This piece was originally posted on my old blog on August 10th, 2015. If memory serves, the intent was to do a short story that merged 'Gilligan's Island' and 'Lost.' Not an original idea, I admit. It never came to fruition. Maybe this'll spark something. Either way, enjoy. So, I answer an ad from someone seeking a first mate on a charter conducting three-hour tours around the Hawaiian. Next thing I know, I'm playing Ishmael to the skipper's Ahab as he chases something he swe

This was going to be a review of the excellent film Project Hail Mary. No. Wait. Actually, I wanted to share my thoughts on the outstanding Joe Hill novel, King Sorrow. I also watched the first paintball episode of Community the other day. Sharing my reaction to that would be fun. On my other blog, Metaphysical Furniture , I've written about a couple of my favorite TV episodes. People ask me how to write a book or start a blog. The answer is appallingly simple: start writing

I saw the best minds of my generation disassembled in a flash of quantum static—reassembled under fluorescent eternity somewhere between nowhere and Georgia the sign humming like a neon oracle: WAFFLE HOUSE —and the universe said, sit anywhere. Chrome counter gleaming like a confession booth for sinners who confess in hash browns, scattered, smothered, covered— a holy trinity of cholesterol and hardened arteries. I arrived barefoot in the middle of booth seven steam rising fr

NOTE: This entry was first posted on my old blog, Upstream of Consciousness, on February 24, 2011. My dad was a smoker. He wasn't one of those smokers that would just light one cigarette after another, a chain smoker. But he definitely had a habit. As soon as he would get home from work he would haggardly walk to the refrigerator and fetch an ice cold beer. He would sit so slowly into his recliner that I couldn't tell if he was relishing the experience of finally sitting or m

Carol's Kitchen Blog: Cowboy Casserole A Comfort Food Classic for Cozy Evenings and Mild Marital Resentment If you’ve been following my blog for a while, you know that fall is my favorite season. The leaves turn, the air gets crisp, and Dave begins his annual tradition of standing in the garage looking at tools he has no immediate plans to use. There’s just something magical about this time of year. The scent of cinnamon candles, football on the television, and Dave explainin

I saw the best minds of my generation wandering through Scandinavian minimalism, hungry for meaning and reasonably priced shelving— dragging their souls past escalators that hummed like fluorescent mantras, into the great blue-and-yellow cathedral of particleboard salvation, where arrows on the floor dictated destiny more strictly than any god I had previously ignored. I followed them— past couches with names like SÖDERHAMN (which sounded less like furniture and more like a f

I was walking— walking the long suburban sidewalks of America, the ones that loop past cul-de-sacs like tired thoughts, past mailboxes shaped like trout and pickup trucks, when I saw the folding table of destiny. Two Girl Scouts. Sashes jangling with merit badges like jazz cymbals. Boxes stacked like small cardboard temples to the holy union of the munchies and capitalism. A sign written in marker: COOKIES — $6 Six dollars, man. Six dollars to soothe your hunger. Six dollars

I hit the road like a wandering mind, sun on vinyl highway, heart plugged to the rhythm of asphalt, seeking the big spectacle in the desert of winter Sundays, where legends and commercials bloom into holy madness. Super Bowl LX? Super Bowl LX! Not a number but an incantation, a neon oracle that whispers, 6:30 p.m. ET at Levi’s Stadium in Santa Clara, where the Patriots and Seahawks dance the ancient dance of pigskin destiny. I see the tassels of antennas rising like prophets,

Now that Someone Else's Book Club is out in the wild, I'm hard at work on the next novel in the Kilroy Universe: The Department of Potentially Dangerous Things. I'll reveal more details as it comes along but wanted to start by teasing the opening. Here is an excerpt from the first scene of the new book: ******* The Herpezoid Junkcruiser chugs along at the speed of blight. In most corners of the galaxy, the Herpezoid Junkcruiser is considered less a spacecraft and more a caut

O beaver-headed Buddha of the big highway, I saw your face on its siren’s call billboard thirty miles before my soul was ready to pee or be free— and the road sang, pull over, brother, pull over. Sunset like melted orange vinyl glinting on the chrome bones of America— and me, zooming through the long flat Texas hum with my heart drumming bop rhythms on the steering wheel of destiny, reading your billboards like scripture on the wind: RESTROOMS SO CLEAN WE PUT MINTS IN THE URI

SEND HELP (2026) Rachel McAdams: Linda Liddle Dylan O'Brien: Bradley Preston Screenplay by Damien Shannon and Mark Swift Directed by Sam Raimi Rated R for Strong/Bloody Violence and Language I've worked with people like Linda Liddle and Bradley Preston. Linda is the worker bee, dedicated to the job that she does all too well. Maybe too well. She was promised a promotion only to see it given to Donovan, the younger, inexperienced golf buddy and fraternity brother of the CEO. S

This post first appeared on my old blog on December 24, 2018. It's hard to believe that it has been 10 years since I lost sight in my left eye and embarked on the journey toward a prosthetic replacement. *** It all started about 3 years ago. After a rare workout at our office gym, I experienced a  central retinal vein occlusion . A retinal specialist attempted to treat it with  a steroid shot into my eyeball  which is awful and traumatic as it sounds. I pleaded with the guy n

I'm plowing through edits and revisions for the next novel, Someone Else's Book Club. The chapter I'm currently working on is when the...

This is an excerpt from my next novel, Someone Else's Book Club. The book is in its final revisions. More to come. ****** Preface to The...

We exited together… Leaving the place to its own darkness and neither of us dared look back… Stephen King, Jerusalem’s Lot “I beg your...

“My child,” he remarked, “though our episode ends, In the manner of men, I suggest we be friends.” Dorothy Parker, Fable A wretched...

Look on my works, ye Mighty, and Despair! Nothing beside remains. Percy Bysshe Shelley, Ozymandias Spencer obliged the man’s direction...

I ramble down the empty roads. All the restaurants and shops are closed… Places that witnessed so many loves Throughout the years now...

Let us leave the hateful town With its stale, forgotten lies Clark Ashton Smith, Adventure Spencer’s screams could be heard the instant...

Unseemly are the open eyes That watch the midnight sheep, That look upon the secret skies Nor close, abashed in sleep; Dorothy Parker,...