Anatomy Of A Photo: Gram's Grave, My Pick

Gram Parsons was a musical pioneer, multi instrumentalist, and fellow Georgian. The creator of Cosmic American Music left a strong impression in his short career, and the music he made continues to inspire. I visited his grave in New Orleans some years ago (getting directions to his grave site from a lady assisting at a funeral, who saw him perform with the Flying Burrito Brothers - opening for the Grateful Dead at the Avalon Ballroom in San Francisco, no less - was an experience I'll never forget). It was decorated with shells and small keepsakes from fans, and this time I brought my own: a pale blue guitar pick I'd had since the late 80's when I was bassist in a garage band. Not sure where to place it, I went for the most natural choice, between the thumb and index finger on the marker. It fit perfectly.

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The World In Which We Live: Safety Is An Option Edition

In a world in which Fight Club , The X Files , and the complete works of Phillip K Dick have collided into one twisted reality we call normal (with a dash of Black Mirror and The Big Short for flavor), we now learn that software upgrades that could have prevented the crashes of two Boeing 737 Max passenger jets were available... at a price . "Want your passengers to live to fly another day? Sure, but it'll cost you." And I'm unsure who is more evil, the manufacturer for making safety features ON A FLYING MACHINE optional at additional cost or the airlines for declining to install the features. This is a stunning failure of human decency in the eyes of this writer. Perhaps I shouldn't be so surprised. This is business as usual in our extortionary economy. In the US, medical bills are the leading cause of bankruptcy , a real-world manifestation of the "your money or your life" ethos of the street thug in literature and film. The hand wringing over w...

In Memorium: Shaun Mullen, A Most Generous Man

Author, editor, blogger, and so much more Shaun Mullen has passed. Noting his blog Kiko's House hadn't been updated in a while, I did a search and discovered his obituary . My friendship with Shaun goes back to 2006. While living in Australia, I'd discovered his blog when searching for informed commentary on US foreign policy in the Middle East. Sadly, much of that policy remains unchanged 14 years later, but that is for another post. Shaun had noticed that his blog wasn't rendering correctly in Internet Explorer and asked if anyone could suggest a fix. I, being a bit of a tech head at the time, suggested Firefox or similar browser, and the problem was solved. We kept in and out of touch, finding common ground in music (I mentioned my love for the Grateful Dead and Shaun sent a dozen CDs of concert recordings. By International mail. The man was generous to a fault.), worldview, and more. My old site got its greatest number of hits when Shaun linked to a few o...

Dipping The Toes

By Willi Heidelbach, CC BY 2.5 , Link I am the proud father of a young son who, for the last two school years, has won a writing contest for his grade level. Last year's piece was a retelling of the Great Locomotive Chase of the Civil War from the point of view of the engineer of the stolen train. This year's tale was of a zombie apocalypse in which I defended home and hearth with a large iron skillet. I cook with a large iron skillet and have full faith in its ability as a defensive weapon against the undead. My son has inspired me to take up writing, a practice I pursued as a younger man with little to say and not much experience to draw from. At midlife, I have more to reflect on and put to paper. I have a short story completed and am outlining another. After working in spreadsheets all day, I look forward to going home and working in a word processor. (That's not entirely a joke) My method begins with the Vim text editor, a piece of software more suited to progra...

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