This is where the unpolished gets permission to speak. Where the draft comes before the dignity. Welcome to Memoirs of Madness.
Welcome to Memoirs of Madness.
This isn’t where you’ll find polished prose or curated insights. This is where the words bleed first. A sketchpad for half-healed thoughts, first drafts, and things I needed to say before they swallowed me whole.
I never expected to outlive my usefulness.
No one prepares you for what happens when the career is over, the kids are grown, and the phone stops ringing. When your body starts whispering reminders of every fight you won and every one you shouldn’t have taken.
Retirement was supposed to be peaceful. Instead, I woke up haunted.
So, I did what I’ve always done: I wrote through it. Wrote through the aches, the losses, the echo of voices I can’t call back.
I spent decades writing for others—scripts, speeches, stories with someone else’s name on the cover. I built narratives like scaffolding. Ghosted more words than I’ll ever claim.
Then one day I realized: I’d never written anything just for me.
Not without a deadline. Not without chasing a check.
Not without an editor saying, “less pain, more polish.”
Loss doesn’t ask permission. It just rips pages from your life, mid-sentence.
Losing my mother, my wife, my sister, and the people who knew my voice before I learned to use it… that changed the ink.
I stopped trying to sound smart. I just wanted to sound human.
These words aren’t dressed up. They’re not “branded.”
They’re what’s left at 3 AM when you’re staring at the ceiling, bargaining with memories.
I write because some stories deserve to breathe—even the ugly ones. Especially the ugly ones.
If you’re still reading, maybe you’re haunted too. Perhaps not, but you will understand why I am.
The feeble-minded man shrugged and uttered, “Boy, you know madness is flying again.”
The boy, stunned, shouted: “GET LOW!”
Welcome to this side of Madness.
I’m not here to teach. I’m here to tell the truth, one cracked word at a time.
If that resonates, pull up a chair. I’ll see you after the ink dries.
If you’re looking for the polished essays and cultural reckonings, check out The Howlin’ Inkwell.
If music stirs your soul the way it stirs mine, wander over to House of Tunage.
If you want to lose yourself in stories—fiction soaked in grit, grief, and grace—step into The Narrative Forge.
This space? It’s the wreckage and the reckoning. The place where I tell the truth before I pretty it up.
Memoirs of Madness 