And While It Is True That I

And Of Course These Days I Feel Like There Is A Nation Of Us - Displaced Southerners And Children Of The Working Class. We Listen To Steve Earle, Mary J. Blige, And K.d. Lang. We Devour Paperback Novels And Tell Evil Mean Stories, Value Stubbornness Above Patience And A Sense Of Humor More Than A College Education. We Claim Our Heritage With A Full Appreciation Of How Often It Has Been Disdained. And Let Me Promise You, You Do Not Want To Make Us Angry.

Behind The Story I Tell Is The One I Don't...behind The Story You Hear Is The One I Wish I Could Make You Hear.

Beauty, My First Girlfriend Said To Me, Is That Inner Quality Often Associated With Great Amounts Of Leisure Time.

Two Or Three Things I Know For Sure, And One Of Them Is That If We Are Not Beautiful To Each Other, We Cannot Know Beauty In Any Form.

Behind My Carefully Buttoned Collar Is My Nakedness, The Struggle To Find Clean Clothes, Food, Meaning, And Money. Behind Sex Is Rage, Behind Anger Is Love, Behind This Moment Is Silence, Years Of Silence.