Story
Pilgrims
City of Strangers
An excerpt from a novel
I met Dupont at the Bar X, a totally anonymous-looking place with tinted windows wedged in-between a McDonald’s and a pizzeria. I might never have noticed it had it not been for the neon Bud sign i...
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Story
Fat Wallet
Díre McCain
As luck would have it, Tecate Flats turned out to be a goldmine. Throughout the duration of my addiction, I had a fortuitous knack for attracting people—more specifically, men—who not only facilitated my habit, b...
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What I Did Today, Part IV
Ron Kolm
So we’re about to be hit by hurricane Irene, alright! And, at the same time, Carl Watson spends the day in an upstate hospital with something akin to colitis – so it goes. Carl is the very person who would give both his ...
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Rich
Michael Aanavi
I’m an old time smugglin’ man,
I know just what to do.
I sell guns to the Arabs,
I sell dynamite to the Jews.
—Tim Hardin
I first met Rich soon after he and my mother started seeing each other. My mother had come f...
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What I Did Today, Part III
Ron Kolm
If you’ve been following this series of posts, you’ll remember that there are four 2,000 word “essays” in each What I Did Today chapbook, and that Dan Waber is the publisher, and that if you want a copy you have to c...
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NEW
don't read this
D. Scot Miller
friday night, i'm
in an underwater
ballet kind of mood like when
you're a kid at the swimming pool, you sink beneath the surface of the water
and pretend you can do everything the water can
&
i see
becky anderson la...
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Essay
A Life of Uncontrollable Urges (or Tourette’s and the Writing Life)
Jose Padua
On a recent Sunday afternoon, as I pushed a cart in the aisle between the checkout counters and the racks of men’s shirts at Walmart, the song that went though my head was Brian Eno’s “Here Come the Warm Jets.” Eve...
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What I Did Today, Part II
Ron Kolm
It’s been a week or two since I posted the first of four essays from Dan Waber’s What I Did Today Chapbook series (published by chapbookpublisher.com but, as it turns out, not available from them – to get a copy you ha...
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My Grandfather, Nobility, and Sour Cream
Michael Aanavi
Whatever you end up doing, love it. The way you loved the projection booth when you were a little squirt.
—Alfredo in Cinema Paradiso
My mother used to tell me we were descended from Russian princes, that I was royalty...
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Literary Outlaws, Bad Asses & Underground Writers
Mark McCawley
“…true Unbearables realize that there is nothing to sell out other than that
overstocked warehouse of lost dreams we’ve all been carrying on
our backs for so long they’ve taken on the aura of that immortal
5000-po...
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Essay
BEER MYSTIC Burp #9: Beernuts are People Too
bart plantenga
You can make a lot of friends on social networks if you’re into beer. You can do that quite adequately in bars as well. You buy a few elbow jockeys a round of canned goat urine and you might have friends for life, the kind...
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Dag-a-Man Leanty’s Dumpe1
Robert C. Hardin
(hav’ na byn compos’d by Byffe, Bairn an’ Nagel, nae dead a’ sea)2
Aie, nae, dance th’ auld dag-a-man leanty3
Er mae yer goggles a-cyrl,
An’ slag-a-mum4 dyne
On th’ bulgewark o’ thyne,
Wharfor’...
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An interview with art therapist David Gussak.
J. Boyett
A few weeks ago, I had some fun here dishing the John Wayne Gacy show in Las Vegas. Then someone calling him/herself LL posted a comment pointing me toward a website with lots of information about the show and I figured that...
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Essay
BEER MYSTIC Burp #8: Eddie Don’t Do Beer
bart plantenga
No, Eddie Woods don’t do beer, he does white wine, anything above 3 euros is just fine. Pinot Grigio or Chardonnay is more than OK by him. Not before 5 and thereafter, he switches to red – Merlot [EW correction] or Beau...
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