I thought there was something wrong with me, that the reason I didn’t have faith was because I was bad or broken. I don’t believe that anymore, but I still don’t understand. How is it everyone I love takes comfort in religion and I find none?
July 4, 2025
When faced with unimaginable horrors some people will run, more will freeze, but a surprising number will fight. A shocking number of people will run to aid their fellow man. I’ve seen it
15 Miles in the Dark
It was on those long drives that I talked myself into asking out a girl for the first, second, and third times and where I dealt with the crushing defeat of rejection and the low grade, lingering pain of being “just friends.”
Bayous and Backyards (Crescent City Chapter 4)
Fishing buddies give no quarter and accept none. He ragged me endlessly. I was beginning to think he’d legitimately cursed me. I seriously considered seeing if I could find a gris gris to lift the curse.
The Devil and Sergeant Danny Applewhite (2004)
There were plenty of bars, nightclubs, and strip joints scattered along the stretch of Louisiana Highway one seventy one that ran through Leesville, all of them designed to extract the maximum amount of money from the Fort Polk “community”.
commentary
Letter to my Normie Friends.
Felt good to be joyous. Man doing something is so much better than sitting, watching, and feeling like shit isn’t it? Remember that feeling. Cherish it.
memoir
Aggressively Mediocre
I went to a Magnet school and almost flunked out. I was a soldier, but not a great one. I rode rodeo bulls but never once for eight seconds. I traveled the world but never to the coolest places. I died in the dumbest possible way but I survived.
commentary
Memorial
An hour and at least a mile later I still couldn’t shake the feeling of that place. The heavy sense of loss and futility and the gnawing question of “why?” would linger far longer than I cared to admit.
memoir
The Suicide Song of the 2nd Lanai
One by one we emptied our pockets of pocket knives and multitools until there was a pile of edged weapons sitting on Evan’s rug. “Go ahead.” He announced once all the weapons were secure. “Play your fucking suicide song.”
essay
London Homesick Blues
We were in Westminster Abbey when I broke completely. I was tired. It was hot. The crowd was thick. I couldn’t stop to read the names or look at the stained glass without being bumped or jostled. I couldn’t hear. I felt like everyone was in my way and I was in theirs.
memoir
The Apartment (Crescent City Chapter 3)
I never paid a dime in cash but came with offerings of Zapps potato chips, Coca-cola, and boxes of chocolate glazed when the Krispy Kreme "hot" light was lit. In return I got a spare key, a shitty fold out mattress and raucous company.
commentary
Obituary Beer
Right now I have Dos Equis in the fridge. An imported Mexican lager is fitting I guess. Dos Equis is by no means a “special” beer but it's crisp and cold and there, which makes it about as good as a beer gets.
memoir
Barrooms: (Crescent City Chapter 2)
It was mellower somehow, almost melancholy. It’s only recently that I’ve recognized it for what it was, a type of therapy, a crutch, or maybe a helping hand as we transitioned out of military service and faced our future.
essay
Dark Night
The room was still too bright and too hot and too loud and the world outside of it was still too dark, but laying there, thinking about the first act of our lives it felt like…man even now I don’t have the words…
memoir
Mardi Gras and Flying Pancakes
You can see it in the picture. You can see it in that scraggly beard and the too long hair that would never pass on an Army post. You can see it in my drunken smile. You can see it on our baby faces and our too thin bodies.
memoir
The Cast: (Crescent City Chapter 1)
When I was a young man I wandered the streets with my friends, making our way from bar to bar, always searching for a girl someone knew, or a buddy who should be out, always finding someone, though it was rarely who we were looking for.
memoir
How Not to Lose Your Virginity in Australia (Vol. 2)
It was just as miserable as my buddy had warned it would be and I was glad I wasn’t hungover. It was only then, as we were flying away, somewhere over the Pacific between Australia and American Samoa, that someone gave me the bad news.