Essays by Mike Mahoney, 2026
Extracts from talks with Bob Deane, 2020-2021
Limited Edition.
Edited, arranged & handmade by Mike Mahoney.
156 pgs.
Essays & Extracts
from the Forward
The book you hold in your hands, like every great book, is by me, about the times, people & places of my life. This one is about a person (more of a mud-man, really) called Bob Deane, and it begins with me standing barefoot in his grass in the year 2020.
These were the Covid days—days of lockdowns, fear & unemployment. Naturally, as a profound artist always ahead of the times, my life had already gone to shit a year or two earlier. But then it kept going to shit. Kept going & going, getting shittier & shittier. It got so shitty, in fact, that by the time I stood in Bob’s grass that day, it wouldn’t be too far a stretch to say that I was close, maybe even dangerously so, to being in what's called a slump. Possibly even a rough patch.
Chatting outside with Bob, it was this topic of ‘my life, the dumpster fire' which had just come up, when he abruptly left & walked away toward the house, leaving me standing there in what would eventually become the introduction of this book, though I didn’t know it then. I just figured he was getting old and had to pee again. In fact, I remember working the thought over in my head, something like: ‘Man, Bob is really getting old. That’s like the 400th time he’s had to pee already. I hope I never get that old.’ Not a minute or two later, he came walking back, interrupting my poetic reveries to say he’d just talked with Peggy and that I could move into their home whenever. Thus marked the start of my Artist Residency at Chateau Deane—and the first of many humble pies I’d eat before it was over.
One of my plans for this period was to get Bob down in writing. (I’ve always loved the idea of mythologizing my friends—of giving so-called ‘ordinary’ people the Quality-Lit. treatment usually reserved for the rich & famous). And while this book may seem complete, really it’s barely a chapter of the book intended. The one still being written. I just took a quick look at some other files on my laptop and there’s at least another 100,000 words of material. Even if I wrote a million more though, it's stories like the one I’ve shared here that say the most. That mean the biggest.
We occasionally receive gifts bigger than we can repay, he told me once. And that’s exactly the kind of gift Bob & his family gave me. They took me in at a time I’d been down so long it looked like up. They took me in as a part of their family. They provided a container of time, space & warmth where I could lick my wounds & heal. A place of sanity, humanity & humor where I could reassemble, could put myself slowly back together, and begin again. And when it was time, they sent me on my way with sanity restored & spirit rekindled; and with the great pain, the great pain assuaged, in part, by a year’s supply of beautiful new memories. And so, again: Thank You.
The first section & bulk of the book, Extracts, is a collection of Bob’s thoughts & musings, truths, little stories & wisdoms, all plucked & gathered from the many hours of talks & conversations had, and arranged here under a few dozen subjects. The Essays which follow were also written during this period (2020/2021). Five were chosen from a folder containing fifty or sixty more, and then rewritten this March & early April.
April 15, 2026
Pukalani, Maui
