She used to stretch out in my bed like she held the deed to the mattress. Three times a day, minimum. It was a deranged cardio program that only two degenerates in love could maintain. But it was the mornings…

You want to know why it turns my stomach to watch a woman recycle her soul every 6 to 12 months. I have this friend, Lara. A serial offender. She looks at me, with all my chaos and my rotation,…

I have a saying, carved into the granite of my own goddamn experience: If you don’t drink, I don’t trust you. I’ve walked out on dates. I’ve walked out on business deals. I’ve walked out on perfectly nice, respectable people…

When I said I was going to divorce my mother at 13, I divorced my mother. When I said I was joining the Navy, I didn’t ask permission; I signed the papers. When I said I was going to be…

I’ll admit it. I have a problem. I don’t blow up often. I don’t run around screaming like a lunatic. I’m a generally good dude. But I have a Code. A deep, primitive, non-negotiable Code of Conduct that is apparently…

I come from a marriage where I was a utility, not a priority. I was the generator, the ATM, the problem-solver. But I wasn’t the point. And looking back, past the wreckage, past the grandparents who actually gave a damn,…

I’ve been thinking about loneliness. Not the sad, weep-into-your-pillow kind, but the structural kind. The kind that is the necessary tax you pay for Freedom. See, freedom is selfish. By definition. It’s the ability to wake up and say, “I’m…

I didn’t take a job. I took a hiding spot. I could have started a business. I could have been a 1099 cowboy, riding the range, eating what I killed. But I had a predator on my tail. The mother…

I went to a company party last night. The usual quiet, respectable, and completely boring affair where we all pretend we like each other for the sake of the free booze. ​And then, there was Amanda. ​When I first got…

You spend twenty years in a marriage, and you get used to a certain level of… service. Whoopie three, four times a day. Your body gets programmed. When that gets cut off, the energy doesn’t just evaporate. It needs an…

It’s a funny goddamn thing, getting old. It’s not one big event. It’s a series of quiet, pathetic, and completely humiliating little surrenders. Yeah, you get the “benchmarks.” The day you let out that beautiful, ugly, and completely honest old-man…

She was a ghost from the old days. My “Poly” partner from the Scottsdale wars, back when I was still pretending that “open” relationships were anything other than a beautiful, complicated, and completely fraudulent excuse to be a whore. I…

A word, my children, on the grand performance of fatherhood. ​There is a peculiar, well-rehearsed theater to our partings, is there not? At the airport gate, I am the consummate stoic—all pad-hugs and easy smiles. I play it cool, you…

“Lesson” is a word they teach you in school. A clean, polite, and completely bullshit word. A lesson is what you learn before a test. Life isn’t a goddamn test. Life is a beautiful, ugly, and completely unannounced ambush. You…

The sailor drowned in a desert of his own making. The good Mormon died of thirst. The millionaire went broke on a beautiful, ugly, and completely fraudulent lie. The husband, that poor, dumb, trusting bastard, he got his goddamn heart…

there’s a bluebird in my heart that wants to get out but I’m too goddamn tough for him, I say, stay in there, you little bastard, I’m not going to let anybody see you. there’s a bluebird in my heart…

I’ve always had this goddamn complex. A beautiful, ugly, and completely schizophrenic relationship with my own meat suit. Some nights, I’m a goddamn king. I walk into a bar, and I can feel it, that quiet, electric hum. The heads…

It was a typical Saturday night in this beautiful, sun-baked, and completely goddamn hopeless armpit they call Tucson. I’m in the last 90-day stretch of my prison sentence here, and I’m feeling… antsy. I told myself I wasn’t after sex.…

The last time I saw my Uncle Lee alive, I was pissing on a bush at a golf course. A beautiful, sunny, and completely respectable afternoon, and I’m just watering the goddamn shrubbery. My organic father and I, we were…

After five years, the island had gotten small. Hawaii, that beautiful, green, and completely monotonous paradise, had become a cage. A quiet, respectable, and completely soul-crushing cage with a great view. The sunsets were just… sunsets. I’d seen them all.…

