It was an overcast Tuesday in mid-March. The sky hung low and gray over Maple Grove Memorial Park like a sheet of damp slate, the kind of Oregon afternoon where the air tasted of rain that hadn’t quite decided to fall yet. I was edging the grass along Section C when I spotted the motorcycle … Read more
It was a bright, ordinary noon in mid-October. The parking lot outside the big-box store was packed with weekend shoppers pushing carts, kids tugging at sleeves, and engines idling in the search for empty spots. No one expected the scene that unfolded right in the middle of it all. A man whose face and neck … Read more
It was a clear Saturday afternoon in late September. Picnic blankets dotted the lawn beneath the maple trees, and a street performer strummed an old acoustic near the fountain. Children darted between the benches, laughing as they played tag. The park hummed with ordinary weekend life. And then we rolled in. Engines humming low and … Read more
Donald Trump is now using AI memes from the White House and his social media accounts to publicly celebrate the end of Stephen Colbert’s CBS run. Just one day after The Late Show with Stephen Colbert aired its final episode, Trump shared an AI-generated video showing Colbert being thrown into a dumpster before Trump dances … Read more
By 1976, David Bowie was one of the most famous people on earth and one of the most endangered. The Ziggy Stardust and Aladdin Sane personas had made him a global phenomenon. Diamond Dogs had produced a theatrical tour so massive it nearly bankrupted him. The Young Americans album had given him his first American … Read more
Paul McCartney is not a humble man by nature. That is not a criticism — it would be strange if he were. He co-wrote the most covered song in history (“Yesterday”), produced a body of work across six decades that has almost no parallel in popular music, and has been called a genius so many … Read more
Fleetwood Mac’s Rumours is the best-selling album of confessional music ever made. It has sold over 40 million copies worldwide. It spent 31 weeks at number one in the United States. It won the Grammy for Album of the Year. And every person who appears on the record — every musician who played on those … Read more
Bob Dylan has released 39 studio albums. He has been making records since 1962. He won the Nobel Prize for Literature in 2016 — the first musician ever to receive it, a decision so unexpected that the committee reportedly had difficulty reaching him because he didn’t immediately return the call. He has reinvented himself as … Read more
Most people spend their twenties figuring out what they want to do. Elvis Presley spent his rewriting what music was allowed to be — and he was done with the most important part of it before his 25th birthday. That is the fact that gets lost in the jumpsuits and Las Vegas mythology. The young … Read more
Keith Richards has heard everything. That is not a figure of speech. The man has been alive and paying close attention since the early 1950s, when American blues records began washing up on British shores like messages in bottles. He has shared stages with Chuck Berry, recorded with Gram Parsons, jammed with jazz legends, sat … Read more