John Lennon famously said, “I’m an artist, and if you give me a tuba, I’ll bring you something out of it.” If you listen to this interview in its entirety, John was actually expressing insecurity about his guitar playing. He admits that he can’t play nearly as well as Chuck Berry. Still, he could make … Continue reading John Lennon’s Tuba, Jury Duty and the Minneapolis Skyline

My best friend, Dan Wiggins, and I rode our bikes aimlessly around the trailer park. It was a blank, do-nothing summer day. The sky was blue with just a trace of clouds. The occasional airplane streaked by high overhead. Neither of us had ever flown anywhere or seen the ocean except on television. We encountered … Continue reading Cockroaches

I recently purchased an acrylic landscape painting at the Minnehaha Falls Art Fair for $1200. It’s an impressionistic rendering of a mountain and stream in Denali National Park by A.D. Hogan. I have yet to visit Alaska but it’s a destination high on my bucket list. Minnesota is long on lily pads and lacking in … Continue reading Abstract Expressionism Along the River

Here are some photos from a recent camping trip to Lake Bemidji, the land of Paul Bunyan, with my sons. I always enjoy seeing my older boy swing the ax. I haven’t started a fire in years. I wonder if I still know how. We saw several loons while canoeing. Some had chicks that rode … Continue reading Land of Paul Bunyan

This isn’t much of a story and people can draw their own conclusions. It all happened many years ago when my first son was still in elementary school. My wife and I met this new couple at the open house before classes got underway. They had this boy, let’s just say his name was Finn. … Continue reading Clandestine

For several months this gray orb of wood pulp and wasp spit hung perilously over a quiet Minneapolis street. High overhead, I must have passed under it for weeks before noticing. Then one February afternoon, this simple thing was gone, vanished from the Earth--either run over by the brutal weight of a car or taken … Continue reading A Simple Thing

I’m sure anyone reading this has had the experience of eating an exquisite meal at a restaurant, only to go back a second time to find the fare is so-so. Geographic places are like that too, and returning to them always leaves me disappointed. There’s nothing like the first time, and there’s much to be … Continue reading The Second Time Around: Photos from Yellowstone

As human beings we both pollute and are ourselves polluted. We defile and are ourselves defiled. We have microplastics in our bloodstreams and our brains, forever chemicals in our livers. The environment is not separate from us. As we poison nature, we poison ourselves. We are all guilty and, increasingly, we will all get cancer. … Continue reading It Ain’t No Trout Stream