The map has changed. Argentina, that beautiful, chaotic tango of a country, it’s off the table. A man doesn’t run from one burning building just to find himself trapped in another goddamn fire. No. You’ve learned that lesson, haven’t you?…

A Field Manual for Your Own Goddamn Demolition You have to understand, most people get one life. A quiet, respectable, and completely soul-crushing straight line from the cradle to the grave. They get one skin, and they just sit in…

Back in my Scottsdale days, during the reign of the Craigslist massage parlor, I put out the ad. The quiet little siren song for the lonely, the curious, and the profoundly fucked-up. “Discreet massage for women,” it whispered. “Picture required.”…

Analyzing Your “Disadvantages” (Which Are Your Strengths) 1. Your Age (57): The Western Fear: “I am too old.” The Vietnamese Reality: You are a mature, established professional. In a culture that deeply values stability and family, a man of 57…

​I have run the numbers. The story they tell is one of profound peace and success. ​A crucial piece of wisdom to begin: For this plan to work, we must see your assets clearly. The distinction between your “Flowing River”…

​You are correct to plan for this. Your strategy will be to take a “long weekend” trip every 90 days (4 times per year). Here is the realistic cost of one of those trips: ​We take that $475 trip cost,…

You know, there’s a funny goddamn thing they never tell you, not really. They sell you this whole beautiful, phony romance about love, about partnership, about finding your “other half.” What a load of horseshit. ​For a man, there’s only…

​They tell you that in your fifties, you finally find out what’s going to kill you. ​What a beautiful, gentle, and completely bullshit way of putting it. It’s not a discovery; it’s a goddamn declaration of war. Your body, that…

It starts with a betrayal, doesn’t it? It always does. You get sold a bill of goods, a beautiful, fraudulent story about a future that’s never going to come. With the wife, it was “’til death do us part.” With…

I was so goddamn insecure, so lonely in this Tucson shithole, that I bought two tickets to a show without having anyone to go with. Two tickets to see The White Buffalo at some new venue I wanted to check…

There comes a moment in many of our lives when the soul asks a dangerous question: “Is this all there is?” For me, at age 57, after a lifetime in a high-paying career, the answer was a resounding “no.” My…

You have to understand, a man can spend his whole life thinking he wants to settle down. He can tell himself that all he wants is a quiet piece of dirt, a good woman, and a few chickens to count…

I spent the last twenty-four hours with my Black Pearl. It wasn’t a date; it was a goddamn marathon, a twenty-four-hour session in the gutter of the human animal. Small talk, deep talk, and in the bedroom, a kind of…

We’re getting close, my friends. We’re in the final days of the countdown. November 11th. For thirty-five years, I’ve been a goddamn prisoner of war. Twenty years as a husband, a provider, a quiet, respectable pack mule for a woman…

The end of the world has a date now. A quiet, respectable, and completely glorious little number on a calendar: January 2nd, 2025. On that day, a Friday, I will walk into the quiet, air-conditioned tomb of my current employment,…

It’s late. The whole goddamn city of Tucson is quiet, except for the hum of the refrigerator and the quiet, steady beat of my own tired heart, counting down the seconds. My fifty-seventh birthday is next week. Fifty-seven. You get…

You have to understand, the word “apocalypse” has been hijacked by a bunch of priests and movie producers. They sell you this idea of a big, loud, and completely impersonal ending to the world. A show you get to watch…

When I was a young man, a beautiful, stupid, and completely honest animal, I was a goddamn hummingbird. I jumped from one open flower to the next, a quick, fast, and completely unapologetic blur of motion. My Tijuana days, Christ.…

It’s heartbreaking, they say. That’s the first word, isn’t it? “Heartbreaking.” A soft, gentle, and completely bullshit word for a truth that’s as hard and as clean as a piece of broken glass. It’s not heartbreaking. It’s goddamn liberating. It’s…

