Stephan Bailey: A Valise of Doubt
“You’ve got this all wrong,” Tim Derr said to his best friend of thirty years, Stephan Bailey who sat next to him on a stool at a tavern in Miami called, 305 Brass. “First and foremost compadre, as a person who has known you the most, and the best wingman that a guy looking for a girl could ask for—it’s not a blind date.”
“Remember when Tara and I went to an all-inclusive in Key West?” Tim asked.
“Of course,” Stephan said.
“Well, Read more [...]
Albert Joseph’s Bravado
Black and White Television Shows
Golden Age of Radio
Stories about his childhood:
Melancholy in Monessen,
A football star’s future—
Shortened by the family’s business.
Met a woman from Charleroi,
“Virginia is for Lovers.”
Completed a Family in 1971:
A corner house he purchased at Henry Street
In the borough of N. Belle Vernon.
I recall (those 14 vivid years
And the 16 visiting years),
What I want to recall…
A mill custodian, a provider,
A man Read more [...]
A Delivery from Dorothy Jane
Black and White Movies
Big Band Music
Stories about her childhood:
The lonely air in Lowber,
No joy in Charleroi.
Met a man from Monessen,
“Virginia is for Lovers.”
Completed a Family in 1971 :
A corner house at Henry Street
In the borough of N. Belle Vernon.
I recall (those vivid 14 years)
What I want to recall …
An artist, a baker, a craft maker.
I waited for mom to watch
Black and White Movies and
Listen to Big Band Music—
Stories about my Read more [...]
American Comandante
Dream lofty dreams, and as you dream, so shall you become—James Allen
William Morgan was a pipe dreamer of sort who, over the course of his formidable to fatherhood years, became a hero to some, a traitor to others, but most notably a man with conviction.
The documentary, American Comandante, illustrates the story of how a young man from Toledo, Ohio converted to a commander in the Cuban Revolution under Fidel Castro.
His lifetime was measured in a plethora of positions: Read more [...]
Rotted Orange among the Apple Orchards
A man from Miami wearing brown sandals, drawstring tan pants and a white guayabera appeared large between dead apple orchards. Two turkey vultures pecked on his body nailed between the long grass blades with a bullet. Their beaks had been breaking his skin since the scent stirred the air of a farm field in the eight hours of his death. The body was later identified by the sister of the deceased man: Charlie Snow.
Twelve hours earlier at the Merry Mountain Read more [...]
Miami Babylon—Gerald Posner
“Too Much is Never Enough”
Bienvenido a Miami Beach—A place that is pure, scenes that are graphic, people who are greedy, and a multi-cultural society which is collectively colorful.
Miami Babylon, published in 2009, is a social and historical timeline of Miami Beach. This is not your average text of footnotes which are marked by milestones for those who reside in a particular place, like the beach, to be docent guiding visitors to the important figures, symbolic Read more [...]
Captain's Boat
“I’ve been weeping for a mighty long time. Yes, I’ve been weeping for a mighty long time.”
Kim Whistler sang The Five Blind Boys song as if she was in the Overtown Baptist Church choir. She sang with the harmony of happiness and claps of praise. But she was three blocks and one little boy from the church. Her voice bounced off the inside of the boat as the acoustics allowed the sadness to sink into the old sea worn wood of a boat, forty feet in length.
In this neighborhood Read more [...]
Wanton Needs—Marshall Boyd
Coffee is like a bad woman, rough on the nerves, but good for the spirit—Falk McCoy
Wanton Needs, the fourth book by author Marshall Boyd of the Falk McCoy Mystery series, begins at the familiar Glades Hotel and then crisscrosses Miami by covering the cultures and countries that are the identity of the Magic City.
At Amantes, a supper club located on the second floor of the Glades Hotel, Garcia (owner of the hotel) and Mystel (Falk’s lover and proprietor of the Read more [...]
Christan Gatto: A Composition of Travel
A compelling review based on the sole question: What is your favorite book?
Cure, routine, rendezvous or collision, the rhyme of travel is sublime. But you must forgo these concepts and the common area in which you reside. Ride, ride, ride somewhere to the fissures of foreign tableaux.—D. Martini
A month ago I had a conversation with a dear friend who is a teacher living in the mountains of Colorado. It was about having a favorite book. From his repertoire Read more [...]
