Anthony Lee Head's Blog

I wrote this piece 13 years ago and am posting it again today in honor of Alan Watts’ birthday. (January 6, 1915 – November 16, 1973)

I remember reading once that some guru or monk or hustler of the ancient past set forth a plan for living the perfect life. He said the first third of one’s life should be for learning and studying; the second third should be for establishing one’s life with career, marriage, and family; and the final third should be dedicated to s...

If you ever stop by to visit us at our home in Northern California, you may notice we have a rather unusual style of home décor.  One might call it “early hippie meets Jimmy Buffett at an island garage sale of bohemian rustic junk.”

In other words, our home is filled with crap treasures we’ve collected from years of travel.

Some gems stick around for only a short time before being relegated to the basement and then to the Goodwill box. The neon-colored “limited edition” Margaritaville parrot-sha...

I’m writing as fast as I can—really!

Fans of Driftwood: Stories from the Margarita Road keep telling me they’re anxiously awaiting my next book. That makes me so very happy.

And yes, I’m writing a new book I’m hoping to publish later this year.

It’s a memoir of the time Cheri and I spent running the Luna Blue Hotel and Bar in Playa del Carmen Mexico.

It will be an entertaining tale of the ups and downs, triumphs and stumbles of our time as innkeepers in paradise. Of course, it will mostly be abo...

“The fact is, I don’t know where my ideas come from. Nor does any writer.
The only real answer is to drink way too much coffee and buy yourself a desk
that doesn’t collapse when you beat your head against it.”―  Douglas Adams

The most important tool for a writer is a cup of coffee.

Oh sure, you need keyboards and printers, pen and paper, ideas, and a reasonable (but not excessively detailed) grasp of whatever language you’re writing in. But it all starts with a cup of coffee.

Writers and coffee ...

Today offers a strange convergence of dates and anniversaries and emotions for me.

It’s the day I died—only to be brought back to life by unknown doctors and nurses in an emergency room in Mexico.

It’s also the day in another year when I went to my brother’s home to box up his belongings after he died of the same type of heart attack.

And, of course, it’s also Fathers Day, bringing with it all the jumbled feelings of my own role as a son, then a father.

Each of these days…those moments and even...

I love knowing people around the globe are reading my words.  But nothing has made me smile as much as finding out that Driftwood is now on the shelves of the Alma Libre Bookstore, within sight of the beaches where the idea for the book first came to me.

For twenty years, Alma Libre (which means “Free Soul”) has been nestled on the town...

What do Barack Obama, John Grisham, Bill O’Reilly, and I all have in common? Our books all landed on the same Summer Reading List!

When the readers of PlanSponsor Magazine (an award-winning investment/news publication) were asked to name their summer reading favorites, they came up with a list of mysteries, true history tales, self-help guides, and memoirs.

I have always ...

Watching the Ken Burns’ Hemingway biography on PBS this week reminded me of a wonderful short dramatic piece I saw many years ago called The Hemingway Play.

The Hemingway Play was an original play by screenwriter/journalist/author Fredrick Hunter. It was broadcast only once—on a PBS anthology show in 1976—and never shown again.

In this surrealistic play, four versions of Hemingway come together, interacting and confronting each other in a small Spanish café:

First is the young wounded soldier wi...

It turned up in my Facebook memories the other day: a photo of me holding a large framed poster of three beautiful women. They were on a beach in Brazil wearing only g-strings and body paint. That poster and those women have been part of my journey on the Margarita Road for over twenty-four years.

I first met the lovely trio in 1999, long before moving south. Cheri and I were visiting the island of Cozumel, just off the coast of Mexico’s Caribbean shore. While looking over the usual pile...

Today is the year’s best holiday…National Margarita Day.  Why is it the best?  Think about it…

At Christmas you have to fight the crowds to buy presents for people you don’t really like;

Halloween means eating all the candy you supposedly bought to give away to the kids;

Thanksgiving requires mingling with your weird relatives;

But National Margarita Day has just one requirement…to drink and enjoy that glorious fusion of citrus, salt, and tequila known as the Margarita.

There are choices to be m...