My father’s hobby was complaining. He’d come over to vent, and if you tried to help, he’d say, “I just wanna bitch. I’m not here for solutions.” It’s ironic because his favorite way shut you up was to ask, “Are you complaining?” He didn’t want to hear anybody else’s problems. Dad loved to hook up…
The son of a certified eccentric
May 29, 2023
My mother CeeCee was brilliant. As I discovered today, she was also a certified eccentric. Sometime in the late nineties, I got a traffic ticket from a sheriff’s deputy working for the second-most corrupt city in the United States. It was ticket for a “rolling stop,” meaning I didn’t come to a complete stop at…
Time for a post on government health care
May 29, 2023
One of the main news stories right now is about government health care. The hospitals run by the Department of Veterans Affairs are a disaster. Not only that, the people in charge are engaged in a massive coverup. A watchdog’s report found systemic problems at Department of Veterans Affairs health-care facilities, including improper procedures for…
That’s not therapy. THIS is therapy.
May 28, 2023
The Isla Vista spree killer was in therapy since the age of eight, including almost every day while in high school. That’s total baloney. He didn’t undergo therapy. THIS is therapy, what I will now tell you about myself. In 1998 I was at the end of my rope. My career as a music journalist…
Saint Catherine’s flamethrower boys
May 27, 2023
What a weird, weird, weird, weird day. First I had a run-in with California’s next spree killer. Then when I came in to sit down and write, I thought that my bowels had given way without me knowing it. It turned out that as I fed the feral cats, I stepped in some of their…
Just had a brush with the next spree killer
May 27, 2023
I’m drinking coffee again. And how! I shouldn’t, because of the Meniere’s disease, but I’m losing my doctor in less than a month, I’m writing a very emotionally draining novel, we’re now feeding a family of doomed feral cats, and I’m not happy with people in my life. I buy my coffee at a convenience…
I hate my neighborhood
May 26, 2023
There was a time when I didn’t hate my neighborhood. Back when I moved here in 1993, it wasn’t a bad place. What happened was that all the old people died and young monstrosities moved in. Now I can’t wait to leave. The main reason I want to leave is that everyone here is a…
The youngest doughboy
May 25, 2023
Tomorrow is Memorial Day 2014. World War One began on July 28, 1914, nearly a century ago. For this Memorial Day, I want to remember Frank R. Sauliere, the youngest doughboy to fight in the war. Nobody knows where the term “doughboy” comes from. It could refer to the dumplings that soldiers made from flour,…
You’re doing everything wrong
May 24, 2023
As I predicted, the reaction to the mass murder at Isla Vista, California, last night is utterly pro forma. Everybody is doing everything wrong. When families have spokespeople issue statements, I get queasy. Alan Shifman — a lawyer who represents Peter Rodger, one of the assistant directors on “The Hunger Games” — issued a statement…
The right way to report on these things
May 24, 2023
Last night Elliot Rodger murdered six people and injured seven others in the Isla Vista neighborhood beside the University of California at Santa Barbara. Rodger himself was killed, either by sheriff’s deputies or by his own hand. Normally I oppose publicizing mass shootings, because almost nobody ever describes the situation accurately. People use them to…