On August 8, 2014 at approximately 9:25 AM I was traveling northbound on US 101 north of Lake Mendocino Drive in the number two lane. I was driving a fully marked California Highway Patrol vehicle.
Posts published in “Essays”
When the modern infrastructure of the American West was being constructed in the mid-20th century, it was based on a vision consistent with the contemporary…
Spencer Brewer is a composer, pianist, performer, and impresario… founder of Ukiah’s Concerts In The Park. A few years after Spencer and his wife Esther got together in 1977, they both drew up a list of 20 things they each wanted to accomplish in their lives. Spencer has crossed off 19 of his. There is one more left to do…
Every two bit scribbler since the advent of movable type, every columnist, essayist, memoirist, novelist, scrivener, commentator or toilet stall philosopher ultimately, barring an early…
Rarely do I get personal emails any more, the medium is nearly obsolete already. And I naturally have given up on real letters, in the…
“England and America are two countries divided by a common language,” George Bernard Shaw is alleged to have said. When it comes to treats, we…
[July 2009] Some time in early or mid-1949 a CIA officer named Bill (his surname is blacked out in the file, which was surfaced by…
We recently watched the movie version of John Steinbeck’s East of Eden. Our main motivation for renting the movie was to see the village of Mendocino as she was captured on film in 1954. Mendocino exteriors were used to represent Monterey circa 1917, and if you’ve ever been to Monterey and Mendocino you’ll wonder why anyone, let alone an acclaimed filmmaker, would do such a thing; and if you’ve never been to Monterey and Mendocino you won’t give a hoot.
We marched from downtown Berkeley down University Avenue towards the Bay. At the extended entry ramp to the Eastshore freeway from University Avenue we were met for at least the third night in a row by at least 100 Berkeley Police in full on stormtrooper riot gear. This night the march on University to block the freeway seemed closer to 3,000 which was more than any other night. Perhaps due to a critical mass of sheer numbers the people collectively figured out we should make a quick left on sixth street in front of the police blockade and then a quick right toward the footbridge at aquatic park that goes over the Eastshore Freeway.
I’d prefer not to call the cops. I don’t have anything against cops and I don’t fear them. Some of my friends and relatives are…
Unusually balmy weather haunted Anderson Valley at least through the end of November, a phenomenon I witnessed first hand touring the gardens of friends who…