The story behind the writing of my graphic novel, The Wake-Up Call, comes from three sources, which I wrestled into shape over a long period of time. I wrote a short story, or long monologue combining them 30 years ago; then changed and reworked it recently – during the year of COVID lockdown – to …
Tags: dark dreams, karma, night of the soul, rat story, slumlord, Twilight Zone
7/7/2020 I HAVEN’T POSTED in a long time, at sea in the maelstrom of coronavirus and social upheaval that surrounds us all. So much to try to focus on, but possibly the most baffling to me is the way the president has turned a simple, scientific, medically supported recommendation – to wear masks – into …
CORONA BLUES REDUX Read More »
Tags: coronavirus, COVID-19, masks, save a life
SCULLY – THE IRISH FRENCH FOREIGN LEGIONNAIRE – 5/30/2020 The Irish, when their great wave of immigration crashed on American shores, were widely reviled. In the industrial north many businesses wouldn’t hire them – so the men often joined the army, for food, lodging and a small wage. But they were treated terribly in the …
IRISH AND FRENCH IN MEXICO Read More »
Tags: #Mexican American War, French Foreign Legion, Irish in Mexico, PTSD, San Patricios
MARCH 22, 2020 – DEAR BLOG READERS: I’M GOING TO TURN THIS CORONA BLUES BLOG POST INTO A SINGLE, LONG, COVID-19 SERIES OF POSTS – STARTING WITH MY FIRST ONE, ON MARCH 13, THAT MIXED MY EARLY CORONAVIRUS AWARENESS WITH HOW IT WAS IMPACTING MATAMOROS – AND MOVING CHRONOLOGICALLY AFTER THAT POST, TO SUBSEQUENT COVID …
Tags: end of life reflections, Jaws, John Stewart, memento mori, social distancing, The Meaning of Life, viral pandemic
March 11, 2020 *SPOILER ALERT* Reading any further will reveal one of the unexpected twists in the first 50 pages of the Matamoros novel. But what I want to talk about here is the song I wrote about that character, Teddy Beale, for the Matamoros CD. Teddy is the Corporal of the Guard at the …
MARCH 3, 2020 For a number of decades I’ve known and admired Tom Russell’s work as a gritty folksinger-songwriter, cowboy poet, Southwest musician – but somehow the notion of him as a painter passed me by. Never even occurred to me he was the artist of his CD covers. I first saw prints of some …
The Art of Tom Russell Read More »
Tags: Expressionist Portraiture, Francis Bacon, Frederick Remington, Jungian Archetypes, Old West TV, The End of the American Frontier, The Mythology of the Old West, The Spirit World in Art, The Turner Thesis, Western Art, Western Expressionism
FEBRUARY 20, 2020 On Valentine’s Day I went to Brownsville to do a book signing at the Brownsville Historical Association museum, which is where I’d done some research on the Matamoros novel. The plan was to talk a little about the history of the town, do a 10 minute reading from the book, sing two …
Brownsville/Matamoros – Then and Now Read More »
Tags: Book Signing, Brownsville, Civil War, Matamoros, Refugee Camps, Screenwriting, Writing
FEBRUARY 11, 2020 So some nice reviews have been rolling in for Matamoros, both the book and the CD. And then I noticed this paragraph from Jim Hynes’s review of the CD in The Daily Ripple on 1/29/2020: “Dylan had a lengthy song called “Brownsville Girl” but the preeminent comparison is the similarly literate Tom …
Tom Russell and Ramblin Jack Elliott, too Read More »
Tags: cowboy songs, folksongs, naif art, Ramblin Jack Elliott, Tom Russell, Woodie Guthrie
FEBRUARY 10, 2020 The songs on the Matamoros CD tell the stories of the characters in the book. Sometimes backstories of those characters, sometimes tales of what happens to them after the book ends, sometimes pieces of the narrative arc of the novel, but from the character’s subjective point of view, influenced by his dreams …
JANUARY 29, 2020 THANK YOU! My wife, the nonpareil multimedia artist Jill Littlewood, while appreciating my blog suggested I spend some time appreciating it too – and in particular appreciating all the incredible people who have bestowed their gifts to make it all come together. She suggested this might be a good moment of cultural …
It Takes a Village Read More »
Tags: creative works, getting help, going solo, gratitude, Thank you
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