"Why do they [write] for their money? Why do they [work] for short pay? They ain't getting nowhere and they're losing their share. They must have gone crazy back there." — Michael Burton (paraphrased)
Sunday was astonishingly productive. I touched all the bases of my various sources of income. Now it’s Tuesday. Monday was a blink-out. On Monday, I went to Laurens District High School to take photos of football players. Before that, I chatted with Raiders head coach Chris Liner during the waning minutes of practice. Afterwards, my …
Continue reading I’m So Short of Money, It Makes My Eyes Itch
It's dripping rain in the Poconos. It's iffy at Baltusrol. It's hot as fire here, but it's supposed to rain tomorrow. If the afternoon arrives and the race is delayed, I'm not going to watch NASCAR drivers pet their puppies (um, woe be unto thy dirty minds) in the motorcoach lot. I may mow the …
Continue reading Them Steadily Depressing, Lowdown, Mind-Messing Social Media Blues
Times are changing. The Republicans are acting like the Democrats. The Democrats are having a fine old time watching. Next week, I expect, the Democrats will act, in response, like Republicans used to. And I'll be glad that all I've got to do is vote. I didn't watch much of the GOP -- when I …
In hindsight, losing my satellite TV reception wasn't such a bad thing. A storm hit last Thursday night, and while the damage wasn't severe, it did rip apart a cedar tree in the backyard. I'm not sure whether the tree will survive or not. She might just need to be taken out of her misery. …
This morning I've been reacquainting myself with a manuscript. I lost a race with Cowboys Come Home. I wanted to finish its first draft before my fourth novel, Forgive Us Our Trespasses, was published. It was released in Kindle edition on March 29. I was still a couple or three chapters shy. Then came the …
It's a lovely Saturday morning, not that I have so much as cracked a door to sniff the chill wind. My confidence relies on the sunlight flickering through the blinds behind me. The outside world flickers, also, affected by the various blinds of the programming I happen to be using. I read Sarah Palin's Facebook …
I just read the county arrest report on my iPhone. Police charged a man named Roydrecilous Irby with "giving false information to law enforcement." I wonder if it was his name. The bad weather has "about played out," as is often said around here. It's slick, but it'll be wet by tomorrow. I had to …
Continue reading Too Much Information About the Way the Morning Went
Nowadays I write novels in order to make a living, or, at least, that's the direction I'm headed. Free-lance sportswriting provides some regular income. Royalties come in bits, snatches, and clumps. They're slow when I need them and flood in when the crises are past. I'm making progress. When I got my first novel, The …
Motorsports and American Culture: From Demolition Derbies to NASCAR, Edited Mark D. Howell and John D. Miller (Lanham, Maryland: Rowman & Littlefield) I’d never heard of this book until a copy of it was given me by my friend John Edwin Mason, who, in addition to teaching African history and the history of photography at …
Between episodes of an irreverent short story, I’ve decided today to write about sports in this space, rationalizing it on the basis that what will be written forthwith is fictitious and exaggerated. ORCHESTRAL INTRO “Live from Grand Canyon Arena in Teaneck, New Jersey, it’s the finals of the Rust Belt Conference Men’s Basketball Tournament, matching …
Continue reading Various Absurdities of the Televised Sporting Life
Nightrider's Lament 