In-between other projects, I have tried my hand at various forms—none of which, so far, have been as successful as my journalism, but all of which give me pleasure.
Here's a miscellaneous sample:
A "tappable" story. When you get there, click on the page to scroll forward. There is no scrolling back.
Essay
Linked on another page here is a 5,000 word monograph exploring Alaska's political and social history: Storm Out of Paradise.
Song lyrics
I have long admired the narrative form of many country and western song lyrics. Unlike some musical genres, country songs almost always tell a story, and I’ve wondered whether I could tell one that way, too.
I don’t write music, which makes the lyrics I produce feel sterile to me, but I keep trying. This was an early effort at trying to reflect the frustration and despair the economic recession had brought to many working class households like the one I grew up in:
Outsourced, foreclosed and divorced
We had a happy family,
Two jobs, two cars, two kids.
But we lost most of everything
When our jobs both hit the skids.
Outsourced, foreclosed and then divorced.
That’s the way our story went.
Once we went from payin’ mortgage,
To barely paying rent.
Chorus
I tried to get back up again,
But I don’t think I can.
You can’t take care of your family,
You ain’t much of a man.
My wife opened up the fridge
and turned on the tee vee
I guess she felt better but
That wouldn't work for me.
Now I smoke pot in the day time
And I get drunk most nights
She eats and watches tee vee
And then we start the fights.
Chorus
I tried to get back up again,
But I don’t think I can.
You can’t take care of your family,
You ain’t much of a man.
Every time I see an ad
For a job I could do
I find a hundred fellas there
Think they could do it, too.
I've got to where I don't try now,
I just don't see the use.
And I don't see the kids no more
Since I got served for abuse.
Chorus
I tried to get back up again,
But I don’t think I can.
You can’t take care of your family,
You ain’t much of a man.
Now I just hang on day to day
Thinkin' I might meet the men
Who outsourced both our jobs away
And I know what happens then.
Chorus
I tried to get back up again,
But I don’t think I can.
You can’t take care of your family,
You ain’t much of a man.
Poetry
I have also indulged a long-simmering urge to write poetry, though I am humbled to realize how hard it is to write a decent one. (I haven’t yet discovered how much work a good one will take).
This example has the advantage, at least, of being short:
Tall Pines
These pines seem sturdy, indestructible—
tall and strong of trunk and limb,
firmly rooted in the earth.
But when their time comes (who knows why?)
a combination of wind and rain
—and perhaps age—
can tip them in an instant.
There is no reason to ask why.
They do not answer.