Back to claim what's his, sexy Sean Matthews is finally ready to confess the feelings he can't ignore for his best friend, Cameron Jenkins. In his mind, losing the man he's come to love is not an option. But little does Sean know, his newfound happiness will suddenly be threatened when he's accused and arrested for the ultimate sin...murder. Ride with author Mike Warren as he exposes the drama, unexpected surprises, mayhem and steamy sexual desires in Sweet Swagger.
A remarkable time capsule of Simi Valley, 1979, written before the author would become one of LA’s most influential artists of subsequent decades. When Sean DeLear died prematurely in Vienna in 2017, his friends discovered—among other treasures—an extensive diary kept at the age of fourteen. Still living with his Christian parents in the notoriously racist Los Angeles suburb of Simi Valley, Sean wrote almost every day about crushes and hustling, waterbeds, blackmail, Donna Summer, gloryholes, racism, and shoplifting gay porn. DeLear would go on to become the frontman for the Los Angeles punk/powerpop band Glue. He was a punk musician, visual artist, intercontinental scenester, video vixen, party host, marijuana farmer, and sometime-collaborator of artists such as Kembra Pfahler and Vaginal Davis. DeLear’s forgotten diaries capture a moment in Los Angeles underground and queer history when, as his friend the writer Cesar Padilla notes, “It wasn’t cool at all to be trans, gay, queer or whatever. Those words weren’t even in the vocabulary.” I Could Not Believe It, Padilla continues, “is a raw fearless innocent gay Black kid’s journey coming out into life at an incredible pre-AIDS period. It’s not cognizant of being literature. It’s as naïve and forthcoming as it gets. It wasn’t written with the desire to be published so Sean didn’t hold back. Sean’s goal was to be true to himself.”
Unusual, edgy cookie recipes are presented here, with chapters covering chocolate, bar, nutty/fruity, herby/cheesy, and delicate but feisty sensations. Readers can wow their taste buds with cardamom-ginger bars, apricot-cherry shortbread, saffron-pistachio lace cookies, and 37 Other varieties. Sections on storing, freezing, gift packing, and shipping these treasures are included.
The catcher cradles a quick leather signal squatting on new spikes waiting for the curve to drop like a head into his basket. From odes to Josh Gibson and Curt Flood to poems about Denny McLain and the anonymous dancing usher at a minor league game, poet Tim Peeler celebrates the overlooked and the standout as he merges the topics of personal and baseball-related rediscovery. A bat is a lost artifact in Adirondack, while Writing Baseball Poems in Winter and Baseball Archaeologists deal explicitly with recovery. Several other poems underscore the continued significance of baseball memories, as the poet reconsiders events and people from his adolescence, offering the reader a candid look at his family, coaches and friends, as well as the players he watched, read about or merely imagined.
