
S
tarting when I was in my 20s, a time when most everyone was telling me to get a real job, I called myself a journalist and set sail for places that interested me, usually for cultural reasons. It’s a small planet, I reasoned, and one can get anywhere from anywhere with one plane ticket and a forged press pass or two. Here are a few of the resulting pieces, some from back in “International Couch Surfing” phase, and some from more recent incarnations.
Never one to let a Biblical Hailstorm go un-tax-deducted, my essay about the (as of publication time) latest Climate Change-induced carnage on the Funky Butte Ranch appeared in the New York Times Magazine. Meanwhile, Farewell, My Subaru is continuing to fuel the worldwide theft of waste vegetable oil from behind the planet’s Chinese restaurants. Thanks to everyone for their support of the book.
Has this ever happened to you? You’re lost in heart-stopping wilderness beauty. Unsure of water supply. Temperatures are approaching those on Planet Mercury. It’s all part of the fun of a week-long river trip in Utah’s Canyonlands, right? What about when your (then) three-month-old son is along? My recent adventure along these lines is documented in the current edition of Sierra Magazine
The Misty Future of Rwanda’s Mountain Gorillas
Burmese Opposition Leader Snubs Junta’s Constitution Talks
I Get My Jade at the Source
The General and Me
The Mets Away in Laos
Uzbekistan Airways Flight 207, Somewhere Over the Atlantic Ocean
More recently, I’ve focused my shorter journalistic endeavors in the radio medium. When I write, it tends to be longer projects like books and screenplays (and, of course, these Dispatches From the Funky Butte Ranch). But I’m starting to get into print journalism again, and here are some pieces I like.