T.G.I.F.
Longtime driver for San Diego Cab Ellen Rae has her own anagram for Friday and that is P.O.E.T.S. day. This was tossed off to her in parting from a British fare like a verbal tip …
People often ask me, "John," they'll say, "What's wrong with you?" Well, no one seems to know in any general sense. That is, if we're not settling for some facile cleverness like, "I'm an idiot!" …
It was music -- rock and roll, really -- that brought me to California in 1969. Since then, music and I have treated each other with various degrees of love and dismissal: gaudy and debilitating …
A friend from Los Angeles visited the other day. We hadn't seen each other for nearly ten years. Now, any ten years are significant in a human life, but the ten years I missed with …
One TGIF I have always meant to do is about that happy Friday-afternoon ritual of standing in line at the bank with your paycheck in hand. This can be a social hour (and it often …
This is a rare occasion; it really is. I am sitting at my desk, where I have produced tens of thousands of words in just a few months since I bought the desk; I'm staring …
A longtime friend of mine -- a professor in Tacoma who worked with me at Hunter's Books in La Jolla when he was going for his PhD and his divorce at the same time -- …
It has occurred to me that the publication date for this column is the day after Valentine's Day and what a shot for me. I'll say I forgot; just give me one more day. This …
February 7th would have been my father's 88th birthday. I've never visited his grave. Though, of the two of us, I'm probably the more sentimental, I think his belief in the afterlife was stronger than …
One month into the New Year and already I'm striking out in the resolutions department: quit smoking; get a new battery installed in my pace- maker -- a $20,000 proposition with no insurance (my fault …
The Specialist, known in certain circles as Rocker Nutley Bugspray, said that she was willing to bet that recurring nightmares about my mother would recede, then fade, shortly after Mom's death almost two years ago. …