There’s a record I play. A Bill Callahan album called Apocalypse. The whole damn thing sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of a whiskey bottle at three in the morning. And there’s one song on it, “One Fine…

There’s a record I play. A Bill Callahan album called Apocalypse. The whole damn thing sounds like it was recorded at the bottom of a whiskey bottle at three in the morning. And as I get closer to the finish…

Today, at the ripe old age of fifty-six, on this beautiful, sun-drenched Friday afternoon of September 12th, 2025, I learned a new lesson. A real, gut-shot, down-in-the-dirt kind of lesson. And the lesson is this: never, ever, under any goddamn…

It started on a Sunday, of course. The Lord’s day of rest. I was cooking a stew, a real beautiful, greasy sonofabitch. A huge roast beef from the Mexican market, four sticks of chorizo that I knew would just melt…

Let’s be clear about what we’re fighting. Your eGFR is at 59. That’s not a yellow flag; that’s the enemy at the goddamn gates. Your kidneys are starting to wave the white flag. Your testosterone is in the toilet, which…

So here we are, sitting in this clean, white, sterile little room. It smells of antiseptic and quiet desperation. Across the desk is Dr. Evans, a nice man with soft hands and a face that’s never seen the inside of…

I met this woman. Nothing particularly incredible about her. She wore a summer dress on a body that had seen better days but was still holding on. Slim. A nice face. An attractive woman, I guess, if you’re not too…

It was a Friday when I noticed the fuel leaking out of my company truck. A fitting start to the weekend. I don’t own my own vehicle anymore; I just pilot these temporary pieces of a temporary life. I knew…

Let’s cut the bullshit. This isn’t about the tangible reasons. It’s not about the politics, the health care, the economic arbitrage. Those are just the excuses you give to the sleepwalkers, the ones who need a neat, logical reason for…

You scroll through the dating apps, and it’s a goddamn comedy. Every other profile, a woman staring into the camera, trying to look both sexy and profound, and the caption always says the same damn thing: “Not here for a…

There’s this scene I remember. A young girl, all fresh and full of questions, in the back of a convertible. The wind is whipping through her hair. She’s sitting next to this older guy, a real road-worn bastard with a…

Fifty-six years. You spend that long looking in the mirror, you watch the goddamn show in reverse. The body starts to rot, and the mind, it just gets sharper, meaner. I’m not sure when I became one of them, or…

I found myself sitting there, soaking it in. This positive, feel-good message, dripping like honey from the lips of this delicate flower who had her whole goddamn life figured out. You know the type. The kind that avoids ever acknowledging…

I saw the psychic today. Mr. Tony. But before I even sat down in his little office, the day had already taken a shit on me. A long, ugly drive from Tucson to Phoenix for some mandatory safety training, right…

Poly Poly There was this woman in Hawaii. I used to call her my Poly Girl, a cheap label for something I didn’t understand. Looking back now, after all the years and all the empty bottles, I realize those people,…

It’s 3 a.m. You’re in the bathroom again. Not sick, not drunk—just unraveling. Pulling at your own damn hair in silence, because even your soul’s tired of hearing the sound of your failure. You stare into the mirror—hollow-eyed, puffy-faced, and…

Yesterday, I was in some piss-soaked public bathroom—one of those places that smells like regret and bleach—draining my soul into a urinal. Mid-stream, I saw this mark inside the bowl. A stain, I thought. A target. So, like any idiot…

So, you’ve been reading these stories, these dispatches from the gutter. And maybe you’re getting tired. Maybe you’re sitting there in your comfortable chair, your drink sweating on a coaster, and you’re thinking you’ve got it all figured out. You’re…

  I was out there in paradise, spending money like an idiot, eating and drinking, my only real expense being a car. I’d sold my Passat back in the desert and took that cash with me, so I was flush…

My experience with the dating market in Hawaii was simple: women were selling themselves for rent. That was the game. You’d go on a date, maybe four. I’d drop a hundred and fifty bucks on sushi and a movie with…

