Jeb Stewart Harrison

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About Jeb Stewart Harrison
Jeb Stewart Harrison is a freelance writer, songwriter, musician and painter in Marin County, California. After many years as an ad agency copywriter, writer/producer, creative director, and director of marketing communications, Jeb now writes fiction and creative non-fiction, along with commercial works for hire. Jeb’s debut novel, "Hack" was published by Harper Davis Publishers in August 2012. In 2015 he received his MFA from Pacific Lutheran University at the tender age of 60, and followed up with the publication of "The Healing of Howard Brown" in August, 2016, which won the 2017 Independent Press award for literary fiction, along with the 2021 Firebird Award in the same category. His third novel, "American Corporate," was published in November, 2018. He also records and plays electric bass guitar with the popular instrumental combo The Treble Makers, as well as Bay Area favorites Call Me Bwana. Jeb was born and raised in Kentfield, California, and has lived in Boulder, CO; Missoula, MT; Hollywood, CA; Scottsdale, AZ; Indianapolis, IN, Ridgefield, CT, Stinson Beach, San Rafael and Larkspur, CA
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Blog postA satirical imagination can be a dangerous thing.
Since I originally posted this imagined fantasy of Peggy Caserta's rock-star party cottage that once sat on my property in Coon Hollow, I received several comments from readers that I was unaware of until now. (I thought Blogger platform was supposed to notify me with comments...maybe I need to adjust some settings or something.) Anyway, the comment below from username "Brass Ovaries," is ostensibly from the real Peggy Case5 years ago Read more -
Blog postI mean WTF just happened? Between the untimely departure of many of my musical heroes and the complete demise of The American Dream, I feel like 2016 has been a non-stop gang rape of everything I believed was good and true.
Something about 2016 harkens back to 1915 and the Dadaists. It's not so much the art and anti-art that they created, or the anti-bourgeois sentiments. Rather, it's the complete absurdity of the socio-political environment, and the realization that our 250 year-ol5 years ago Read more -
Blog postIn case you didn’t know, our nation’s troubles are entirely your fault. Yeah, I’m talkin’ to you. Old White Guy.
It’s called White Male Privilege. AKA Old White Guy Rule. And you own it.
You. The descendent of men that believed in a broad, imperial application of Manifest Destiny. Men that believed that the white man was put on the planet by God to rule and enslave the savages, the heathens, the uncivilized hordes, the women.
Men that brought Africans across the ocean6 years ago Read more -
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Blog postThe following is an excerpt from my latest novel, The Healing of Howard Brown. Some of my readers – those that know me, in particular – have observed that much of Book I is based on actual people and events. This is partially true. Like Charles Dickens in David Copperfield and Saul Bellow in Herzog and Humboldt's Gift, along with the esteemed jazz guitarist Barry Finnerty in START, there are parts of my work that are semi-autobiographical. After all, real life is about as powerful an inspiration6 years ago Read more
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Blog postI've always been one of those having "just enough knowledge to be dangerous" guys – a professional armchairist in any number fields: philosophy, religion, music, literature, technology etc. You could say that I tend fly by the seat of my pants, or go with my gut instincts, when seeking explanations of the mysteries of the universe.
As John Lennon sang in the song "The Word:"Now that I know what I feel must be right
I'm here to show everybody th6 years ago Read more -
Blog postThe November darkness settled over the bayou as if someone had drawn the curtains. Suddenly the yellow lights on the other side of the front door screen to the dock were a mass of whirling, spinning bugs, especially Junebugs, crashing to the deck and twirling on their backs in a five-minute Saint Vitus death dance. Upon seeing the bugs, Jack burst through the screen door, still in the yellow rain gear and denim fleece-lined jacket. “Mr. Howard,” he blurted, “Mr. Howard come on this is real fun!”6 years ago Read more
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Blog postI have nothing against genre fiction.
I love Lord of the Rings, Foundation and Empire, Star Trek and Wars. I eat up detective noir, and rate Raymond Chandler's prose up there with Dostoevsky, Dickens, Hemingway, Franzen, Kingsolver...all the literary giants. By the time I was 10 I had read all the Nancy Drew mysteries - there something stimulating about strong, resourceful young women working their way out of one nasty pickle after another. I gobbled up Lt. Chee and Sgt. Joe Leaphor6 years ago Read more -
Blog postThe following is an excerpt from my novel The Healing of Howard Brown, published by Baby Bingus Books, Aug. 2016.
Now giving away e-books in exchange for reviews!
