I became one of “those who had seen him” — I have written on multiple occasions that one of the pivotal moments in my life came at nine years old when, in August of 1975, the Born to Run album was released. On that occasion I had a St. Paul-like, Road-to-Damascus experience during which the scales fell from my eyes…

The E Street Band Strikes Back — We’ve reached the new millennium in my limited series on my favorite albums from each year I’ve been alive, and it was as much a transitional decade musically as it was in my personal life. The 2000s saw the arrival of my second daughter, the end of my marriage, the…

It was a magical era — Every year I reread three books: The Razor’s Edge, The Shadow of the Wind, and Ernest Hemingway’s memoir of his Paris years, A Moveable Feast. As I was starting my annual journey with Papa yesterday, I wanted to look back at my review of the book, only to find that…

I almost don’t have words — Proving that dumbass misogyny is not confined only to the United States, yesterday Canadian author and psychologist Jordan Peterson decided the thing to do was make hateful comments on Twitter about the newest Sports Illustrated Swimsuit Issue cover model, Yumi Nu. You can read his comment in the tweet below…

It was a weird decade for me — If you lived through the 1990s, I don’t have to tell you that it was a weird decade. For me it opened with joining the Army at the outbreak of the First Gulf War, had a wedding in the middle, the birth of a Springsteen-loving daughter toward the end, and…

This one’s been brewing for a while — This may come as a shock to many of you, but I do not immediately publish a rant about every news item that infuriates me the minute I encounter it. There are many times I do (Greg Abbott press conferences almost ensure an immediate response), but there are times where…

The greatest decade — In taking on the Herculean task of listing my favorite album from every year I’ve been alive, I knew that Part Two was going to be the most challenging. As an unrepentant and uncharacteristically vocal member of Generation X, the 1980s are my touchstone decade. This is true for films…

Let’s give this one another chance — Back during the summer, I experimented with the idea of doing a Throwback Thursday article that would highlight an older piece that, for whatever reason, just didn’t get many views. This experiment, like many over the course of my life, was an abject failure. I abandoned it to the bad…

He shows up when he feels like it — I mentioned in an article yesterday about finishing the first draft of my next novel that the characters simply will not shut up. As if to prove me right beyond all doubt, this morning while I was toiling happily away on the next ode to the great Bruce Frederick Joseph…