An Eclectic Journal...Cambodia (Book) - 11/26/2012 7:52:21 PM
Congratulations, and good luck with your latest book, Morgan.
Christmas Eve in Bangkok (Book) - 11/13/2012 8:52:47 PM
Congratulations Morgan and just in time for the holiday.
:) Janna
An Eclectic Journal...Thailand (Book) - 8/17/2012 5:39:42 AM
Congrats on your latest book, Morgan. I wish you all the best with it.
A Grand Old Dame (Book) - 7/3/2012 4:46:13 AM
Congratulations on your new book, Morgan. I hope it goes viral.
At the Bamboo Bar (Book) - 2/25/2012 10:12:22 AM
I am still making my way through Out of the Loop but looking forward to this book as well.
Janna Hill
At the Bamboo Bar (Book) - 2/24/2012 6:31:51 PM
A pure joy ride. I loved this book. It made me want to read A LOT more of Morgan McFinn. I was just trying to relocate my copy and I can't seem to find it. I probably lent it to someone... I'm going to order another copy! I want to read it again.
Out of the Loop (Book) - 11/11/2011 5:36:58 PM
Great read, looking forward to the next one.
On the Way Down...A 3 Act Play Reading (Short Story) - 5/11/2024 5:48:33 PM
Brilliant writing & Wonderful humor. I should know because I wrote the damn piece. Haven't had a review for months so I figured I'd post one up myself. Cheers to all!
Dream writer (Short Story) - 6/24/2023 11:39:40 AM
Writing!
Writing?
A couple of months ago, when I finished what I thought would be the last of my writing, when I thought I had nothing else (s0 to speak) to say, I stopped writing.
I'm two months from my eighty-ninth birthday and not an athletic type... actually use a cane now whenever I walk, so what the hell do I do?
My eyes are going bad so sitting and reading all day seemed to be out of the question. so what the hell do I do?
Near the end of year 2022, I had written an ongoing story about Woodstock (1969) Not so much the story about the music, which, of course I had to write something about! but about the rotten conditions... As the rain practically never stopped, so there was mud, lots of mud. And the concert was held over three days in a hundred year old cow field. So what do you have in a cow field, but cow shit. So what do you have when you have near a half million people crowded body to body in a shitty cow field? Thinking of the old novel, "The Lord of The Flies" I was able to come up with what might have been the way things really were at Woodstock.. Lots of people that considered themselves "The Hippie Generation" that hated the politicians that brought the country into Vietnam, and the fact that many would be drafted to go fight in Vietnam, along with a whole lot of mamajuana and coke and LSD...
Anyway I finished my Woodstock series. But then about two months ago I realized that I really loved writing that series, and now, at this time no longer writing, why not write a novel that I hoped and hope I'd be able to publish so, forced out of self imposed retirement, I began "A New Road to Woodstock '69" but began in Chicago, in May of 1937, with the immigrant parents of my two main Woodstock characters, bringing them, from childhood, into the Woodstock scene at ages 31 &34.
Going into our top hundred stories, you'll find most of the New road to Woodstock posted.
Sorry to get wordy here.
Mark
On Forgiveness (Short Story) - 6/22/2023 6:31:23 PM
Great article on forgiveness. Which I knew the name of the song you father laughed so hard at.
Shame on Fame (Short Story) - 6/5/2022 7:28:28 PM
"Well, let me tell you. I am nowhere and I am nobody. I am just one of a few billion homage makers in this world. Without us there would be no heroes, no celebrities, no idols of admiration."
And I am right there with you, Morgan. 😎
Thank you for teaching me a new word: panegyric 😊
I love your meaningful wit and humor, Morgan. Thank you for sharing it.
Love and peace,
Regis. 🙏🍁
Ice Capades in India (Short Story) - 2/27/2022 9:42:56 AM
Oh, what philosophy bursts forth from a little alcohol on the brain. Overheating helps a bit, too. I like how your very realistic, perhaps true, character described his chasing the demise of the "earth" state of his ice before it disappeared.
I always drank scotch on the rocks because it didn't mix well. And I didn't like it watered down. Of course, I always made sure the ice didn't melt and water it down. Ensuring that it went right to my brain quickly. About two was all I could handle.
In Thailand, the ice was brown, so I mixed my Mekong whiskey with juice or a soft drink and drank it room temperature… 100°F.
Ron
Ice Capades in India (Short Story) - 2/20/2022 4:14:09 AM
Beautiful imagery and huzzah to the ice cube!
Ice Capades in India (Short Story) - 2/19/2022 7:11:28 PM
Once again, your wit comes through, albeit wry, but most appropriate. I am certainly not a literary expert but I love this:
"Fifty feet below, a relentless legion of waves was crashing upon a cluster of large, rugged chocolate boulders. The sky was rummaging through her trousseau of luminous pastel evening gowns."