I can picture what happened next as if it happened yesterday. I was just about to head north off Sir Francis Drake onto highway 101, but to fetch Tripp I had to go south. I looked in the rear view: there was just enough space to cut over a couple of lanes and get to the southbound exit, so I put on my blink6 years ago Read more -
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Blog postIf I can hold onto it long enough to articulate a cohesive thought, well...it's rather a miracle these days. I don't know if this is a common ailment of sixty-somethings or just something that accompanies living in a hillside bungalow above the Pacific with my female companion, my canine companion, two computers, a bunch of guitars, basses and recording gear, a lonely easel, a stack of half completed canvasses, a new novel on the market, three in the incubator and a healthy supply of Hornitos R6 years ago Read more
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Blog postBob Schneider or Downey Jr.?Why? Because he hasn't changed his name, that's why. It's an:
[oxymoron |ˌäksəˈmôrˌän|noun
a figure of speech in which apparently contradictory terms appear in conjunction (e.g., faith unfaithful kept him falsely true).]
Okay. Let's look at "Bob Schneider, International Superstar." Or "Bob Schneider, famous singer/songwriter." Oxymoron, right? How can anybody that goes by "Bob Schneider" be an inte6 years ago Read more -
Blog post
She had stopped to gas up in Winnemucca, stretch her legs, and take a pull or two on a one-armed bandit. She didn’t play the slots because she was a gambler – she preferred to think of herself as a late-season adventurer – but because she liked watching the cherries, oranges, lemons and lucky sevens spin behind the little windows, and the way the three whirling wheels would, without warning, without decelerating, each come to it’s own certain, sudd6 years ago Read more -
Blog postAlbuquerque Étouffée, 1962By Jeb Stewart Harrison
By the time our Grandmother was in her sixties, her knuckles were the size, texture and color of unshelled walnuts. “Leprosy,” our oldest cousin Boo Ray told us. “If she touches you, you’re done for.” Of course Grandmother had touched all of us many, many times, and had taken to touching u6 years ago Read more -
Blog postAn old friend commented on a chapter from the novel I'm currently publishing to the web, Learning to Limbo. He said: "How do you come up with this stuff? It's amazing!"
"I lived it," I replied. And it's true. Much of Learning to Limbo follows Mark Twain's advice to "write what you know."
Such advice might seem sorta stupid. How can we write about things we don't know, right? On the flip side, there's this quote from P.J. O'Rourke:
“6 years ago Read more -
Blog post
The President is waiting for a helicopter, waiting for the whoof whoof whoof of spinning blades, tornado swirl and siphon overhead, beckoning. Up he will wheel and soar, bound to a B3, lashed to a Leslie, netted off the White House rooftop, pendent as the rising chopper climbs into the clouds. The President, all cool and finger snap, sways to the rhythms of the sky as the copter sails beyond the civil slaughter, he6 years ago Read more -
Blog postI'm no scholar. On those rare occasions when I have a serious opinion about something, my intent in sharing it is to stimulate conversation and the opinions of others, particularly those that have a more scholarly, informed point-of-view, and especially those who may have a better solution than whatever I might be suggest. The intent is to generate ideas toward solving the problem. That is all.
Would you allow a person or a group of people who consumed human flesh as7 years ago Read more -
Blog postI've decided to make a new start.
Beginning next year, I will become a 32 year-old single woman of uncertain ethnicities living in Brooklyn with a calico cat named Cattywumpus and two fulvous canaries named Yellow and Yellower. In my Crown Heights apartment with the bird cage hanging from the ceiling on a macrame rope by the bay window I will write stories about my inability to have a meaningful, sustainable relationship with a man or a woman because of my suffocating, shallow, trif7 years ago Read more -
Blog postThere was a time not long ago when we assumed that someone who was labeled an “addict” was, by default, a drug abuser. If the addict’s drug of choice was alcohol, we labeled them “alcoholics.” But lately, a whole new class of behaviors are getting classified as “addictions,” and, though they have nothing to do with drug and/or alcohol abuse–indeed, they might be things you think are harmless–they are in fact serious conditions which may require professional help.
Substance Abuse vs. Addict7 years ago Read more -
Blog postWhen I walked out onto my patio this evening at the behest of Mr. Boo for a little after-dinner ball, I swept my arm across the forest twilight and the glassy, violet ocean and said "Mr. Boo, this is no accident. This is the work of God." I just can't imagine how such magnificence, such peaceful, serene beauty could be anything else but a gift from the creator and I would have sung allelujah from the mountaintops had not Mr. Boo dropped a muddy tennis ball in my lap. Writing or even ta7 years ago Read more
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Blog postMy wife and I just earned our Thirty Year Chip! Wanna know how we did it?
The key is a clear, consistent division of labor and in this regard Communism is a good practical model. As long as the individuals make the health of the marriage the top priority, willingly sacrificing personal freedom for the good of the state, it’s almost impossible for the marriage to fail.
