“First Words,” by Daniel Holland

My sweetheart Daniel Holland in Northern California had a wonderful dream one night and was fortunate enough to remember it. This is an archtypal dream every performer, artist, and writer must know and face before putting work out in the world. –JRG In the dream I’m in the lion’s den with two lions. They are…

Why do we scratch our heads when we can’t figure something out? Are we simply buying time? Signalling that we are clueless? Or, do we think we’ll shake our brains a bit, and the information we are looking for will fall out?

I always lie when I tell snow stories. You say you walked to school as a kid in two feet of snow. I say I walked in three feet of snow. Not only that–it was 20 degrees below zero. There were no bathrooms in sight, a lot of people around. I was pee-shy.

I’ve arrived in the Midwest now and am starting the work of making a new home for myself in St. Louis. My brother Gary Thompson flew out to visit me, fish with Daniel, and escort me back. We slept last night in the house we grew up in, where my father grew up, where he…

I eat, smell, inhale, and cling to the dirt. I am gardener, feel my grit.

Hey Man, this weird thing happened yesterday down at the vegetable stand I own. When they fertilized the field in back of my stand, the field flooded. The water rushed into a hole in back of the cabbage bin. Man, was I bummed out when I saw that! I didn’t want to throw away the…