Category Archives: Literary

The tenth anniversary of Breakfast at Denny’s, which is available on Amazon… Book Review by Michael Bassett: I just finished reading Jim McGarrah’s book, Breakfast at Denny’s (Ink Brush Press, ISBN# 978-0983971-580, 15.00, 2013). I highly recommend it even for people who think they do not like contemporary poetry. It is simultaneously lyrical, brutal, gritty,Continue reading “Truth and Love”

The Professional I like beer, not that I drink as much as I want too any more or as often as I did when young and thirsty for life. This is not by choice, but more like the end an aging athlete arrives at physically. A love for the game remains solidly fixed in allContinue reading “The Professional”

My newest book, a collection of some of the favorite magazine essays I’ve written over the last several years, is now available. This book may not make you any wiser, but you may enjoy some of the material in it. Like the author, it’s fairly cheap and not too smart, but it’s fun. You canContinue reading “New Book:”

(delivered at the Literature, Film, and War Conference, SUNY, Binghamton)                                       MCMXIV                         Those long uneven lines                         Standing as patiently                         As if they were stretched outside                         The Oval or Villa Park,                         The crowns of hats, the sun                         On moustached archaic faces                         Grinning as if it were all                         AnContinue reading “Never Such Innocence Again”

Not long ago, I bought a new pair of sneakers for hiking. At my age, the chance of wearing out a pair of sneakers from hiking anywhere is limited, but every once in a while, I just get tired of looking at the old ones.  These were made by a company called sketchers. They gotContinue reading “The Illusion of Ethics”

I wish I could remember the name of the lake. That’s the thing about getting old. When you’re young, a memory is more like a movie. Events and places and people, they all flow in a straightforward story as they occurred. Of course, like a film, actions and characters are often embellished with heroic perspective,Continue reading “Jimmy Hayes and the Hunters”

Those of you who know me well are aware that my long life has been full of enough odd and precarious experiences to allow for a certain skepticism regarding the reasonableness, maybe even sanity, of human behavior in most things. I’m unsurprised at overwhelming stupidity when most other people might be. However, I am astoundedContinue reading “It’s Only an Ambush if You’re Stupid”

One Christmas, I must have been seven or eight years old, my parents presented me with a toy baseball game, a simple contraption created years before anyone thought of video games or in-home computers. It was a thin sheet of tin with a baseball diamond painted on it and checkered with holes throughout the infieldContinue reading “Can You Imagine?”

It’s prime time for horse racing around the country. Since that’s the case, I’m posting a couple of reviews published in 2015 about my memoir, Off Track or How I Dropped Out of College and Came to be a Horse Trainer in the 1970s While All My Friends Were Still Doing Drugs. If the subjectContinue reading “Off TRACK”

All the News That’s Fit to Print, 2023 (As we go sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding, sliding…. The Song Remains the Same – Led Zeppelin ) Page 1. Headlines Suspect arrested in connection with brutal murder of four students Overlooked sci-fi movies worth checking out Sailors stumble on ghost ship in Atlantic Ocean Hunter BidenContinue reading “News of the World”