It starts with the complete elimination of economic freedom. With no personal bank accounts, neither of7 years ago Read more -
Blog postIn a landmark discovery, an international team of scientists have determined that humans cannot be accurately classified according to their “race” (referred to as “species” in the animal kingdom), and that human beings are physically, mentally, spiritually and culturally identical. “We mistakenly believed that humans could be classified according to their species, which we believed was related to the location of their forepeople (‘forefathers’ having been recently stricken from the dictionary as7 years ago Read more
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Blog postMy namesake, General J.E.B. StuartRecent events have got me feeling all stirred up about my Southern heritage, my name (for J.E.B. Stuart, a Confederate cavalry general) and my Rebel ancestors. My mother's grandfather was a Yankee soldier from Springfield, Illinois. My father's grandfather was Rebel soldier from Virginia who rode with Stonewall Jackson's Sharpshooters Brigade. My father's mother, born in Laurel Hill on a plantation built in 1833, had many Rebels in her lineage. She named me Jeb7 years ago Read more
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Blog postI suspect almost everybody I know with few exceptions would take one look at this image and express all manner of disgust. My initial reaction was that in a moral, ethical and natural world, killer and killed would be reversed: noble beast would have his majestic paw on the fat man's gargantuan and very dead belly.
Of course when I speak of "everybody I know," I'm for the most part referring to urbane, highly educated, relatively intellectual liberals that inhabit one or t7 years ago Read more -
Blog postHere are a handful of blogs out of over fifty I wrote for clients of TSL Marketing. I've had to delete the client's names for legal purposes.
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Is Your Infrastructure Converged, Integrated or What?
There is much talk in the tech industry these days about “converged infrastructure”. It’s an apt and accurate description for systems that have all the hardware and software elements of the IT infrastructure – compute,7 years ago Read more -
Blog postAlert the media: it's a film review in Limboland!
I just watched an hour and a half of Scarlett on acid and wow...what a trip. Fuck the labels. This film is such a giant blendo of labels known and unknown that the standard critical habit of assigning a genre, or style, or attempting to pigeonhole it in any other way will doubtlessly fall short. Like it's own "brain without borders" theme, the film blows up reality, for real, and unreality for just as real, with a seamless combina7 years ago Read more -
Blog postUsed Identity For Sale or Rent
Why go to the hassle of stealing somebody’s identity when there are plenty of folks that would love will unload theirs for next to nothing. Like me.
Identity profile:
Last Name: JablomeFirst Name: HeywoodMI: noneAge: 60Sex: M mostlyHeight: 6’1”Weight: 210 with a bulletHair color: pendingShoe size: 11 1/2Waist size: 35" to 37” depending on where you belt it.Inseam: 34” and dropping
Occupation: Wri7 years ago Read more
Titles By Jeb Stewart Harrison
“This is your last chance to do something right, son. Don’t screw it up.”
With these words ringing in his 60-year old ears, Howard Brown, Jr., sets out from Kentfield, California to find his wayward and possibly psychotic sister and return her to their dying father’s bedside. Hopelessly addicted to opioids, Howard travels lead to the Brown family’s ancestral home near St. Francisville, Louisiana, where his Southern cousins have apparently conspired with his sister to bilk him out his inherited, potentially oil-rich property.
At the same time, he discovers that a long dormant birthmark in his sternum is a portal to the land of the dead. His consciousness is suddenly inundated with terrifying visions of murderous rebels and visitations from a rogue’s gallery of twisted ancestors, until he fears that he is just as crazy as his sister and everybody else in their labyrinthine family.
When his wife Sandy and his grown son, Tripp, blinded at a young age, show up at the fly fishing camp on Bayou Teche, Howard is a wreck. Wounded to his core, doped up and strung out, Howard discovers that his salvation is beating loud and clear within his own weary heart, and that all he has to do is listen.
The Healing of Howard Brown is a capacious and energetic family saga of self-discovery, delivered with an authentic voice that is supple, smart, somber, witty, ironic, self-revealing, self-doubting, and wonderfully lyrical. Themes of family, trust and responsibility to others, the national as well as personal past, and the life of the spirit resound throughout, with a cultural resonance involving class and race, the North and the South, the definition of masculine identity, and, centrally, the nature of mature love in a multitude of relationships–husband-wife, brother-sister, father-son– in the face of a debilitating mental illness that runs like a poison vein through the family tree.
“If you enjoy beautiful prose, complex themes of family and race, and a refreshingly original narrator, this book is for you. Harrison is among the select few contemporary fiction writers who still write for serious readers.” - Jim Heynen, author, best known for The One Room Schoolhouse , The Boys’ House, You Know What is Right, The Man Who Kept Cigars in His Cap and many more.
For Want of Grace is a collection of short fiction that is, like the author, all over the place. Beginning with an homage to the transformational power of the Hammond B3 organ, the stories range from silly to maudlin, whimsical to terrifying, hilarious to melancholy, each punctuated with Harrison's cinematic, lyrical prose. From lizard tail soup to chance meetings with mountain lions, "necro-rhetoricians," horny geriatrics, junky priests, murderous toll-takers and superheroes in the boardroom, For Want of Grace will have you slapping your knee one minute, bawling the next and ultimately pining for a shot of grace.