A snapshot of my life at the moment. Updated August 22, 2024.
🎧 What I’m Listening To
I’ve just gotten into the Red Clay Strays and their recent release, Moment of Truth. They are a blend of genres I reckon, Rockabilly, Rock 'n' Roll, Blues, and Country. My wife Tessa and I went to a place called the Ranch in Fort Meyers, Florida to catch the Red Stray Clays live. The show was about two hours south of Gulfport so we stayed the night. I am glad we did because the band didn't take the stage until close to 10 PM. The wait was worth it. These guys brought it on every song: passion, musicianship and inspiration. It was easy to see why the are breaking big right now and we are grateful to have caught them in a venue of only one-thousand capacity. Front man Brandon Coleman was in fine voice and sang his heart out. The energy was powerful as drummer John Hall propels the tunes forward and gives the most animated drum performances I've ever seen. Lead guitarist Drew Nix shreds and the band rocked harder than I expected. At the same time, there are elements of Gospel, Blues and Country in their songs. If you get the chance catch these guys live!
I am always listening to the Allman Brothers! These guys were the primary soundtrack to my life from age thirteen to the present. Songs like Blue Sky, Dreams and Elizabeth Reed still move me despite my having heard them thousands of times. American music has lost a great lead guitarist and amazing composer with the recent death of Allman Brother, Dickie Betts. I love vintage Little Feat and Steely Dan too. I'm always on the lookout for good music. If you have any suggestions, send me an email!
📚What I’m Reading
Book update: I’ve been reading up a storm so it’s time to give an update on three recent books. First is author Chris Whitaker’s crime drama, We Begin at the End. The book has a lot of different angles and sub texts that agreed with me, including family relationships, trauma and addictions. One of the main characters is Duchess who due to her mother’s alcoholism and general irresponsibility, cares for, and fiercely protects her younger brother. Duchess takes shit from nobody and is in some ways wise beyond her years and in others self-destructively impulsive. Will she be able to outrun a tragedy she put in motion? Will her and her brother ever find some kind of familial stability? This a great read and I give it a strong recommendation.
I was reading a recent New Yorker article about Norman Maclean, author of A River Runs Through I and Other Stories. I realized I’d seen the movie but had not read the book. The article described Maclean’s writing in glowing terms and helped provide biographical details that gave rise to his writing and storytelling. In the edition I got, Robert Redford writes a two-page foreword describing how worked with Maclean to get the film made. The book includes three stories, A River Runs Through It, Logging and Pimping and Your Pal, Jim, and USFS 1919 The Ranger, the Cook and a Hole in the Sky. The whole book is 246 pages long and it left me wanting more. Maclean is a brilliant nature writer, has a spare and droll style that's leavened with humor. He says a tremendous amount with few words. The themes explored include man’s relation to the natural world, family relationships, and work to name a few. If you haven’t read it, I highly recommend it!
Finally, I’m about halfway through The Overstory by Richard Powers. The book, published in 2018, won the Pulitzer Prize. Powers teaches a bunch of things generally but more specifically a bunch of things I didn’t know about trees. He is a great writer and explainer. The characters are vividly drawn. Chapters and subchapters follow different characters and their relationships to nature and trees, and to others. The title refers to what we are doing above ground while detailing what is going on below it. I’m loving the book so far and very interested to see where it takes me. More to come!
📺What I’m Watching
In addition to loving serious dramatic television series, I admit to having a soft spot for junkier fare. Shark Tank for example has the reassuring predictability of a sitcom in its format and characters. Business owners looking for infusions of cash and expertise from the individual panel members offer equity, licensing deals and on occasion, a full sale. They walk out and give their pitch as to why their business has merit. They answer questions about sales, product costs and how they market, whatever panel members want to know. If the panel members agree they make an offer the business owner is free to accept or reject. Sometimes for more equity the panel members may join together. More usually they bid against one another. Some offers are particularly "sharky" as they ask for a large piece of the equity pie.
I enjoy hearing the business pitches and watching the panel react to them, sometimes with keen interest and at others with a scoffing rejection as the idea is poor, can be knocked off easily by an existing gorilla company or the bane of panel members', “overvaluation.” In that case only a small amount of business equity is offered for too much cash. Panel members grouse about “needing more skin in the game to get out of bed for.”
