BOMBING STEEPLY DOWNHILL ON SAN Francisco’s pedestrian-thick California Street while screaming “No brakes!” was just another day in my brief life as a late-1980s bike messenger. I had gotten into “the life” by happy accident. Having been fired from a…
Category: Writ
My own serious stuff; the craft itself; literary (and authorial) inspiration; the art of reading.
Haiku: The Nameless Name
THAT-WHICH-SOME-CALL-“GOD“: Universal, non-dual. What is It for you?
Unless you are at home in the metaphor, you are not safe anywhere.”
— Robert Frost
Of Tone-Outs, Turnouts and a Press Badge
IT’S HARD TO WATCH LIVES literally going up in smoke in order to tell other people about it. But on a professional level, it’s thrilling to see firefighters bringing order to chaos. When I worked for the Sonoma Index-Tribune between…
Metaphoraging Roundup: 2018
IF A GOOD FRIEND HADN’T died this year and cured me of a years-long writer’s block, I wouldn’t be posting this. But he did, so I am, proffering 2018’s Top 10 Viewed Pages and Posts at this writing: 1. Home…
Our Own Little “Zone”
IF YOU WERE CONSIDERED A teenage weirdo in the late 1970s/early 1980s in Northern California’s suburban Diablo Valley, you could always find a place on Friday nights at an independent cinema-house in Walnut Creek, gathering with others of your tribe…
And On, And On
I NEVER MET THEM. BUT I know them. The eleven Jews murdered yesterday as they worshiped at the Tree of Life Congregation near Pittsburgh could be found in any synagogue, including my own: the former congregational president, the lay leader,…
Out of the Ashes, Endlessly Turning
A YEAR AGO THIS WEEK, Ann, Geronimo and I fled the then-largest wildfire complex in California history. We were voluntary evacuees who came home to find everything relatively intact, so our story had a happy ending. My niece and nephew-in-law…
Why I Love: Writing
IT’S THE SCARINESS OF THE blank screen. It’s the focused attention. It’s the mental sensation of assembling Tinker-Toy pieces into a coherent structure. It’s the way the hours fly by. It’s the nothing-else-like-it buzz (thank you, Stephen King). It’s the…
Night, Fog, and One Hell of a Bang
IF I HAD KNOWN THAT our galleon would collide with a freighter, I would have worn a life jacket. The time was February 1988. Through a curious series of circumstances, I had signed aboard the replica galleon Golden Hinde II…
(Shave and) a Haircut, 12 Bucks!
WE HAD LIVED IN SONOMA for a third of my lifetime before I visited Allen’s Hair House, about a half-block south of the Plaza. I had become fed up with being charged $20 for a chop job by my previous…
Fie on Death, and the Pale Horse He Rode In On
He was a man. Take him for all in all. I shall not look upon his like again. — William Shakespeare, Hamlet WHEN I FIRST MOVED INTO an Oakland apartment in 1986 with John Woods “Wheels” “Spoonhead” “Calvin Biggins” Wheeler,…