Last Christmas, my brother Joe gave me two gifts. “You have to open them in order,” he said. The first was a book, The Authentic Animal, by Dave Madden. The second gift was a stuffed white rabbit, seen here:

My jaw dropped—which was a tame response,… Read full post »

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Next week, I start my bike ride to Washington, D.C.

            Concurrently, I’ll shoot my documentary a/… Read full post »

My Mom and me, just past the finish line. Photo credit Richard Isenberg.

The year 2012 has already been a landmark year for Doing Stuff I Always Hoped To Do—starting with January 1, when I jumped in the frigid Monongahela with the Pittsburgh Polar Bear Club. Followe/… Read full post »

This morning, I received the following email from my publisher, Michael Simms.

Hi Robert,

The Archipelago is now available as a Kindle Edition!  Please get the word out that the Kindle text costs only $9.99.  See below.

Best,

Mike

I nearly jumped out of… Read full post »

I’m giddy to say that the book Hungry is now available for download. The novel is about cannibals in Pittsburgh. My friend Dan Parme lovingly wrote this volume, and as far as I know, Hungry is fiction. And it’s positively awesome.

      &n… Read full post »

Tomorrow night, I perform One Million Elephants. It’s my one-man-show. Just me onstage. Telling a story. Just a backpack, a steamer trunk, some photographs—and an inordinate number of tennis balls.

            I have wa/… Read full post »

Last year, my friend Gina Caciolo wanted to publish a “chapbook.” She’s a former student of mine, now in grad school in California. She asked if I had a really short book manuscript lying around.

            Huh,/… Read full post »

 

“So what’s your monologue show about?” people ask.

            “Slackers, stoners, and drunks.”

            “Really?”

 … Read full post »

:-}

Hv a gr8 day haha! 

C U @ 9 ha ha

TTYL ha :) 

What, for God’s sakes,… Read full post »

 No picture seemed appropriate.

As it turns out, Mike Daisey lied. The stage performer, monologuist, muckraker and world traveler—not to mention a fellow New Englander—simply made up part of his story. His show, The Agony and Ecstasy of Steve Jobs, one of the most succ/… Read full post »

I recently read an ad for the Hollywood Theater, a refurbished old cinema in Dormont, just outside of Pittsburgh. In a few days, the Theater will screen Star Trek VI: The Undiscovered Country.

            When I read this, my jaw a/… Read full post »

When I woke up this morning, Lulu.com was advertising a sale: A full 20% off everything on their site. Usually I delete these notifications. I’m not a compulsive shopper. Most of my friends are not compulsive shoppers. But Lulu peddles a different kind of stock: They are a DIY publisher, and… Read full post »

Tomorrow night, Twelve Peers Theater will present their first adaptation of the Pittsburgh Monologue Project. It’s a big night, and I’m very excited about—it will be the first of six Saturdays of monologue shows, the first “commercial” production in many ye/… Read full post »

Photograph of Egyptian soldier, Cairo.

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I recently finished reading Fire, my first foray into the Sabastian Junger canon, and the book gives me pause. For years, professors have nudged his books toward me, citing them as excellent examples of Creative Nonf/… Read full post »

Photograph of Frigid Five Winner, 2011

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My legs were moving. Clopping, you could say. Like the shoed hoofs of a horse on cold pavement. There I was, 2.4 miles into a/… Read full post »

And so, at last, I jumped in the river. And it was goddamn cold. Breathtakingly cold. Heart-stoppingly cold, bone-chillingly, lung-achingly, skin-numbingly cold. I popped out of the water… Read full post »

Before I get to Kim Jong Il, the late dictator of North Korea, I would like to start with a question:

            Suppose you were offered a job—to become the leader of a country. This position is extremely powerful. You have/… Read full post »

In preparation for my sojourn in Thailand, I recently listened to the audiobook version of Bangkok 8, a roman noir by British author John Burdett. Unaware that I am a… Read full post »

Ten years ago, I biked the Great Allegheny Passage, from Pittsburgh to Cumberland, MD. It was a difficult time: The world was reeling from 9/11, the U.S. had just invaded Afghanistan, and the newspaper I had lovingly freelanced for had just folded. Desperate to escape… Read full post »

This excerpt continues my story of Laos, a nation I plan to explore at the end of November. My book project, called One Million Elephants, concerns the aftermath of the Laotian Civil War. Photograph of a highrise court in Saigon, where I visited in 2000. For the… Read full post »

This excerpt continues my story of Laos, a nation I plan to explore at the end of November. My book project, called One Million Elephants, concerns the aftermath of the Laotian Civil War. Photograph of street in Penang, where I visited in 2000. For the first part of t… Read full post »

This excerpt continues my story of Laos, a nation I plan to explore at the end of November. My book project, called One Million Elephants, concerns the aftermath of the Laotian Civil War. Photograph of Pangkor Island, Malaysia. For the first part of this se… Read full post »

This excerpt continues my story of Laos, a nation I plan to explore at the end of November. My book project, called One Million Elephants, concerns the aftermath of the Laotian Civil War. For the first part of this serial, click here.

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I scoured the librar… Read full post »

This excerpt continues my story of Laos, a nation I plan to explore at the end of November. My book project, called One Million Elephants, concerns the aftermath of the Laotian Civil War. For the first part of this serial, click here. Photograph of martial arts/… Read full post »