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Marty’s photo of the day #4595: My dad, Paul W. Essen, died twelve years ago this week. As anyone who has read my book Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer knows, my father was a born again Christian to the extreme. In fact, he even believed his god wanted him […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4428: “Dad! What do I do with this thing? I can’t chase it, like a squirrel, but I can’t really play with it, like a dog, either.” In my book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, I have a story about Buddy, a cantankerous Saint […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4363: I shot this photo at the beginning of one of Deb’s and my biggest adventures. We were with the Iban tribe (a tribe once famous for headhunting), on the island of Borneo. On the far side of this lake is the AI River (AI means “water” in the Iban […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4296: This is the Spanish town of Torrejón el Rubio. Some photos speak for themselves; others need a storyteller. So I’m going to be the storyteller for this one. The following comes from my sixth book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer: By the time […]
Marty’s photos of the day #4279-4781: Today, I’m featuring three pictures from my weekend in Chattanooga, Tennessee: 1. This morning I performed Around the World in 50 Minutes for the Parent’s Weekend Brunch at Southern Adventist University. Meal shows are usually death. For those of you who have watched the Amazon Prime series, The Marvelous […]
Greetings from Chattanooga, Tennessee! I’ve just returned to my hotel room after a delightful dinner with Jeff Strand and his wife, Lynne Hansen. For those who don’t know who Jeff Strand is, he is the master of a fairly obscure genre, called horror/comedy. I write in an equally obscure genre that I call science-fiction/political-comedy, so […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4075: I write both fiction and nonfiction. If you’ve read any of my nonfiction books, you know I’ve experienced some great adventures, from searching for venomous snakes in the Amazon Rainforest to hiking on all seven continents to surviving a hippo attack with my wife, Deb, in Zimbabwe to overcoming […]
Marty’s photo of the day #4068: Can an entire canoe fit sideways into a hippo’s mouth? I took this photo in Zimbabwe shortly after my wife, Deb, and I proved—yes, it most definitely can! For those who don’t already know the story, here’s an excerpt from my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3851: This is the end of the navigable AI River in Borneo. It was here that Deb and I stepped out of our canoes and embarked on an epic backpacking trip with the Iban tribe. We were only the third outsiders ever to hike the Red Ape Trail, and our […]
Signed books make great holiday gifts! Beginning today, I am offering a signed book special. Here are the prices: Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents: $19.95 Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico: $19.95 Time Is Irreverent: $14.95 Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not […]
I published Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents in 2007, Endangered Edens: Exploring the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge, Costa Rica, the Everglades, and Puerto Rico in 2016, Time Is Irreverent in 2018, Time Is Irreverent 2: Jesus Christ, Not Again! in 2019, Time Is Irreverent 3: Gone for 16 Seconds in 2020, and […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3653: For the 4th of July, I thought I’d share an excerpt from my latest book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer. In this excerpt, I talk about creating and publishing my first book, Cool Creatures, Hot Planet: Exploring the Seven Continents. And yes, it […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3616: If you’ve read either Time Is Irreverent or Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, you know a little about Fitger’s. The historic Duluth landmark used to be the Fitger Brewing Company, but now it is a boutique hotel, a bookstore, and a collection of […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3603: In the marriage advice chapter of my latest book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, I talk about how Deb and I have kept our 36-year marriage fresh by doing spontaneous things. Examples include suddenly deciding to travel to all seven-continents, moving to Montana […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3551: For anyone who has read my latest book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, this is Nanga Sumpa, the Iban longhouse that Deb and I raced the flooding deep-canyon river to get to. In Borneo, entire tribes live in a single longhouse, and when […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3539: For those who have read my just released sixth book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, this photo says a lot. I took it the day after Deb’s and my backpacking trip on the mountainous island of Borneo with the Iban tribe. When torrential […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3529: The following excerpt from my newly published sixth book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, takes place in northern Minnesota: Our ceremony could have been right out of a romantic comedy. On the lakeshore, in front of the cabin, is a round washing-machine-sized rock […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3528: The following excerpt from my newly published sixth book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, takes place in Australia: I had decided to hike up every river within a ten-mile stretch of Queensland coast. Since all the rivers dropped down from the mountains, I […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3527: The following excerpt from my newly published sixth book, “Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer,” takes place in Cangas de Onís, Spain: Once we finished our excellent meal, the man from behind the bar walked over and introduced himself as Angel, one of the […]
Marty’s photo of the day #3526: What is it like to be attacked by a hippo? This excerpt from my newly published sixth book, Hits, Heathens, and Hippos: Stories from an Agent, Activist, and Adventurer, will put you in the canoe with Deb and me. The adventure takes place in Zimbabwe: As the sun dropped […]