If there is a foil on Shark Tank it’s Kevin O’Leary. He’s sort of a Trumpy character of a self-congratulatory nature. He invokes some business owners to “take that idea behind your barn and shoot it. It should never see the light of day again.” Or maybe a quick, “You’re dead to me!” He refers to money as his “soldiers” that he sends forth and expects to return to him in greater numbers. He is also the “king of the royalty” whereby he will attach a fee to a product sometimes in “perpetuity” as opposed to taking equity or in exchange for a lesser equity deal.
Sometimes panel members get highly competitive and snarky with one another, even nasty from time to time. I was shocked when Richard Branson tossed a glass of water in Mark Cuban’s face. I braced for Cuban to give Branson a thrashing but the show continued albeit tensely.
Shark Tank is uniquely American and I am happy to inhabit its universe. It’s a great diversion and great fun!
đź’Ş What I'm Doing in the Gym
I completed my thirty-third consecutive Falmouth Road Race with a semi-respectable, old-mannish time of 1:13:09. Race conditions were good with overcast skies and only a bit of humidity. I'm always proud to complete the race and love its challenges: A very hilly first three miles, followed by another three flat ones and a final big hill before a nice downslope into Falmouth Heights and a huge cheering crowd. I loved it when I ran it first at age thirty-five and I loved it at age sixty-eight. How many more can I do? I don't know, but I am aiming for running my thirty-fifth at age seventy. Of course the first step is next year!
I'm also continuing to train with my long time strength and conditioning Coach, Joe Augusta. He is training me with sport-specific exercises to aid my Brazilian Jiu Jitsu training with Coach Mike Gresh, AKA Loco Lobo. We grapple one weekly and Joe is helping me to remain spry and up to the muscular rigors of that sport. With Joe that includes squats, weighted squats, Airdyne sprints, weighted ball slams some lifting and circuits incorporating different exercises in timed sequences. Mike recently awarded me the first stripe on my white belt, the first step in the belt progression. I have much to learn but I am humbly proud to have advanced!
🥗What I'm Eating
A quick and easy recipe for dinner that's healthy, tasty and relatively non-caloric: roasted chicken thighs and broccoli. I usually use skinless and boneless thighs (less fat). A big head of broccoli or two if you are feeding more than two people. For the broccoli get a flat baking tin and coat it with a few glugs of olive oil. Salt and pepper the olive oil and add any other seasoning you like to use with your vegetables. (I use kosher salt and fresh ground pepper. They're just better tasting) Cut the broccoli into small spears and then place on the tin. Salt and pepper the broccoli.
For the chicken find a baking dish, put a few glugs of olive oil in the bottom. Mix in a tablespoon of toasted sesame oil to give it a smoky flavor. Place the chicken thighs in, top up. Add olive oil on top, salt and pepper, Montreal Steak Seasoning, garlic and onion powder, fresh or powdered thyme and whatever else you think will add a bit of flavor. This will create a nice crust. Preheat the over to 375 degrees. Put both the broccoli and the chicken in for thirty minutes. Every ten minutes or so take the broccoli out and turn the spears. If the chicken pieces are large it could take a few minutes more. This is a healthy meal that tastes great. Enjoy!
đź“•My Book
I’m in the final stages of editing my memoir, Blasted.
Blasted is about generational trauma and my father’s alcoholism which ultimately blew apart our family. I developed my own addictions lost a marriage, a boatload of money and then found recovery. Read an except here.
I have started to "query" agents the first step in the process of getting "traditionally" published. A query is a one page pitch about your book and why you think it's good and has a market. The query letter is usually accompanied by other elements of a full book proposal a synopsis, author bio etc. If the agent likes your pitch they will ask for a look at the full manuscript. If they want to go forward and you sign with them, they try to sell the book to a publisher. Agents sift through hundreds of queries so it's not a quick experience. I have queried six agents so far.
Update: I just got my first rejection! I'd be lying if I said I wasn't disappointed but, I am undaunted. I figure this to be a long process with many bumps along the way. If nothing else in this life, I've learned to persevere and eventually I will get published one way or another!
(Read why you should have a now page here.)