By now you’ve probably heard that Los Angeles Clippers owner Donald Sterling was allegedly taped telling his mistress to not bring black people to the games and to not post photos on Instagram of herself with black men. The woman goes by several aliases, including V. Stiviano. She’s said to be part black and part…
A post I’ve been told to not write, Part One
April 25, 2014
I’ve been told to not write this, but I’m going to anyway. I think it’s important that a misconception be addressed, and I also don’t like the direction our country is heading. I’ve been there, and you’re not going to like what you’re helping create. When I say it’s important to address a misconception, I…
A post I’ve been told to not write, Part Two
April 25, 2014
My economic history cont. To satisfy the gods of SEO, I must write “not write.” Having done so, back to my résumé. In January of 1992, I sent a proposal for an article to Jim Roberts, the editor of Bass Player. He accepted it, and it was published as “The Bass Gods of Japan” in…
Conversation with a Secular Humanist, Part One
April 13, 2014
On April 12, 2014, the novelist Anne Rice posted the following video on her Facebook fan page and asked for comments. I obliged her. In the interest of full disclosure, I was raised a Catholic, like Rice was. She and I both left the church at eighteen, but I never looked back. I was an…
Goodbye is Forever
April 9, 2014
On page 267 of Ghosts and Ballyhoo, I describe how the Cardinal Ghost Carmen explained why the Arcadia song “Goodbye is Forever” choked me up. She said it was just a matter of the harmonies eliciting an emotional response. To her it was only a song. Many women—including my mother—have told me that it’s much…
Not your problem
March 16, 2014
I’m mentally ill. But it’s not your problem. Some of my mental illness is genetic. I have clinical depression on both sides of the family. One relative lived by herself for decades, filling each room of her house with junk until there were piles that reached the ceilings. She used a chamberpot and emptied it…
THIS son of a bitch doesn’t
March 15, 2014
Sergeant Major Daniel Joseph “Dan” Daly, United States Marine Corps, is said to have shouted, “Come on, you sons of bitches! Do you want to live forever?” at his men during the Battle of Bealleau Wood (June 1 to 26, 1918). Well, this son of a bitch doesn’t. I can’t think of anything worse. My…
Thirty-three years and counting
December 27, 2013
My friend Joe Cady dropped in for a visit today. In Ghosts and Ballyhoo, he’s The Punk Who Set Me on My Course (pages 17 to 20). Unfortunately, I’d set my camera to take time exposures or something, so all the images of Joe in Tim’s house came out blurry and yellow. Here’s the best…
Fear and discipline
December 4, 2013
One of my favorite films is Soldier, starring Kurt Russell. He plays Sergeant Todd, selected soon after birth to become a soldier. Set sometime in the future, the story is about how people can be trained to repress all emotions. Of course the training methods are absolutely brutal. The end result is soldiers who fight…