BECAUSE OF DARRYL CURTIS, I still say “deh-TAILS” instead of “DEE-tails.” Darryl was my boss at Santa Rosa news-talk radio station KSRO more than 20 years ago. To say I learned from him everything I know about radio reporting would…
Tag: people
Ones I have known, if even tangentially.
Death steals everything except our stories.”
— Jim Harrison
“Same To You” Redux
SOME YEARS AGO, I POSTED about a stress-free method for dealing with people who wish you a happy holiday-outside-your-affinity-group. In that spirit, I proffer it again for anyone who, like me, neither celebrates Xmas nor wishes ill on anyone who…
AMERICA IS A PLACE WHERE Jewish merchants sell Zen love beads to agnostics for Christmas.”
— John Burton Brimer
No Boomer I
WELL, THAT’S NOT QUITE ACCURATE — I am, at least technically, a Boomer. But I’m also a member of one of the Lost Generations. And I’m not the only one. I was born in 1962. That makes me, according to…
Points of Honor, Literary and Otherwise
– STUFFING SENTENCES TO JUST UNDER their carrying capacity. – Never starting a blog post with “I.” – Writing exactly to required or desired length. – Being there on time. – Repeating verbatim anything someone wants said to another. –…
Chanukah With Ramana
THE TECHNIQUE IS SIMPLE: JUST lay on your back, breathing, and take a complete and negative bodily inventory: “I am not my legs; I am not my feet; I am not my arms;” “I am not my mind;” et al.…
OKAY MOSES,” SAID GOD. “HERE’S another commandment: Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean, don’t eat meat and milk together?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should have separate dishes for meat and dairy?”
“No. Don’t boil a kid in its mother’s milk.”
“You mean we should wait a few hours after eating meat before we eat dairy?”
“Moses,” said God,”do whatever the hell you want.”
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…
Words To Bring Back: “Cubit”
– Definition: n. A unit of measurement; the distance between one’s elbow and middle-fingertip (approximately 18 inches) – Used in a sentence: My cat is almost exactly two cubits long, including his tail. – Why: Sure, we could always double…
Necessary Speech
ALTHOUGH YOU MAY BE OTHERWISE tempted, the following conversational gambits make for dodgy texts and/or tweets: “We need to talk.” “You’re fired.” “Excuse me, sir or madam. Is your name…?” “It’s over.” “You don’t need to come in for the…
The #popscope Phenomenon
AFTER I BOUGHT MY OWN telescope (an Orion StarMax 90mm Maksutov-Cassegrain with equatorial mount), I would take it out in the early evenings on the sidewalk in front of our building with a sign leaning against the tripod that read,…