Early on I believed that life was more than a “Bittersweet Symphony” (“you are a slave to money then you die”).  With Kerouac’s On the Road as a constant companion I followed anything but direction.  Mostly I followed the Rolling Stones and The Grateful Dead. When that didn’t pan out (specifically with the death of Jerry) I then embarked on a life of crime.  This mostly entailed defending criminals at trial.  The single constant through all this was maintaining a lifestyle of which Hunter S. Thompson would have approved.  At some point someone (Don K actually) suggested I stop telling war stories and start writing them.   Drawing on all of these influences Drown is the beginning of that process.