He helped me survive jail time — Before I was taken to my jail cell, the guards made me undress and put on ‘blues’. My new wardrobe. Criminal pajamas. Then one of them taunted me by loudly spitting out from over his desk, “Hope you don’t have claustrophobia!” I did have a fear of enclosed spaces and…

My sleeplessness began very young when I sought out books to keep me company at 3:00 am — In the middle of the night, I would wake up under a heavy, red blanket. I’d peer out into my dark, little room from high on my brass bed and survey the shadows on the walls. …

Celebrating my dark cabaret indie band, the fedora I used to wear, and the best album we ever released — Who were the Night Watchmen? Some of you reading will know but most of you won’t. This story is about the band I formed in San Francisco in 2001, and the dark, vaudeville, jazz, blues, and punk-infused music we made together. Our costumes, backstage chaos, circus antics, tiny-but-devoted audiences, excessive…

Running for my punk rock teenage life on a Midwest winter night — The air was so cold that it felt like my lungs would crack when I breathed. We were rushing from the car into the street. Four white-trash, teenage punks on a Friday night rampage. Out onto the icy blacktop of our Central Minnesotan wasteland. Into the freedom of downtown. Our…

The day I almost died surfing beautiful waves in Costa Rica — It had been years since I paddled out. When I stepped out onto the beach in Nosara, Costa Rica, there were lines upon lines of gorgeous, glassy waves. Shimmering, blue, and peeling both to the left and right. I felt like a little boy getting ready to open birthday presents…

When I was compared to a swashbuckling archeologist in Turkey and a space cowboy in Minnesota — There are two times in my life when I had the honor and privilege to be compared to heroic, cinematic characters played by Harrison Ford. The first time was when I was dancing under the moonlight with a family of Turks at a party of belly dancers on a veranda…

My winter living at the crossroads of Moravia and Bohemia in Havlíčkův Brod, Czech Republic — On my final day living in the Czech Highlands, yellow light from the train station hovered over the snow falling on the tracks. It was a cold December night, and my friends had kept me out drinking until the last train left Havlíčkův Brod at midnight. I found a car…

How to take breaks from media, messaging, and the digital world — This morning, I woke up, put on my robe, climbed slowly down the stairs, had my vitamins, and put a pot of coffee on. …

A curvaceous bartender in the Nevada desert has a confession — Continue from part 5: Rock ’n’ Roll Meltdown — or dive in! Numbed and on edge after surviving the drive through a night of torrential rain, with lightning piercing through the dark like a strobe light in a throbbing dance club, Jarette had arrived in Middlegate, Nevada. …