I don't know why I haven't written more essays about my father––though I suppose daddylabyrinth itself is an essay, albeit big and sprawling and lyrical and devouring all other forms, some literary and some not. By essay I guess I mean self-standing pieces like those in this path, concentrated on a single topic instead of diffuse. 

What am I saying? I'm leading you down the wrong path on purpose, obfuscating you for no other reason than to listen to my own shuck and jive. I haven't written may essays about my father because once I start them––hell, even before the fingers hit the keys––I've already gone off in too many directions to contain in one piece. It's got to be extremely tight in its focus, or its going to sprawl. 

Usually a self-standing essay about my father has to be focused on a moment, and every once in a while I'll hit on something where the sprawl level is just right (the P.R.O.L.E. piece is one of my favorites). But most of the time I start writing and think "What about this? What about that?" and the sprawl begins, and I'm in the labyrinth of not knowing him.

Not being able to write essays about my father is what landed me in daddylabyrinth in the first place. I should celebrate, no? Sometimes I wish I could bring back Michel de Montaigne, grandfather of the modern essay, and ask him what he'd think. He would dig the lyric essay mightily, I think, though the digital stuff might make him balk. His mind liked to wander, while mine likes to jump along cliffs (and the web certainly helps that, doesn't it?). I don't know if he'd like daddylabyrinth at all, though I think he'd find some appealing sections. It doesn't meander enough for his taste.   

"Too jagged," he'd tell me over a very late breakfast in a sunny kitchen portico on the Mediterranean. He'd still be in that phase of his morning when he decided whether to try getting through the day without any prescription pharmaceuticals. "Essay, essai, Stevie my boy. If one does not try for understanding, one gets nothing." 

1. DEATH TO THE DRIVE-IN
2. RICHARD LEAKEY PLAYING GOD IN THE DESERT
3. 8/15/73: THE ESSAY
4. MY DAD AND THE SAX
5. SIX REVERSE ACRONYMS FOR THE WORD "PROLE"