A couple of weeks ago, a 51-year-old man went to the dentist in Austin, Texas. He got in the chair, the anesthesiologist went to work and...an hour later, the group in the dentist's office had grown considerably, and someone said "He's gone." And he was: my friend Brent Grulke had suffered cardiac arrest and was Continue Reading

Michael Corcoran is a provocateur. He always has been, ever since he's been writing. When he landed in Austin in the 1980s, he made a big splash. Even people who'd never read him knew that he had tattoos, which hadn't yet caught on, let alone become almost mandatory. And among his tattoos was, well, one Continue Reading

I ate breakfast this morning in a modest cafe near my hotel, chosen because the hotel gives you a free breakfast there. At the next table, four German women chatted away, and I was reminded of all the other Germans I've bumped into during the five weeks I've spent on the road in the U.S Continue Reading