In an earlier incarnation, I was a hyper-masculine, self-indulgent, beer-swilling, hell-raising, pickup-truck-driving rebel (without much of a cause) who built log homes for a living. Having miraculously survived that era, I am now an open-minded, relentlessly inquisitive, politically progressive, bike-riding writer living with my wife Shonnie Lavender, and daughter Gracelyn largely outside the dominant cultural paradigm in the eclectic little city of Asheville, North Carolina.
Shonnie, Gracelyn & Bruce
I am currently a regular contributor to The Huffington Post, OpEd News, and The Good Men Project, a conversation about the way men’s roles are significantly changing in modern life. From 2000 through 2004, I served as an editorial columnist at the Asheville Citizen-Times. My op-eds and essays also appeared at such online sites as MichaelMoore.com, Common Dreams News Center, Intervention Magazine, Information Clearing House, Truthout, BuzzFlash.com, and Smirking Chimp as well as on this blog.
Topics I’ve dealt with include racism (and my ongoing recovery from it), my brief encounter with Norman Mailer (“Are you still stabbing your wife?”), opposition to the Iraq War (“A few illogical arguments for the elimination of Saddam Hussein” published before the war began), Al Gore (not the stuffed shirt you might imagine) and the perils of climate change, my seventieth birthday (It’s not that I mind growing old; I just don’t want to be there when it happens.), and why I gave up my last handgun (after my wife asked me the simple question: “What are you afraid of, Bruce?”).
I appeared on two PBS shows—Bill Moyer’s Now (my fifteen seconds of fame) and Simple Living and in The Christian Science Monitor, the Boston Globe, the Washington Post, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer (among others). I was also a presenter for the Climate Project, Al Gore’s initial effort to catalyze a global solution to the climate crisis (and got to experience Al in his element).
In 2008, at the age of sixty-five, I was hired as an Obama field organizer in Ohio (even though my boss and our entire staff were in their twenties). After that, I served as campaign manager for several political campaigns including two congressional races (four wins, one loss). During the 1990s, I wrote features and ancillary materials for Holt, Rinehart and Winston’s high school textbook division (my first real writing gig). Finally, I have published three non-fiction books (featured on this blog and my Amazon.com author page).
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