“Urban public transit has never made its living off promises of gentility or grace. To the middle class, it’s mostly been: “We’re faster, cheaper, more convenient than your car.” The pitch to the poor has…
Posts published by “Erik S. McMahon”
‘Tried to give away, turn in, that is, her wallet. Eager to surrender, ready to submit. No use, though. Why’d I ever pick the orphan bastard up? You’d’ve done the same. Pigskin peeking from dense…
Gleaming hogs, chopped Harleys all, were parked in a precise row, south of the Cliff House. Sonny Barger, still Head Guy of the Hell’s Angels despite a stretch in the joint and his near inability…
Statistics Assault us constantly, and are absorbed, even ones that, on their face, seem far-fetched. Two-thirds of high-school students can’t identify the United States, handed an unlabeled map, or name combatants in the Civil War.…
I’d been to Mexico eight, maybe nine times, not counting border towns; spots like Puerto Vallarta, Manzanillo, Zihuatenejo, Oaxaca, and Cancun. I had seen the sprawling Federal District, Ciudad de Mexico, itself, only once, for…
I hadn’t ever heard “feedback,” in a musical sense, before, but the howling that kick-started the Beatles’ ‘I Feel Fine’ was an instant hit with me. This was long ago. You needed to snap molded…
It was referred to as the cellar, never called a “basement,” though I’m not sure yet I understand what distinguishes them. You could get down there either by the steep stairs leading from the pantry,…