Also, you manage to bring in important social and political issues all the while managing to make the reader smile if not outrightly laugh.
Thank you for sharing, Morgan. Take care and be well.
Regis from Canada. 😊🍁
An Indian Groom in the Groove (Short Story) - 2/19/2022 8:51:53 AM
Once again, you provide an engaging "tale" that draws the reader right into the whole experience. I was particularly moved by the encounter with the poor child but I enjoyed the whole story of your encounters. Thank you for sharing it, Morgan. Love, peace, and best wishes to you,
Regis from Canada (Chilliwack, British Columbia, to be more precise). 😎🌲🌳🍁
A Bit of a Skit for the Fun of It (Short Story) - 2/9/2022 12:36:55 PM
A great skit for the fun of it. Lots of fun and banter. Regarding Kaufman's adroit comment. I once attended a play in San Francisco entitled some hippie phrase like "Be In." A title I have forgotten in time. I watched the entire show on a wooden theater seat. And at the end I was so mesmerized and enthralled I forgot I was even sitting. I didn't have to shift in that hard seat once the entire play. On the other hand, watching McBeth or other Shakespeare, I was always itching to get out of there, fidgeting in my seat.
The first time I heard that phrase was watching Elvis say it in the back of his limousine after dropping a groupie off. "That girl can raise the dead!"
On a flight from Milwaukee to Chicago, I sat behind Mr. Kohl on his way to NYC to the Waldorf Astoria for a meeting. He had his secretary with him and a new hire from France to head up his food department. They discussed wines and hideaways in the Bahamas while I eavesdropped. This was well before he was governor of Wisconsin and his stores reached all the way down here to Houston.
I once had a rich Chinese master's degree student from Taipei hint that she wanted to marry me. But I was as dense as Polly and didn't catch her nuance. Missing a golden opportunity.
After completing your little play, I would pick it up for a sitcom, complete with live trained audience to laugh when prompted. Well done. You haven't lost your touch.
Ron
A Bit of a Skit for the Fun of It (Short Story) - 2/5/2022 4:21:21 PM
Thank you for the laughs, Morgan. Such believable (and some yes, loveable) characters you create! Much enjoyed. Love and peace,
Regis. 🌳🍁
Sticks and Stones 1997 (Short Story) - 1/18/2022 9:32:49 AM
Another well-written story that shows your skill as a longtime sportswriter benefiting from editors in your delivery.
What is striking about reposting this story is that things haven't changed much since the 1990s, even though we weathered the terrorist attack by responding in the wrong way… Going to war. Jousting with windmills, but fueling the lucrative military-industrial complex so tightly tied to government we could be under military leadership.
I have met those fellows you describe in my life, but not many that would dare to be compared with Hitler. While Hitler, like Putin, made some of his fellow Germans very, very rich for his war machine, I have to think that his was the most "centralized" form of government I've ever seen. Radicals on both sides of the spectrum of political/philosophical thought are very dangerous. I once visited a fellow faculty member at West Virginia University who claimed that he was a "humanist." But he cared not for humanity, only himself and how he could use his sociopathic ego to gain followers. Claimed he was an appraiser of antiques. So when I invited him to my cottage with 1928 furniture, he eyed my $3.95 Oriental rug from a discount store with great envy, telling me that he would like to buy it from me, greed showing in his eyes. I should have sold it to him. Gave me no other valuation of any of the other items he was eyeing to get cheap from me.
I prefer the middle-of-the-road. I like capitalism. But I don't like the rich becoming richer and the worker becoming poorer with increasing skills. I like the idea of artists of all sorts being paid like you for contributing to literature with your talents. Of course, there would be rules so that flakes, drunks and miscreants would have to prove productivity before paycheck. Those workfare programs in the 30s put food on the table and shelter for those who could not find any jobs of any kind. And some great literature and artwork came out of those programs.
Good food for thought in your story, but is really sick and get. Drunk expatriates talking to each other in a Thai bar where they no longer vote for anything anyway.
Ron
Sticks and Stones 1997 (Short Story) - 1/11/2022 4:19:58 AM
That's a great grandmother line. If only there was a telephone booth to send someone.
Sticks and Stones 1997 (Short Story) - 1/8/2022 11:22:57 PM
I don't know why Brian would not tell people what he writes. What's the big mystery anyway? Unless he's not really a writer but only a writer wannabe. Enjoyed this!
