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Parents Day Goes Horribly Awry at St. George Day School

June 15, 2010

Mom, look, you guys used to be married. Can’t you do something? What? I think it’s cute that he’s involving himself. It’s more than he did while we were married, I can tell you that. He just used the phrase I fancy myself a bit of a thespian. I mean, getting drunk and hitting on [...]

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Jackson Pollock Discusses His Muse

December 10, 2009

You want me to say that it’s a skirt, that I paint for some broad who spit in my eye years ago when I was a nobody. You want me to admit that my painting is just some tragic, Sisyphean labor to impress the one who never gave a rat’s ass about me or my [...]

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Pantyhose

December 7, 2009

Whenever my parents went out of town they had my Aunt Jean come over and stay with me. More than a babysitter, Aunt Jean taught me to gut fish and sing songs about the railroad where she worked for twenty-some years. I asked her once if she’d ever been a conductor and she laughed like [...]

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My Fucking Book Club

December 2, 2009

Here’s Pam with her kidney stone pity. Here’s Gary touching Pam on the shoulder. Here’s our book, The Milkmaid’s Daughter, with its themes of race and incest. Here’s Leo pretending he read it. Here’s me drinking wine beforehand. Here’s Tanya with all the answers. Here’s Leo all combat and perfume. Here’s Gary touching Pam again. [...]

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My First Nude

November 24, 2009

I sketched my first nude in third grade. Ours was a progressive school. Especially for Idaho. When the model dropped her robe, some of the girls started laughing. Me and the other boys went straight to work drawing the lines of her thighs with our charcoal. Most of my focus, even then, was on her [...]

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Big Game Hunting Gives 1st Shared Lifetime Achievement Award to Walt Sterns and Claire DeLong-Sterns

November 19, 2009

As you might imagine, I don’t feel right accepting this award without Walt. I might have been the better shot, but it was his passion for big game that took us around the world. Some of you know the story, but Walt and I met when we were kids. I was in a tree stand [...]

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Ask an Abusive Beekeeper

November 16, 2009

I’m sure you get this all the time, but my honey doesn’t taste right lately. Is that my fault or the bees? –Aftertaste in Ohio Yes, I’ve had this question before. About 47,000 times. But you’d know this if you actually read the column. If you say, I know you get this all the time, [...]

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Mao

November 10, 2009

Mao Reading horoscopes in the bathroom. Mao embarrassed by his mole. Mao alone on Thanksgiving, eating pudding with his fingers. Mao wearing rings in the dark. Mao with his mom at the store, running into his fifth-grade teacher. Mao’s friend Dominic not calling to sleep over. Mao screaming fucker! as he falls during double-dutch. Mao bad-mouthing [...]

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A Blind Man Puts His Hands on Samuel Beckett’s Face

November 5, 2009

I’m just gonna do it… fingers in the mouth… as many as I can get away with.

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Vision Quest Etiquette

November 4, 2009

When you draw the protective circle within which you will remain until your vision arrives, use a stick or an elk bone. Do not use your finger. Never taunt your vision quest, no matter how long it’s taking. Do not masturbate unless your vision encourages it, which is highly unlikely although not completely without precedent [...]

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A Bruise Resembling John Wilkes Booth Is Not the Mark of a Coward

October 26, 2009

He was an old man begging for change, but I gave him some fries instead. When he reached for the food, I saw the purple above his wrist. Another two-bit, bruise-hustler. The second I’d seen that day. “It’s Booth,” he said, showing off his wrist, “but I got more than him. Five bucks to see [...]

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Modest Masochism for the Elderly

October 25, 2009

1. Put a small piece of aluminum foil on your dental filling. (Please note, Werther’s Originals candy wrappers do not provide a significant source of shock. We recommend the copper-sided foil of Rolos.) 2. Pluck a small hair from the outside of your nose. 3. Coat your finger with peanut butter and let your dog [...]

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Tangled: My Life As A Power Line Shoe-Tosser

October 22, 2009

People are always asking me, Troy, why shoes? Why power lines? A hanging pair of shoes sends a message. It says, “Welcome to the City. People die here.” Is it a warning? Yes. Is it art? Well, now we’re getting into slippery territory. Is Neil Diamond art? Is the Statue of Liberty art? What is [...]

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The MF Interviews Gene Wilder (1984)

October 20, 2009

The Murky Fringe: I think everyone wants to know about Willy Wonka and the fall/somersault you do when the kids come to the chocolate factory. Was that you? Gene Wilder: Yes. There we no stuntmen on the set–except for the midget stuntmen tumbling for the Oompa Loompas. But that fall into the summersault was me. [...]

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A Coal Miner Remembers His Canaries

October 19, 2009

Pa said not to do this–name birds and such—but he’s gone fourteen years now and I do mostly as I please. We weren’t much for sparrows or ‘keets. We were canary people, long as I can remember. They died quick—first whiff of that bad air. Sparrows were fighters, and my people liked an early alarm. [...]

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