I belong to a very small club. A one-man club. Actually, I belong to several: I’m the only person to be screwed by five Web designers in a row when creating one Website; I’m the only person to have had a spontaneous recovery from total hepatic failure; and I’m the only person in the world…
My sincerest wish for the U.S. Postal Service
October 26, 2023
I wrote before about the theft ring in the U.S. Postal Service. It’s based in New York. Postal workers steal valuable postcards sent from Germany and sell them to collectors. Nobody will do a thing to stop it. Not the Postal Service, not Congress, not the FBI, and not the Germans. Nobody cares. Well, it’s…
A very hard night
October 26, 2023
It was a very hard night, the worst since Mom died. I listened to people on the radio discuss their experiences with evil spirits, being possessed, having demons make them look like old women, and all manner of meretricious claptrap. The host had that super-earnest quality, like he was trying his damnedest to get across…
How things got better
October 22, 2023
I had a love-hate relationship with Howard Jones’s song “Things Can Only Get Better.” Though I wanted to believe, I just didn’t. There was no evidence that Howard was right. Loved the music, though. The bass line of this live version is one of my favorites. Carmen loved it too, the reason I never listened…
Ghosts and Ballyhoo album
October 18, 2023
The Ghosts and Ballyhoo album has been released. Drummer Steven Menasche, guitarist Ron Kukan, keyboardist Jai Young Kim, and Scott Thunes have created six tracks of improvised jazz based on the book. I know, I know: improvised jazz? You’re thinking this, right? Nope. It bears no resemblance whatsoever to that. Music like that has its…
Mom’s favorite song
October 14, 2023
Mom was a music prodigy. She gave her first public piano recital at the age of four. She quit playing when she was sent to boarding school at five due to family problems. Someday I’ll write about that. Mom’s time in the boarding school led directly to her death eighty years later. Since there was…
My crimes of self-defense
September 25, 2023
When I got to college, my punk roommate Joe Cady turned me on to ska. I wasn’t really aware of it. Of course, I knew about reggae because I was a Police fanatic. One of my favorite songs of all time is “Walking on the Moon.” The bass line and tone, the melody, Sting’s plaintive…
Good old-timey nightmare
September 24, 2023
Haven’t had a nightmare like this in a long time. Though back in college, I was my present age. I shared my dorm room with Bill Carroll of KFI AM 640, Los Angeles. The room was long and narrow, like a train car, with bunk beds. Everyone else in the dorm was ecstatic at the…