Dearest bitch by the bay, when a best friend John suggested we meet in your bosom to spend a few leisurely days, I thought of the new fifty-eight story skyscraper of multi-million-dollar condos at 301 Mission called “the leaning tower of lawsuits”, because six hundred and forty-five feet of reinforced concrete wrapped in gleaming glass […]
Ok, she’s really my new Honda Africa Twin but riding and reading being parallel passions, how could my mind not drift during this afternoon’s ride to Ernest Hemingway’s ride with Debba, the compelling African Wakamba native girl with whom my favorite writer becomes enamored in his posthumously published novelized safari memoir “True at First Light”? […]
“Hey Weinstein”, says Zuckerman, his wannabe director Monte Nido neighbor one sparkling summer Sunday, “I’ve got a commercial to shoot out in the desert. It’s for a Mexican brandy client, La Rosa Fina. I need you and your motorcycle. The script is simple. Guy on an off road bike rides aggressively through rugged terrain, pauses […]
“Hey Weinstein”, says Zuckerman, his wannabe director Monte Nido neighbor one sparkling summer Sunday, “I’ve got a commercial to shoot out in the desert. It’s for a Mexican brandy client, La Rosa Fina. I need you and your motorcycle. The script is simple. Guy on an off road bike rides aggressively through rugged terrain, pauses […]
Generally it can be said with some accuracy that Ralph Weinstein likes birds, especially the many beautiful species – the eagles, the hawks, the quail, the meadowlarks — that do not defecate on the clear cedar boards of the deck that surrounds three quarters of his abode here in Big Valley. That description excludes the […]
Big Valley, California – The medical marijuana experiments have been going well here for Ralph Weinstein. His research is proving high grade weed and Russian vodka laced with pickled asparagus brine render it near impossible for a writer to write. Not a problem. Ralph often barrels through a block like Alan “The Horse” Ameche in […]
New York, New York. The big city. We’re your grandmother’s Russian/Jewish cooking is readily available. It’s called Kaplan’s Delicatessen on 58th? How about chicken soup with stewed chicken feet? It could happen, but if not, there are viable alternatives like cabbage stuffed with high fat beef that guarantees you a gurney at Mount Sinai and […]
“So we beat on, boats against the current, borne back ceaselessly into the past” — F. Scott Fitzgerald. Scott’s famous metaphor, the last line of “The Great Gatsby” applies to motorcycle touring, for much of what we seek aside from the joyful highs of the road and the wind is appreciation of the history we […]
When my daughter was getting a divorce a while ago I sent my grandson a pup tent and told him to go sleep in the backyard. I told him sometimes a guy’s got to hide. When I was feeling that way myself recently I thought of my motorcycle and a long lonely road. Duane, a […]
Good friends Don and Misty are coming up to Bieber for a few April days before we road trip north together. Don is Portuguese and his wife Misty is a lovely Japanese woman. They’re mad for each other but there’s a huge issue in their relationship: Don hates Japanese food, especially sushi, and sitting cross-legged […]
I smoke marijuana (medical), drink Russian vodka (political, Go Vlad!) and take two pills from Big Pharma every morning to address my lifelong hypertension. When I was enlisting in the National Guard at 17 they took my blood pressure and told me to lie down and when they took it again it was still an […]