clips

(updated 3/9/11)

Features
For the Texas Observer
Standing Down (February 2011)
The People’s Frog (November 2010)

For MTV Hive
Leaders of a New School: Hip-Hop in Universities (April 2011)
Record Store Day’s Best Bets (April 2011)
Noise Barriers: A Look at Austin’s Biggest Battle (March 2011)
SXSW Odds-making: Calculating Success …With Math! (March 2011)

For The A.V. Club
Malt Liquor Pitchman and The Boll Muse: Secret identities of Austin Comic Con guests
Certain Songs: Ra Ra Riot
The Franzen-O-Meter: Ranking the authors of the Texas Book Festival
The A.V. Club guide to suitable ACL Fest substitutions at Ditch The Fest Fest
Questions we would’ve asked Billy Corgan
The drugs do work: The A.V. Club’s guide to surviving an inpatient pharmaceutical trial
We aren’t “We Are The World”: The art of the worthwhile charity record
Points Of Contention: Republic Of Texas Biker Rally
Points Of Contention: Gold Class Cinemas
Austin Speculation Limits (series)
How to boost your nerd cred at C2E2
Is This Thing On?: Austin’s Comics Rate the City’s Open Mics
Decider’s Extremely Shallow Guide to the Austin Mayoral Race
Uh-Oh, Rush Comes To Town: A Limbaugh-Centric Guide to Austin
Where The Streets Have Some Dude’s Name
Faking Your Way Through Staple! Independent Media Expo
Faking Your Way Through FronteraFest
Faking Your Way Through the East Austin Studio Tour
Don’t Live Here: Austin’s Lamest Apartments
Lawmakers Sing “No Way For Hollywood”

For Asylum.com
How to Make a (Good) Living As a Human Lab Rat
Amazing Life of Bozo the Clown Includes Astronaut Training, Cannibals
From the Mafia to the Hells Angels — What It Takes to Go Undercover
Porn Star Rescues Man From Jail Sentence in Puerto Rico
Three Rules for Achieving Greatness From Proven Champions
Texas Secessionists — Why You May Have Them All Wrong
Our Real Plans for an ‘Armageddon’ Asteroid Scenario
Why Your Band Hasn’t Made It Yet
Asylum Writer Crushes Enemies (Maxim) at Poker Tournament
Arena Football League Returns, Tells Players to Keep Day Jobs
NASA Gives Away Space Shuttle Engines — Asylum Tries to Claim One
The Year of Free Pizza — What One Man Learned

more Asylum.com features available here.

For Austin Monthly:
Upping The Ante (December 2010) (.pdf file)

Interviews
For MTV Hive
The Childish Ways of Donald Glover (April 2011)
Beth Ditto’s Disco Inferno (April 2011)
Siamese Dreaming With The Dodos (March 2011)

For The A.V. Club
Every Hall Of Famer Artist Summer Anne Burton (April 2011)
Marnie Stern and the Misanthrope’s Guide to Touring (February 2011)
Paul and Storm of w00tstock
Dignan
Dead Confederate
Future Clouds and Radar
Maps & Atlases
The Encyclopedia Show Austin
Thax Douglas
David Dondero
Eight-time world champion Ann Wolfe
D&D 101
Mortified! Austin
Chicago Bears linebacker Lance Briggs
David Israel
Competitive eating champion Chris Floyd
DJ Spooky
Project: RANT!
Rhett Miller
Church of the Friendly Ghost
Texas Testosterone Festival
Mr. Lif
Jeffrey Brown
Mary Roach
Reggie Watts
Austin City Councilman Chris Riley
Golden Bear
Shari MacDonald Strong
The Getalong Gang Performance Group
Vestige Group
Austin Script Works

For Asylum.com
A Prison Librarian on Pimps, Books and Making Friends On the Inside
Actress Jenny Jemison on Going Through Life With a Porn Star’s Name
Bill Pullman Revisits His ‘Independence Day’ Speech at Austin Film Fest
17-Year-Old Chad Ramey Introduces Us to Amateur Nuclear Fusion Subculture
Andrew WK Helps Us Out With a Head Injury
All-Girl Rage Against the Machine Tribute Band Blows Our Mind
How to Be John Bonham — A Tribute Band Drummer’s Guide
Atheist Rapture Pet Rescue Founder Discusses His Business Model

For Paste
”Catching Up With… Rhett Miller”

Reviews

For MTV Hive
Kanye West Invades SXSW (March 2011)

For Spin
The Best Moments of Austin City Limits 2010

For The A.V. Club
Jimmy Eat World at La Zona Rosa (February 2011)
Pixies at Austin Music Hall
Smashing Pumpkins at Stubb’s
Nas and Damian “Jr. Gong” Marley at Stubb’s
P.O.S. at Red 7
Regina Spektor at Stubb’s
Soulsavers and Mark Lanegan at Stubb’s Jr.
Murs at Emo’s Jr.
Brian Posehn at Capitol City Comedy Club
FronteraFest Short Fringe Week One
The Bird and the Bee
Things In Life

Austin Film Festival (contributor, 2009-2010)
Fantastic Fest (contributor, 2010)

For Austinist.com
All Austinist review here

Sports
For Asylum.com
Will Dan Gilbert’s Open Letter Curse the Miami Heat?
Three Rules for Achieving Greatness From Proven Champions
Arena Football League Returns, Tells Players to Keep Day Jobs
When Will We See the First Openly Gay NFL Player?

