Writer, Musician, Song and Dance Man, Entrepreneur, Punk
By the time the DJ played the song "Wake Me Up" by Avicii, inspiring rapturous screams from the crowded main dance floor of Club Instant in Budapest, Avicii had been dead for months. https://youtu.be/IcrbM1l_BoI I had heard the song before — it had been the "Jam of the Summer" four years ago — but immersed …
Continue reading "I took a pill in Budapest to show Avicii I was oh wait he’s dead."
In July, it never gets fully dark in Stockholm. Geographically far enough to the north, it is still fully bright at 10pm and never surpasses dusk. In the winter the days are depressingly dark. Sweden has a bad suicide problem. Before Stockholm I had never been to a latitude extreme enough to see light on …
It seems weird to be so broken up by the death of a celebrity. I once described him in a video as one of my "spirit animals," but I don't know what Anthony Bourdain was really like, in the flesh, other than the wit, the deep voice, the toothy smile, and the public persona that …
Someone sent this to me, thinking I would like it, and they were right. ‘Describe Yourself Like a Male Author Would’ Is the Most Savage Twitter Thread in Ages https://twitter.com/gwenckatz/status/979852671573049344 https://twitter.com/whitneyarner/status/980330317247545349 As the recent male author of a book with a young female protagonist, and also given to flights of scathing self-reflection, I don't …
Continue reading "“Describe Yourself Like a Male Author Would”"
I woke up at 3:45am this morning with the sensation that someone was tapping on my ankle. It had been a dream and there was no one there, but I was reminded of this other rude awakening, a frequently-retold but never-committed-to-writing tale of my unquiet solitary sleepitude <---(made-up word) I came to wakefulness gradually and …
When the film "The Sixth Sense" took the world by storm, I started to notice within a few years a change in the way that the writer/punter class talked about their in-progress novels and scripts. "It's about this guy who does this thing, and he gets into this situation ... but then there's a twist …
Men want to experience your amazing deals on stylin' clothes too. But if I have to shop at one more thrift store where the clothing is organized by color instead of by size, I'm going to turn into a men's rights activist. I get that these are first world problems. I also get why women …
A friend of mine recently moved from Austin to Boston, leaving behind a vibrant social life. She just posted this Facebook status: "I have a hole in my heart the size of Texas." Awwwwwww ... 120 likes, loves, and sad faces so far. A stream of comments to the following effect: "We …
Continue reading "I can’t function in polite society – at least not on Social Media"
I love making music, but I've never sold a ton of records or sold out a big venue. One of the galling things about the music business is that the musicians themselves usually have little business acumen - they're artists, not entrepreneurs. They follow their hearts, not the market. Ask a successful one how they …
Continue reading "Confessions of an Unfamous Rock Star, Part 1: Birthday Call"
Buzzwords pop up in the culture to reflect the mood of the time, and become popular when they strike a nerve. A few are okay, but some are just eggregious - in the way that they are inescapable, the way that they don't convey actual meaning, in the way that they are sometimes just flat-out made-up …
PAUL GREENAMYER 