Slim Pickens, a rodeo caller who went on to fame as a movie actor, said that 1950 Boonville was the roughest place he’d ever called a rodeo in. Buck Clark admits to having been an…
Posts published in “Essays”
(Note: Today’s column is also available in Pumpkin Spice. Please see Page 42 for details.) As the days dwindled down to a tolerable few, I began taking increased interest in the sudden, colorful blossoming of…
At Burning Man sometimes something happens that is so totally unexpected and delightful you shake your head in wonderment. Interviewing the medical director of Emergency Services at Burning Man this year we both got a…
I’m not entirely certain what a country for old white men would look and feel like, but I have been thinking about that image/concept ever since I first saw the movie, No Country for Old…
My parents loved camping. So much so that I swear they took my sister and me to every campground in California when we were kids. But I hated camping. So much so that I vowed,…
I've never been homeless, but I've been poor, lived in shitesque neighborhoods, and over the years I've known several homeless folks well enough to say good morning and have a conversation. In my experience, they're…
I’ve been a skeptic of marijuana as a medical miracle for almost as long as I’ve been doubtful the Easter Bunny lays eggs in my stocking once a year and the Cleveland Browns are someday…
Wow, two weeks since the hip replacement operation, and each day a delicious lunch is brought to me sitting in the recliner in front of the TV. I’ve been retrained to do the rest: make…
Miles Davis’s Kind of Blue turned sixty-five last month, the same age at which the trumpeter would die thirty-two years after recording the album. The record shows no signs of infirmity. It has no plans…