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Posts published in “Essays”

The Essential Fech

David Fechheimer, San Francisco's premier private investigator, died April 2 after open-heart surgery. We'd been friends for 44 years, minus two. David is Stephen Best in this piece the AVA ran in January, 1990. The…

As the Gentle Rain from Heaven

“The quality of mercy is not strained. It droppeth as the gentle rain from heaven Upon the place beneath. It is twice blest: It blesseth him that gives and him that takes. 'Tis mightiest in…

Joe to Jail, Atsuko to Japan (Part 13)

Atsuko and I were on a superbike traveling fast over the Golden Gate Bridge. I was under the influence of cocaine and alcohol. A cop pulled me over and busted me

A Personal Tribute to Jazz Master Randy Weston

Way back in the early 1970s I stumbled upon a then-new record titled "Blue Moses" by pianist Randy Weston. It had a very colorful, almost psychedelic cover and a roster of top jazz stars like…

Biloxi Days: The Monument

Toward the end of my four-year tour at Keesler Air Force Base outside Biloxi, Mississippi, it was becoming clear that President Nixon’s quixotic attempt to “Vietnamize” the Vietnam war by, among other things, training Vietnamese…

Measles

My mom was trained as a registered nurse during the Second World War. She spoke often of the miracle of penicillin, at that time only available to the troops, and a new future where so…

Solving Drugs

If a behavioral phenomenon that is demonstrably and seriously harmful to society becomes a pattern, we (the societal we) pass a law against it, which is our way of saying: Don't do this thing or we…

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