Sandie
Sticks and Stones 1997 (Short Story) - 1/8/2022 8:58:17 PM
Thoroughly engaging and enjoyable as usual, Morgan. I do appreciate your wit and humour. Love and peace to you,
Regis. 🍁
Say cheese! (Short Story) - 12/9/2021 8:25:34 AM
A really witty piece about the penchant for travelers to spend most of their time taking pictures. And I believe you're right about bragging rights when they get home. Makes me wonder if business travelers are now snapping shots with their cell phones and taking selfies. When my brother worked for a British firm, he told me in letters about his experiences in merry old England, but I never saw a single picture… Except of his many cars. ;-)
My mother gave me a 1938 Kodak bellows camera that I could operate with my paralyzed hands. I only took pictures of wildlife and gathered postcards for monuments. Rarely pictures of people, except girlfriends--have to have those--cars. That camera was stolen while I was dancing with a stranger to steel drum music in an open amphitheater at Expo 67 in Montréal, my only taste of French.
Recently I have written, in detail, my foreign trips and posted them as stories here. On my trip around the world, I had a replacement camera I was given, but something happened to the film, perhaps x-rays in airports. Only had a faded picture of some Pakistani buddies on a trip to a wildlife sanctuary north of Karachi.
While I did get to explore tourist attractions, my best, and not boring, trips were where I was traveling with friends from the country, like in Thailand, where you never got in front of the lens. ;-)
Never carried a journal. But wrote a lot of letters. And then, accounts of the trips after. I am guilty of having my attendants take pictures and videos of road trips and five cruises.
I think I've seen that video of that talented Bangkok dancer. I believe she was a smoker.
Ron
Say cheese! (Short Story) - 12/5/2021 7:18:33 AM
your point here is spot on. i have been traveling for both work and pleasure for five decades. as you say things have changed. i also carry a camera, but i alos carry a journel and i always have a locl map that i keep notes on for docmentation. and yes now too often youhear and see tourists only shooting shots to impress their freinds back home. too bad, travel is one of the most rewarding pleasures we can have if you try to get a real feal for the culture and people who live there, if not them why go at all...you could just sit on your sofa and wathc Nat Geo.
Say cheese! (Short Story) - 12/4/2021 8:45:51 PM
Intelligent, witty, and most engaging! I enjoyed this very much, Morgan. But then, I always enjoy what you have to offer with your stories. Well done once again. Love, peace, and continued inspiration to you,
Regis. 🍁
Say cheese! (Short Story) - 12/4/2021 3:49:58 PM
Well, this is the Morgan of old, the tell-it-like-it-is curmudgeon who is sharp, sassy, and a little brassy. I'm kinda certain that Oscar Wilde's diary would be tame stuff compared to 80 percent of Bangkok's bars, at least pre-Covid 19. Keep dipping the sharp end of your feather in the ink well, and keep us up-to-date on the goings-on in SE Asia. BTW, do they still have a lot of Katoeys out and about in Bangkok? (A friend of mine wants to know).
Ed
Dream writer (Short Story) - 11/14/2021 12:15:25 PM
All the tools of a writer but the drive. The drive that makes someone sit down in front of the computer with paper and pencil/pen and just start writing one's heart out, when an idea popped into one's head.
But you seem to be describing another type of writer. This is the kind of writer that is so well read that they are intimidated by the writing they read, and attempt to emulate it without plagiarizing to no avail. Also, choosing a very low stress place to live with side attractions like booze or beer and ready marijuana, can definitely put a damper on ambition like the Mexican lament, "Mañana."
All in all, a great introspective that I enjoyed reading of how a writer might question him/her's own motives for writing.
Ron
Dream writer (Short Story) - 11/14/2021 3:57:18 AM
Writing is hard work, but you have the tools of the trade--the silky scintilla.
Dream writer (Short Story) - 11/13/2021 4:40:25 PM
That's a writer's life. We would go wherever we want to be alone in our thoughts.
Sandie
Dream writer (Short Story) - 11/13/2021 12:58:34 PM
"The flakes are still falling asparkle in the silky scintilla of moonbeams..." Very "poetic," and I love it. I love the whole story, Morgan. It makes me think of myself in some ways. I can relate somehow although I do not reside on or near a beach but instead, on a mountain overlooking the mighty Fraser River on its way to the Pacific Ocean. Thank you for sharing this, Morgan. Love, peace, and contentment to you,
Regis. 🍁
Mere Child's Play (Short Story) - 11/6/2021 7:41:34 AM
Thanks Morgan - you have convinced me - at age 75 - that it's time once again for me to go play golf "as if it were only a game", like I did when I was 8 or 9. :) Rich
Mere Child's Play (Short Story) - 10/26/2021 4:17:37 AM
We adults have a way of complicating things.
