Originally from Billings Montana, Patrick Sauer is a freelance writer based in Brooklyn. patrickjsauer@mac.com
“Fixin’-to-Die-Rag”: The Irreverent Anthem of Vietnam
“Fixin’-to-Die-Rag” derailed his promising musical career. But it led Country Joe McDonald to become a fierce champion for Vietnam veterans...
Rainey Days
I wondered whatever became of my tennis teacher back in 1980s Billings Montana. Some 40 years later, I found out, and it ain't the sport she once dedicated her life to...
S.E. Hinton Is Tired of Talking About ‘The Outsiders.’ No One Else Is
More than half a century ago, Susie Hinton (soon to be known by her gender-neutral pen name) was a student at Will Rogers, where she received a D in creative writing because class assignments were nowhere near as important to her as working out the plot and characters of The Outsiders. The story would come to define her life—even though these days she would rather discuss just about anything else.
Nearly 66 years after a notorious killing spree, ‘Starkweather’ aims to find the truth
In January 1958, in the town of Lincoln, Nebraska, a bowlegged 19-year-old garbageman, Charles Starkweather, brutally murdered the mother, stepfather and two-year-old half-sister of his 14-year-old girlfriend Caril Ann Fugate...
‘Gator Country’ is about beautiful nature and nefarious humanity
Earlier this year, three men from central Florida went out hunting and returned with the catch of a lifetime. After a four-hour tug-of-war, they pulled a 920-pound, 13-foot alligator — second heaviest in state history — out of a lake near Orlando...
The Bitter Life Of A Shattered Jockey: A Mostly True Story
Mary Bacon lived a life nobody could imagine, nor would they want to. Truly tragically one-of-a-kind.
How Goldfish crackers took over the world
Admit it, you love Goldfish crackers. Everyone loves Goldfish crackers.
How Cameo Turned D-List Celebs Into a Monetization Machine
Get to know the personalized celebrity greeting company whose top earner is the legend Gilbert Gottfried. For the lover of Aladdin and The Aristocrats alike...
The Little League Team That Never Got The Chance To Play
Meet the Cannon Street All-Stars, a team you're going to love, and hate what cowardly bigots did to them.
The Truth Behind ‘A Bright Shining Lie’
More than 58,000 United States soldiers died in the Vietnam War, but in the world of letters, the death of a single American civilian came to represent the entire jungle quagmire.
Mel Mermelstein Survived Auschwitz, Then Sued Holocaust Deniers in Court
In October 1981, Judge Thomas Johnson made an announcement. After deliberation, he had accepted a fact into judicial notice—a legal term for a fact accepted in a court as true without the need to produce evidence. The Holocaust, said Johnson, was an indisputable fact...
Althea Gibson’s legend deserves to be one of our biggest
Two new biographies capture the athletic greatness and the funny, exuberant personality of the undersung pioneering tennis champion. Her name should be on Grandstands court at the US Open. Let's make it happen, together.
Siskel & Ebert changed the way we talked about movies. A new book shows how.
"They were not like a married couple. A marriage with that much yelling and arguing would definitely call for counseling and probably end in divorce..."
The Last Normal Day: Cancer, Covid, and Cabernet
I don’t do much personal essaying anymore, but inspired by the great “Last Normal Day” series at Luke O’Neil’s Welcome to Hell World substack (and because I couldn’t get my shit together in time to send it to him before it went on hiatus), I wrote about a decadent French dinner in Manhattan shared with my Dad, his wife Terry, and our Brooklyn Three on Tuesday March 10, 2020...
A Star is Weissenborn
Meet Dan Dubuque, the Montana guitar virtuoso using nature as a backdrop for beating the hell out of his unique instrument...