This is the story of the man who stayed. It’s a different kind of blueprint—not for a new life, but for the continuation of an old one, built on the foundations of duty, resilience, and the stark realities of the…

When I was sixteen, in the greasy grip of a Red Dragon acid trip in some buddy’s smoke-filled room, I had a vision. Clear as a bell. Saw the whole damn thing: my wife, the kids, the twenty-year slog of…

They tell you to meditate. Some guru on a podcast, some woman you’re trying to impress, some book you picked up in a moment of weakness. The point of it, they say, is to just shut up for a minute.…

My father who I so love, if you’re looking for a label, was a hoarder. His house was a goddamn museum of neglect, stuffed to the gills with every quarter he ever saved, every piece of scrap he thought was…

I had a good friend once, back when the money flowed like cheap wine, when I had businesses, cars, a house, a wife who was a facade, kids who seemed happy enough, dogs, even chickens. A little oasis, a goddamn…

There was this book—Soulshaping by Jeff Brown. It found me in Sedona, handed to me by Laura, my second love, or whatever you call someone who gives you a book you can’t put down. I cracked it open expecting some…

Ever been around someone who changes when they’re around you? Like their whole damn personality lights up, flips a switch, and suddenly you’re not just hanging out—you’re dancing on the edge of something rare. Like a goddamn flamenco on a…

there’s a dog in me used to wear collars like medals— husband, bishopric, millionaire, project manager, semiconductor engineer, creator of things that don’t remember me. wore ’em all until my neck was raw and I forgot what the air felt…

She leans back in her chair, her old corn pipe hanging from her lips, eyes half-closed like she’s already seen the end of the story. She says: “Mmm… you open your chest today. You show me your real battlefield inside…

You’re sitting in an old, dimly lit bookstore. Dust hangs thick in the air, and the smell of aged paper mingles with the faint, earthy scent of corn tobacco. A little old Asian lady sits across from you, perched on…

You’re at a crossroads, and that’s where things get complicated. But let’s be real here—you’re already running on fumes. You’re burnt out, you’re tired, and this life you’ve been building doesn’t feel like it’s yours anymore. You want something different,…

My little brother, Nicholas, named after my grandfather, Nick. He was the closest thing I had to family after the divorce, and by closest, I mean he was still technically breathing, still carrying the same blood, but as far as…

James, listen to me. There’s a lie they tell men like you. A lie that’s stitched into every expectation, every whisper from a mother’s lips, every sideways glance from the married men who lost their fire decades ago. The lie…

James, let me tell you something I’ve learned over the years. You can spend your whole life running, convincing yourself that the next move, the next place, the next woman, the next job is going to be the thing that…

I was back in Scottsdale, running on fumes, staring down the last $70,000 in my bank account like it was a countdown clock. I had just crawled out of my Sedona sabbatical, that foggy hippie wasteland where I spent my…

Getting married was nice. There, I said it. It was nice to have a partner, to build something with someone who wasn’t just passing through. It wasn’t fireworks, it wasn’t some burning, all-consuming passion, but it was a partnership—goal-oriented, pragmatic,…

Love is a hell of a thing. People romanticize it, paint it in soft colors, drape it in poetry, sing about it until their throats go raw. But love—real love—well, most of the time it’s just a fancy way of…

It’s 2025, and the ghosts are still here. Not in some supernatural sense, no rattling chains or flickering lights. Just echoes, fragments of old conversations, bitter laughter, and the weight of a past that refuses to settle. I’ve spent a…

Looking back now, at fifty-six, I can see him clearly. My father, a man driven by one singular, all-consuming obsession: saving every goddamn penny until retirement. He was a tightwad of the highest order, a miser who disguised himself as…

At age 56, it’s been seven years since I last spoke to my father. Before the silence set in, we talked every day. Long, sprawling conversations that wandered from life and politics to fly fishing and hunting. He was my…