Mere Child's Play (Short Story) - 10/23/2021 2:35:54 PM
I'm not familiar with coconut husk game, not sure what it is, but I assume it must be a fun game by the way which you have described it. I lived in Hong Kong during my young days, and all my siblings and I did for fun was to play catch, and yes - the race game too, or we played hide and seek in our big house. Sometimes we went to the park or bike riding. Those were our fun games. When we got older we became bolder, we each took a flashlight and explored dark alleys.
I don't use Thesaurus or any of those grammar packages when I write. I don't have time for that. Those grammar packages contain mistakes of their own. If you're not careful they may even do more harm to your script. You've got to watch out for everything that they say that is wrong and sometimes the suggestions they make are stupid!
I do what I do mostly... write from what I know. I think and write at the same time, so some of my writings may have swear words in them and it's only reality and I like to show true emotions when I write. If you have to correct your scripts and then use the phrases that don't belong to you, you are not true to yourself. Your writing maybe just like any other people's writing.
I read and write, and I think and write. I also do research before I write. That is the work a writer should do if we respect our readers we should always put our best work forward. Check EVERYTHING before posting!!! I often see sloppy authors who would post something like a few lines but contains spelling errors in those 3 or 4 lines and it makes me mad for spending the time to read it. I feel like I'm not being respected. I feel the author just wrote out something and split it into a few lines and he/she doesn't even care if there were mistakes and spelling errors in those few lines. That is not acceptable!!! Everyone MUST DO SPELL CHECK before they post their work. It is only out of respect for their readers.
NEVER did I have to repeat anyone else's phrases. I keep my writing "personal" because it is off the top of my head when I write!!!
Sandie
The Brevity of Wisdom (Poetry) - 4/27/2022 2:34:38 AM
Wise words that stand us in good stead if we are
wise enough to apply them…
Best wishes,
Diana…🍃
The Brevity of Wisdom (Poetry) - 3/23/2022 9:11:24 PM
I think you're on to something, Morgan.
The low-hanging fruit catches your eye,
but the good stuff is higher up--and just out of reach.
The Brevity of Wisdom (Poetry) - 3/19/2022 11:36:21 AM
I will try to get to the point that these sayings suggest.
Ron
The Brevity of Wisdom (Poetry) - 3/19/2022 8:23:58 AM
Substance to reflect upon. Thank you for sharing, Morgan.
Love and peace to you,
Regis. 🍁
Two for the Road (Poetry) - 12/4/2021 12:04:57 PM
I feel that both of those poems ring true for me. And would hope that others would think the same of me. Their greatness is in describing a higher level of living than most ascribed to.
It would be my wish that one of my poems of many published on the Internet only in two places would get the kind of recognition that those two poems have. But I will probably not know that and it may not happen until long after my death.
Ron
Two for the Road (Poetry) - 12/4/2021 9:14:25 AM
I am humbly grateful for your comment, Morgan. Truly. Love, peace, and continued inspiration to you,
Regis. 😊🌳🍁
Two for the Road (Poetry) - 12/4/2021 8:07:27 AM
Your mom was a wise lady. Anyone who reads, digests, and abides by the wisdom in those two poems will end up the master of his/her fate, and the captain of his soul. And that is all that matters.
Oh, to be Rich and Famous (Poetry) - 8/1/2018 2:12:47 PM
Makes me think, Morgan. Thank you! Love, peace and best wishes,
Regis
Oh, to be Rich and Famous (Poetry) - 12/31/2017 3:44:55 AM
THE MONEY OF THE RICH AND THE ACCLAIM OF THE FAMOUS CANNOT GIVE US THOSE ETERNAL 'TREASURES' WHICH ARE PRICELESS; A 'PEACE' WHICH SURPASSES ALL UNDERSTANDING AND...EVERLASTING 'LOVE'! HAVE A HAPPY NEW YEAR AND THANKS FOR SHARING. LOVE,BLESSINGS AND FAITH...JOYCE * HIS INSPIRATIONS
Oh, to be Rich and Famous (Poetry) - 11/30/2017 1:18:01 PM
We never know what happens behind closed doors. Even the rich and famous have their fair share of problems.
Oh, to be Rich and Famous (Poetry) - 11/5/2017 4:07:18 PM
You've struck a chord that rings out far and wide...'tis true, 'tis true.
Well done, as usual.
Oh, to be Rich and Famous (Poetry) - 11/5/2017 7:52:38 AM
I like the dates on these poems. They put perspective on the problem of the rich and famous. It is not just of today, but has been around nearly forever.
If you are around today, I would encourage Edwin to remove all the Ands from his poem. They do not add any value to his fabulously wordsmanship and rhyme.
Ron
