Kirk, Harold and Maude On Memorabilia and Memory
Even though I’m a big baseball fan, I’m also anti-memorabilia-ist. Storing material prompts for memories is neither my ambition, nor my religion. However, the recent news that baseball legend Kirk Gibson was auctioning off his treasured Dodger World Series keepsakes grabbed me in the way Ruth Gordon’s character in Harold and Maude grabbed me … more
Snow White and the EPA Creationist On the State of Science and Religion
Last weekend, during that familiar yet awkward point at a wedding reception — before the toasts, cake cutting and garter toss — when the improvised B-list seating arrangements conspire in unpredictably embarrassing ways, I found myself sitting with a group of biologists.… more
Circling the Seniors The Natural Habitat of Real Estate Vultures
Up the outside flight of steep concrete stairs 81-year-old Frank — hot meal in hand — slowly climbs to a small landing and rings a doorbell. A long minute passes. The front door opens. A head in shadows peers out from inside. Then a wavering aphasiated octogenarian women’s voice dampened by a stroke asks Frank to open the security door that serves as protection against the world outside. The tiny landing is jammed with stacks of old wet newspapers, empty flower pots and two seatless chairs, so, in order to open the security door that swings outward, Frank has to step backward off the landing, balancing the hot meal.… more
The Hyperreal Whorehouse Themepark Simulacra and Stimulation
This Summer in Orange County, California, Knott's Berry Farm began the tear-down of Goldie's Place — one of the themepark’s last original buildings from the 1940s. The demolition began with little fanfare. That’s surprising because Goldie’s is the berry farm’s imaginary Whorehouse. … more
The Thank God School of Business Pepperdine’s PR Purgatorio
It’s 2 am. The radio is on. But it feels like a dream. Somehow a voice on the air is tempting me to enroll at the Graziadio School of Business and Management. Graziadio? A school of business that thanks God in Italian? How could this be?… more
The Carnivore’s License A Simple Solution to the Ethical Regulation of Slaughter
As a diet conscious Southern Californian, I’ve read the horrifying literature on beef and beef poo. I know about zombie chickens that can’t walk because their bodies have been transformed into meatballs. I’m told there’s lead and Pacific Gyre plastic in the Pacific so the fish are chemically enhanced. Pesticides and hormones are everywhere, mutating everything on my kitchen table. I try to eat as many fresh vegetables as I can, but I’m always checking the pedigree. Organic? On the stem? Packaged or unpackaged? Grapes from Chile? How many gallons of petrol does it take to make Ceasar Chavez roll over in his United Fruit Workers coffin. My coffee is free trade. Do I get bonus points? Is it OK to consume eggs? Sourdough? Twinkies? Tap water? Free range Chicken McNuggets?… more
The Greatest Beneficiary Generation A Lesson in Perspective for the Orange County Symphony
Earlier this year, Orange County, California’s Pacific Symphony dedicated a performance to “the greatest generation any society has produced”. Even though this so-called Greatest Generation is still with us, thanks to the blessing of old age they’re dwindling in numbers. And by Greatest Generation I don’t mean the generation who grew up in the United States during the Great Depression, and then went on to fight in World War II. What I mean is the people who grew up during that time and actually believe that they are The Greatest Generation who ever lived. What a load of crap.… more
Circumstantial Disabilities A Guide to the Accidentally Challenged
Dylan Thomas once said that “A born writer is born scrofulous (scruffulous); his career is an accident dictated by physical or circumstantial disabilities.” I’m not sure whether or not I’m a born writer, but I do know that I’m scruffulous — or as my parents used to say, morally degenerate and corrupt. Maybe Dylan Thomas was right. Maybe my degeneracy is related to a disability. It hasn’t gotten me a job. But I’ve always believed in hiring the disabled. Let them suffer like the rest of the world.… more
Gas Powered Recreation Thoughts on Human Ignorance
It was the front page headline in Los Angeles Times and dominated the local news channels for days. On August 14th, an decked-out off-road Ford Ranger with “Misery Motorsports” painted on its doors went airborne at the California 200 desert race and smacked into a crowd of spectators killing eight and injuring 12.… more
One Year, Two Summers Real Life Seasons in Southern California
In the summer of 1970, Washington, D.C., turned ugly. Ugly not because of the war in Vietnam, or political scandal, or urban riots. Ugly because it was hot—101 degrees perspiration-gathering-on-the-tip-of-your-nose and in-the-small-of-your-back hot. The heat wilted trees on Eye Street and visually bent the brownstones.… more
My First Air Show One Source of My Fear of Flying
There's a thump at the back of my head — on the wall. Then, I'm in the soup between awake and asleep. Was the screen door slamming?. Frank and Bettilou — my parents —— run into the back yard. With a new moon sky Mom trips, sails and hits the ground. Above, in the silence, a Cessna's engine starts.… more
The Big Reason Legends, Mantras Battle Cries and Truth in Advertising
As my grandmother Elizabeth aged, nearly all her statements became mottoes or slogans or platitudes. “It’s a great life if you don’t weaken,” she said right after we sang her birthday song .… more
Little Beasts Child Rearing in an Adult World
I am not myself today. It isn’t because I am awash in all variety of ruination — that my 17 year-old dog, Luna, died in my arms last Wednesday or that my 100 year-old senile grandmother — of whom I am the only grandchild — called me Herman (her long deceased brother’s name), and told me to milk the cows (I consented, hundreds of miles from the nearest bovine utter) .… more
Heat Is Murder On Sunscreen and Serial Killings
The sun does unsettling things to people. I’m always amazed by the number of us basking on Southern California’s summer beaches still trying to roast our skins and minds.… more
You Don't Deserve This Home Joseph Eichler’s Mass Market Architectural Conceit
While there's nothing cooler than the slope of a 1957 Chevrolet's tail fin, that same car is a smog-spewing, gas-guzzling metal coffin with functional flaws aplenty. In the same vein, don't let the clean, distinctive lines and mass-market appeal of an Eichler designed home fool you — it's the '57 Chevy of real estate… more
Heaven and Earth Thoughts on Baseball, Art and Other Altered States: Mystery
The nameless is the beginning of art and baseball. While the named is the mother of statistics, the nameless is the gateway to the mystery of everlasting hardball truth… more
The Legend of the Dancing Goat Society So the Goodness May Flow Through the Liquid I grew up a coffee drinker in Southern California. By 1992, I was a member of The Dancing Goat Society. Let me explain. On a morning in Ethiopia, some 1200 years ago. Khaldi, a goat herder well known for his laid back manner, awoke to the sight of his flock behaving extraordinarily. The natty beasts were dancing a dervish, standing on hind legs and bleating a Dionysian rhapsody as if primed by the goat-god Pan. When Khaldi noticed some of them munching on branches of bright red berries he took it upon himself to do the same. Enlightenment was at hand. The berries tasted bitter, but soon Khaldi found himself exhilarated, clear-thinking and wonderously joyful… more
Big Picture People It's a Binary Shakedown. Here's Their Scam I draw a salary to work with Big Picture People. In spite of the self-ascribed grandeur of their visions and the sincerity of their altruistic posturing, I really can’t handle their crap without compensation. Sometimes serious compensation.… more
