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Preface
This book isn’t here to sell you anything. It exists because I’ve learned something simple and slightly unsettling: the older you get, the more your life starts to look like…
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Stitched in Miami
Eddie E. Stephens, Sr. didn’t build a store. He built a standard. It was measured the way he measured everything: fit, fabric, service, and the one thing you can’t fake…
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The 1981 Computer Camp Origin Story
Ron Frazier’s University of Miami baseball camp was the plan. I’m Sun, dirt, repetition, rules—success you could measure in hits and hustle. My world made sense because it was physical…
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Backstage at the WWF Holiday Spectacular
December 1985 in Miami didn’t feel like winter. It felt like electricity. The palm trees outside the Miami Knight Center were still doing their lazy sway in warm air, neon…
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The Ordinary World Ended
Trigger Warning The following chapter includes depictions of a medical emergency, overdose, and the death of a parent, as well as themes of grief, trauma, and family conflict. Some readers…
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Exposed to Light
I started my life at the University of Miami thinking I could be an artist and announced this with the selection my major; Motion Picture Production. This was before “video”…
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Bootleg Eddie and the Night Trent Tested the Gods
There was a time before Stephens & Stevens. Before Squibs. There was a time when I was just Bootleg Eddie. Back then, I flew under the radar. I traveled light.…
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Bimini for Lunch
It was 1997, and I was twenty-seven and walking around like the legal system had personally issued me a backstage pass. One of my first “real” assignments had landed in…
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Shaman Adventure
JUNE 18, 2001 – THE EXPERIENCE BEGINS…. It has been a strange night/week/month. I am sitting at the Miami International Airport, about to step into another world. I have no…
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The Curator of Chaos
Some people collect things. Not me. I curate them. Not just “memorabilia” — real, charged objects that carry energy and memory — artifacts I chose because they meant something. Each…
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Do Something That Matters
Open letter authored by Eddie Stephens published to the members of Delta Sigma Pi: Every successful business has a mission statement. A common understanding of where the company is going and…
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Line in the Sand
Co-written with Cindy Crawford Stephens: In my 18 years of practicing law, I have never tried an “at fault” divorce. I did not truly appreciate the cultural differences between our…
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The Sweetest Fear
Last night, I finally did something I’ve avoided for decades: I faced a fear. It’s a fear that sounds silly when you say it out loud—but it’s real all the…
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Alien Abduction
The following is fiction…. —- Picture this if you will… Eddie Stephens stood shoulder-to-shoulder with a sea of rock fans at an L.A. Guns concert, soaking in the neon grit…
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In Order to Succeed You Must Fail
I am a parent of two teenage boys. I am not a perfect parent, but I try very hard. I like to think I lead by example, provide boundaries and…
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Officer Stephens
My name is Eddie Stephens, and I’m a divorce attorney. Which… is a sentence that usually earns one of two reactions: either a polite nod that says, “Oh wow, that…
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The Great Disassociation
At some point in the middle of my career, I got the itch. Not the “buy a motorcycle and pretend I’m twenty-five” itch. The other one—the respectable mid-career itch—the one…
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The Fat Man and Orange Fedora
Author’s Note / Fiction Disclaimer This post is a work of fiction. The characters, events, dialogue, and situations described in this story are entirely invented for dramatic and satirical effect.…
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You Already Did
The first time I met Tracii Guns, I wasn’t walking up like a fan with a Sharpie and a plan. It was one of those nights where the venue lights…
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Epilogue
I used to think “core memories” were like museum pieces—sealed behind glass, labeled, safely preserved. The older I get, the more I realize they’re more like live wires. They don’t…






