For Troubl.org
Down and Distance was a weekly football and politics column I kept for the first half of the 2009 NFL season before Troubl went on hiatus. I’m pretty proud of this run, and they hold up fairly well. Here’s my favorite of the bunch, about gay marriage and week 5.

For The A.V. Club
First-and-several-thousand-miles: The A.V Club guide to rooting for former Longhorns in the NFL
No, really, who dat?: The three types of Saints fans in Austin
Jock Itch: Faking Your Way Through the Bears’ Off-Season
Drop-Kicked Through The Goal Posts of Life: Job Suggestions for Laid-Off Arena League Players
Don’t Call It a Comeback: The Favre Un-Retirement Saga Considered As Hip-Hop

Food
For Asylum.com
Asylum Eats Cake Balls, Chicken Donuts in Austin
Executive Chef Analyzes ‘New’ Domino’s Pizza

For The A.V. Club
The Big Lame
Texpatriates: Chicago-Style Hot Dogs
Texpatriates: Irish Pubs
Texpatriates: Manny Hattan’s New York Delicatessan
Texpatriates: Lucky J’s Chicken and Waffles
Texpatriates: Chicago-Style Deep Dish Pizza

Other
For the A.V. Club
Bandwagon is a weekly Craigslist round-up feature I co-write.
How To Survive a Zombie Invasion of Austin (co-written with Devon Tincknell)
Blog: Counting Crows Is Better Than Your Favorite Band
Blog: Chuck Norris Is My President

Books / Chapbooks

Greeted As Liberators: Highway Notes On America From the 2004 Presidential Campaign Season (2008)
76pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
Greeted As Liberators is August, September, and October 2004 - the height of the American Presidential campaign between George W Bush and John Kerry - from gas stations and Waffle Houses, coffee shops and community spaces, all across America. It’s about DIY touring and trying to figure out how, if everyone you meet in America is cool on a one-to-one basis, they can come off as such monsters in who they choose to elect.

Conviction (2006)
24pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
Conviction is an essay written in 2005. I wrote it to better understand why my goals are what they are and how I’ve processed my life up to that point, but people who read it seemed to think that it’s relevant as more than just self-indulgence so I put it into print.

Sometimes You Gotta Fight The Bear (2006)
100pp. Trade paperback.
The first release on Shotgun Honey Press, which I started with my wife in 2006. This was my first full-length collection of poetry, containing all of the poems I was still proud of by the time 2006 rolled around.

Quiddity (2002)
144pp. Trade paperback.
Quiddity is a novel told in journal entries. It’s mostly autobiographical. I wrote it when I was living in San Antonio before I moved to Austin. It’s about being stuck and looking for ways out through things that won’t actually get you anywhere. It’s about figuring that out and working on the next step.It’s about getting out.

5104 (2004)
28pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
A collection of journal entries from within the confines of a clinical drug research testing facility.

Older Ones
Welcome to the Terrordome (1999)
60pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
I haven’t got a copy anymore so if you know anyone who does send them my way. It was an anthology of short-short fiction pieces, journal entries, bad poetry, and artwork. Pretty much everything I had written at the time. It’s uneven, quality-wise, but it went into several printings and sold about three hundred copies.

Drawing Flies: Complete Journal Entries From January 1999 - June 2000 (2000)
60pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
It was just my journal for a year and a half. I was biting Henry Rollins pretty hard back then but some people liked it. I don’t remember how many sold. Not as many as Welcome to the Terrordome.

Drowning Man (2000)
32pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
Poetry and a few essays. Most of it’s stuff I don’t have much affinity for anymore but one of the pieces ended up on the Eric Clapton record and one of them was re-written intoQuiddity. Introduction by J Whiddon, who never ended up publishing the chapbooks he mentioned in the introduction.

Exile On 10th St (2001)
28pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
My first book of nothing but poetry. I wrote it all in an IHOP on 10th St. in McAllen TX. Hence the title. About half of it is pretty decent. Marc Hardcore from the Malcontent Party wrote the introduction but the first printing was done in a rush and I didn’t get to include it until the online edition.

Good Time (2002)
16pp. Giveaway pamphlet.
This was just a 5 1/2” x 4 1/4” booklet with eight poems named for the songs on the Led Zeppelin IV album. The back cover was an ad for Quiddity.

Song (introduction) (2002)
80pp. Trade paperback.
Song is RA Lopez’s epic poem about South Texas and love and cigarettes. He asked me to do the introduction and of course I jumped at the chance.

Slaves and Bulldozers (2003)
28pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
Slaves and Bulldozers is a collection of all of the poetry worth not-throwing-away in 2003.

The Poplife Chapbook (2003)
40pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
A collection of ten personal essays. I put it out in early 2003 for one printing and pulled it out of print after that sold through because about half of it ended up being re-written into the novel Poplife.

Howling (2004)
16pp. Giveaway pamphlet.
Another 5 1/2” x 4 1/4” booklet. “Howling” is a poem I wrote in November 2003. I put out the pamphlet to promote the dansolomon.com website.

Sometimes You Gotta Fight the Bear chapbook (2004)
44pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
A collection of poetry with a fantastic cover by Frippy. It contained all the poetry written after Slaves and Bulldozers.

The Killer and Other Poems (2006)
36pp. Fold-and-staple chapbook.
I took 2005 off from touring and spent most of the year living in apartments in Texas and Chicago with a girl. The Killer and Other Poems is a collection of the poetry that came out of that year.