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Third Drink Decisions
Before I could pull into the space in front of his hotel room, my brother opened the door to Room 4 carrying a black garbage bag. Inside was a change of shoes, t-shirts he’d found or borrowed, a couple...
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Make/Work Episode 22: Mick from Darling Freakhead
In episode 22 of Make/Work, host Scott Pinkmountain speaks with the guitarist and songwriter Mick from Darling Freakhead. Mick makes a living painting houses and lives in the Bay Area. In his interview...
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He Doesn’t Wanna Be Here
The video begins with my mom calling to my little brother, asking him to sing a song for the camera. Come over here and sing a song, she pleads. My face edges into the shot, blocking our view of him....
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Highway 18
My advice: don’t lay your head—your complicated brain, bony skull, thin flesh and silken hair—on that hard spot of dirty asphalt near the faded yellow center line of a two-way road curving through the...
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The Saturday Rumpus Essay: Crushed
I have this crush. I’m so smitten and obsessed with this person that I feel like a crazed stalker. For the past month I’ve been listening to every podcast he’s been on, reading interviews with him,...
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My Sister’s Ghost
This is how it’ll happen: she’ll fall in love with the first guy to make her laugh. He’ll be younger than she, with an offbeat sense of humor. His jokes soon become the thing that only they get; they...
View ArticleVoices of Addiction #1: Baby’s Home
My baby wants to come home… home. She’s an adult now, in her twenties, and she’s been on the streets again for most of the last year. I’ve seen her twice since last April, both brief visits—one with us...
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D & K’s Fried Fish
Along the marshy coastlands of Georgia, known as the Coastal Empire, seafood is a staple in the local diet. Below is one family’s recipe for crispy, moist, fried fish. Ingredients:6-10 spot-tailed...
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Missing
It’s Mother’s Day. My mother has been dead for seven years. I go for a run near my house at the park: Debs Park—the same one where the two teen girls went missing last year. I jog past the palm trees...
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Voices of Addiction #2: Too Much Hope
“I’m not going to, not going to, not going to die,” Baby Brother chanted into the night air. “Other guys, I’ve seen them keep going. I’m going to, too. Keep going.”He talked in fragments of refusal.The...
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Voices of Addiction #3: Mother’s Day
I check in with her every day. I need to make sure she is still alive, mostly for my own peace of mind. My daughter is an addict.I tried to reach her Sunday. She didn’t respond until Monday. She was...
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Voices of Addiction #5: Surrender
I climb into my worn-out blue Cherokee and take the freeway east from Santa Monica, shooting through the guts of Los Angeles like a bullet. I pass the Hollywood sign, faded and small against the hills....
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Voices of Addiction #7: The Only Thing That Has to Change Is Everything
We both smoked Marlboro Lights. We chain smoked them, too, talking in between drags, the cherries on the end of our cigarettes glowing like tiny meteors in the darkness. John inhaled deeply, blew the...
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The Rumpus Interview with Jade Sharma
Jade Sharma’s debut novel is like a blister: It hurts, but I’m obsessed with it. Problems is the first print title published by Emily Books, an imprint of Coffee House Press. Maya, the book’s narrator,...
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Voices of Addiction #8: A Bad Night
“Are these okay?” My son motions towards the red plastic bowl containing a few pieces of torn sourdough bread, “Too big?” “Zach, they’re fine. Any way you tear them is fine; they’re just for stuffing.”...
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The Sunday Rumpus Essay: Daddy Issues
When I moved to Minneapolis for a short three months, I got a tattoo on a deck by a guy who wasn’t a tattoo artist—just some guy who owned a tattoo machine. The babies crawling around us made it look...
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The Rumpus Interview with Joshua Mohr
What do you struggle with—what’s that one thing in your life that you wish to control, yet the compulsion spins constantly, relentlessly? We all have that seductive adversary, the voice in our head...
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Analyzing the Why: A Conversation with Jonathan Reiss
The first time I met Jonathan Reiss was at a show on the Lower East Side where he read from his novel Getting Off. I was blown away not only by his writing but also by his performance. The scene he...
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Voices on Addiction: Zombie Nation
The vine has a dream of light: what is life in the dirt with its dark freedoms compared to supported ascent? – Louise Glück, “Parable of the Trellis” Five years without owning a TV and it only took a...
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Voices on Addiction: Travels with My Daughter
August Steam clouds billow from the tomato processing plant along Main Street, lit cotton candy pink by the rising sun. It’s the peak of harvest in Yolo County and canning is in full swing. I drive...
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