During our time in Venezuela, we spent three summers on Sanibel Island, Florida, in a little resort called Hurricane House. As best as Tim and I can remember, the years were 1969, 1970, and 1971. Tim took these photos in 1970; our brother Paul shot the picture of Tim. It was on one of these…
Have we turned a corner?
April 12, 2014
My father was a complex man. He had an astonishing intellect, a streak of brutality, great artistic skill, indestructible narcissism, bursts of amazing compassion, the total inability to admit when he was wrong, an urge to do the right thing, an adamant refusal to do the right thing, and secrets buried so deeply inside that…
Residue
April 7, 2014
Mom and Dad made no real provisions for their deaths. For some reason Dad threw away most of his tax documents. Since his death we’ve discovered that he had plenty to hide. Mom’s residue, on the other hand, is fully intact. Tim and I have learned a lot about not only Mom and Dad but…
Confession
April 5, 2014
I have a confession to make. Here’s my brother Tim and his friend Winston, our next-door neighbor in Campo Verde, Tia Juana, Venezuela. The two redheads were so similar that they even broke their left arms in April of 1968. Tim was pretending to be Tarzan. He tried to swing from one branch to another…
A choice I never had to make
March 28, 2014
As Mom and Dad got more enfeebled, I became obsessed with a scenario that haunted me day and night. First I bought guns to protect my parents, since they were the victims of a home invasion, Mom could barely walk, and Dad kept getting into fights with strangers. But the guns wouldn’t have prevented what…
What separates me from my brother Tim
March 24, 2014
I’ve written a lot about my brother Tim. He and my brother Eric are the people to whom I’m closest in the world. Tim designed the covers of all three books in the Ghosts Trilogy. Each cover was one basically “one and we’re done.” We discussed ideas for Ghosts and Ballyhoo, but after that I…
I will not submit
March 21, 2014
The death of my father changed me in fundamental ways. Probably the most significant consequence of Dad’s passing was that it made me aware of how much of my life I’d given over to him. He got what he wanted, regardless of the cost to others. Now that he’s no longer here, you need to…
Online outrage porn
March 19, 2014
I just read a piece titled “Why We’re Addicted to Online Outrage,” by Michael Brendan Dougherty. In his essay Dougherty links to “Outrage Porn: How the Need for ‘Perpetual Indignation’ Manufactures Phony Offense,” by Ryan Holiday. According to Holiday all the online outrage is fake, just a way for Websites to get publicity. He doesn’t…
The problem with politics
March 11, 2014
I never discuss politics publicly. Unfortunately, everything in American culture is now politicized, so my statements are viewed as political even when they’re not. That’s the problem with politics. Too many people personalize their political views, so having a different opinion from them is seen as a repudiation of their entire being. But facts don’t…