(This is an excerpt—click on the title to view the whole piece!)
 

Writ in Water

But I may be reading more into him than is there. It does not flatter my sense of self to think that I could be so drawn to a simpleton, so maybe I am building him up. There's plenty of evidence that Alex is no master ironist, but is in fact the pure rock icon his growing army of young fans think he is. It's true, for example, that just three years ago he was working at a Tyson chicken factory in Fort Smith, Arkansas, disemboweling fowl on an assembly line while he tried to get his band started. Although I now know the whole story, which is that he was working at the chicken factory part time while he was a college student, I hate the image of him in a bloody white smock and hair net, thrusting his hands inside plucked body after plucked body as they pass him on the assembly line.