Below is a collection of my favorite nonfiction pieces.  I couldn’t possibly link to everything, so instead you get a little of everything, a buffet of awesomeness, you might say.  Dig in.

There’s Something About a Train: All Authors Magazine. July 2014: An excellent magazine. I was honored to write an article for it. My article focused on my experiences with the Amtrak Writers Internship. Note: I wasn’t selected.

The True Story of Song Series

I began writing this series of music history articles for the content magazine http://suite101.com/, where I was their folk music columnist.  I plan of someday finishing this series off line and collecting it into an e-book.  In the mean time, here are some of my favorite pieces from the series.

The True Story of Alice’s Restaurant — Can you believe that Arlo Guthrie is a Republican now?  Come on, man!

The True Story of American Pie — An analysis of the Don McLean song and its relation to the history of Rock and Roll.  No actual pie, but a lot of hate for the Rolling Stones.

The True Story of Stagger Lee — The murder that inspired the famous folk song

The True Story of Charlie on the MTA — The history of one of my all time favorite songs.  Also, the second song that I ever learned on guitar, back when I was seven or eight.  It’s still one of my favorites to play.

The True Story of The Hurricane — Another famous murder, and the movement to free the man convicted.  You probably know the story, there was a movie about it a few years back.

The True Story of Casey Jones — Interesting note, he was not, as the Grateful Dead say, high on cocaine.

The True Story of The Big Rock Candy Mountain — All about child abuse.  What kind of sick freak turns this into a kids’ song?

The True Story of This Land is Your Land — Oh, Woody Guthrie, where art thou?

The True Story of Tom Dooley — The first song I ever learned on guitar.

Examiner

For a short time (about a year) I was a regular contributor to the Examiner.  I mostly wrote news snippets about things that I wasn’t really interested in, but it was fun at times.  I stopped writing for them when I went to work on my novel, and my Masters thesis full time.  I have difficulty focusing on more that one project at a time.

You can look at my profile there, but I will post some of my favorite articles here.

Opinion: No Grammy nod for Buddy and Julie Miller proves Grammy stupidity — What can I say?  Award shows are stupid.  You can’t qualify art.  Of course, if you want to give me an award for something, I will take it.  Praise is nice.

Science proves Shania Twain has perfect face; still makes awful music — There is no good Pop Music, whether it’s Rock, Country, R & B, Rap, Jazz . . . etc.

Guitar inspiration: Legendary guitarists that overcame disabilities–  Part two — Jerry Garcia — If you don’t love Jerry, you are probably a horrible person.

The Attack of Naked Guy!! Phish Concert Interrupted by Wang-Swinging Fan — True story . . . not a phallacy . . . see what I did there?  Phallacy, like phallic, and also because Phish has a “ph” instead of an “F.”  Puns are phun.

Did Steve Perry Use the N-word? — This one got quite a bit of attention.  People love Journey.

Open letter to Steven Tyler:  You may be in rehab, but you’re still a tool — How quickly we’ve forgotten the train wreck that was Aerosmith towards the end of 2009.  Probably because no one cared.