One sunny San Francisco morning in the 1990s I was sitting in my office trying to decide which pile of papers and journals and telephone messages piled on my desk to tackle first, when the…
Posts published by “Steve Heilig”
Way back when I was an undergrad student at UC Santa Barbara, a fair number of Vietnamese refugees had been and were being relocated to the “student ghetto” of Isla Vista. Some of them even…
The national election looms, like a tsunami of uncertainty. Right now it’s a prevailing source of anxiety, dread, hope and confusion. Predictions and polls are rampant and just add to the unrest. Understandably, many have…
Once upon a time I was an international drug smuggler. But please let me explain. One foggy afternoon in the late 1980s I was sitting in the dungeon-like old medical library at UCSF medical center,…
“Are you going to watch the debate?” Yes, I replied, I feel I have to. It’s probably going to be a big deal. But I have such trepidation about it, even dread. I don’t think…
I was down on an almost human-free Ocean Beach in San Francisco with only a little dog, a big salmon sandwich from the closest small cafe, and a small stack of newspapers, including three weeks…
Allen Ginsberg's “Howl” is perhaps the iconic poem of the past half century, but from the moment it was first published 68 years ago, it seems to have really upset some people. The epic cry…