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Posts published in “Essays”

Hamburg & The Bubble Bath People

After last week's County Redistricting Committee meeting was adjourned, Supervisor Dan Hamburg ambled in to privately discuss the Committee’s work with a few of the people in the room. Hamburg had not attended any previous…

Born In The Palace Hotel

Clover never lived in Ukiah, but remarkable circumstances resulted in her life beginning and ending in Ukiah. It began in Ukiah because salesman Perry Young with his pregnant wife Claire drove here to attend a…

A Memoir: The Fortunate Son, Part 11

The months following my discharge from John's employ were hard ones, on me and those around me. I was living with an engaging and bright woman in San Francisco, estranged from my wife and family, and I was floundering.

Big Debt Getting Bigger & Keying Their Majesties’ Land Yachts

County CEO Carmel Angelo informed the Supervisors that the County’s ever-larger debt is again ever-larger. “Complicating the budget picture is a change in accounting methodology related to the Teeter Program for the FY 2009-10 Audit,”…

All The Publisher’s Men

Having spent many weeks amidst the Strauss-Kahn case listening the locals assert that America's justice is superior to France's, we're now pitchforked into the next debate: could US journalism sink to the septic depths of…

A Memoir: The Fortunate Son, Part 10

Following the breakup of CCR, John kept me employed for another four years or so. We moved out of the “Factory” and set up shop in a temporary office on San Pablo Avenue in Albany.

Looking For Elusive New Deal Art

Determined to see another example of mural art by Ben Cunningham, the artist who painted the mural in the Ukiah Post Office, I trekked to Coit Tower in San Francisco. There, my Internet research assured…

Meanwhile, In Crescent City

As Americans prepared to celebrate Independence Day, inmates in solitary confinement at California's Pelican Bay State Prison are standing up for their rights in the only way they can by going on hunger strike. The…

Lives Unlived

I am reading The Collected Stories of Frank O’Connor for the third time in twelve years. Enough time has passed since my last reading of his remarkable stories so I have forgotten sufficient details and plot twists and endings to make the stories new to me again; and in some ways they are better than new because I know them now as I know favorite pieces of music or beloved paintings, and in this further experience of them I discover more and more of the genius they contain.

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