RIP TORN BOMBS OUT AT THE BERMUDA PALMS The upper level of the Charles Van Damme was occupied by Chris Roberts, an artist with a vision so grand that he was considered insane even by…
Posts published by “Jeff Costello”
THE HOT MOLECULE Our next home was another small plywood barge, an upgraded version of the Hot Set-up. We called the new place the Hot Molecule. The phrase was one of Joe Tate’s leftovers from…
THE REAL REDLEGS STORY I couldn’t have been more wrong when I first arrived and thought the waterfront/Redlegs scene was a cult. It was not a cult, a commune, a “tribe,” it wasn’t even a…
Here is my all-time favorite cartoon: a man is hanging from his pickax, which is hooked, barely, over the top edge of an impossible precipice. A second man hangs on to his ankle. There is…
A lot of goofy and bizarre New Age behavior takes place here on Maui. We have everything from fake Rastafarianism and aroma therapy to sensory-deprivation tanks, and tantric-yoga cults, which, in the words of one…
Response to a letter encouraging me to read a study on marijuana: It seems like you're trying to give me a sales job on marijuana — which I find odd, because you may recall that…
There was a quote in the AVA recently about suburbs being breeding grounds for boredom and apathy, among other social ills. We might add to the list suspicion, isolation, and despair. I’m in the second…
It won't come as news to most AVA readers, but as I was recently reminded, there's no narcissism like New Age narcissism. “New Age” ideas allow the already self-absorbed to go beyond mere egotism into…
This morning in the supermarket parking lot, I was assaulted by a loud, unpleasant sound coming from the wide-open door of a shiny new sport utility vehicle. The sound was a commercial music recording played…