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Popsicle
Good Luck: Episode One I stood and watched a man in a blue suit stare into the window of a shop that only sold popsicles. He stared for a long time. He kept staring and I said, “Do it, man. Get...
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Turkey Baby
Good Luck: Episode Two I’m a turkey baby. That’s what mom says. I’m her turkey baby. I was her turkey baby and I am still her turkey baby. It was snowing. We stopped welding on the million pound...
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Elegy
Good Luck: Episode Three My friend died laughing on the telephone. He laughed so hard his heart stopped. It doesn’t sound real. It sounds like something a person puts in a short story and it bothers...
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First Memory
Good Luck: Episode Four My first memory which I can place in time is my fourth birthday party. My dad took me for a drive in his midnight blue Ford Mustang so my mom and her sisters could decorate the...
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Cults
Good Luck: Episode Five While I was getting my haircut, the bell jangled, the door opened, a woman’s sweet voice said, “Hello. Will you shave my daughter’s head?” The barber closest to the door...
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Playboys
Good Luck: Episode Six Five of us were packed in the work truck listening to a wacky morning DJ tell a story about a man who dug a tunnel from his basement to the bar down the block. His wife didn’t...
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Oblique Strategies
Good Luck: Episode Seven In July of 1975, Brian Eno entered Island Studios to record his third album, Another Green World. He had no ideas whatsoever, having largely abandoned traditional songwriting,...
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Blue Skies
Good Luck: Episode Eight Two days before the end, it’s warm and the sky is deep blue and the clouds roll slowly by. My coworker climbs up on a flatbed truck and lies down and looks up at that blue sky...
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Dreams
Good Luck: Episode Nine Just a quiet Sunday when you don’t care. Leave the bedroom, 8am. Go out to the couch, read for awhile. Two books, a novel, So Long, See You Tomorrow, William Maxwell, and a...
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Public Defender
Law school doesn’t prepare you for the day-to-day practice of law, especially if you’re a public defender. Realizing this was actually kind of a relief for me because I spent all of law school on...
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Melissa
Good Luck: Episode Ten Driving through the night. A dark road. Melissa was in the backseat, holding my friend’s hand. I was up in the passenger seat, newly low. She’d stopped fucking me, now they were...
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Bullfrog
Good Luck: Episode Eleven Our cacti can’t stand on their own anymore. We’ve braced them with toothpicks. I was gifted a ceramic lemon and a resin flamingo leaning left. They’re here on my bamboo...
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Grasshopper
Good Luck: Episode Twelve [What follows is a transcript of a talk by Bud Smith given at McNally Jackson Books in NYC on Saturday, January 19th, 2019] I didn’t know what I was going to say here...
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Art
Good Luck: Episode Thirteen First I want to say, art is done in a small room to make it big. Then I want to say, you’re going to die, you’ll need a distraction. Then I want to also say, art eats a...
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Little Guy
Good Luck: Episode Fourteen Mom is the little guy. The youngest. Then Jonathan is born and he becomes the little guy. Seven kids. Jonathan, Robin, Lee, Elaine, Billy, Jefferey, Sandy, all of them...
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Suicide in Bed
Good Luck: Episode Fifteen We’re watching the movie The Apartment. Jack Lemmon and Shirley MacLaine. We’re watching it because I didn’t know what an apartment was. Didn’t I feel stupid when I found...
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Salad
Good Luck: Episode Sixteen Rae said something. I couldn’t hear. 7th was too loud. She looked back over her shoulder to hear my answer, so I just said, “Yeah.” Her hair was getting long again, curled...
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Block
Good Luck: Episode Seventeen This paragraph was written on a cellphone at my day job. With all the mess, and the noise, and the constant humming and slamming of million pound machines. I’ve run out...
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Rewrite
Good Luck: Episode Eighteen It was raining. I couldn’t leave work. The flash flood too deep to drive through, and I knew better. Another work emergency. Five of us in rain gear, hoods up over our...
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Fish Hook
Good Luck: Episode Twenty-Two Your life is a house where you keep your memories. You built this house. Before you, and your memories, there was just a field here, with wild flowers and grass and...
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