Sometimes it’s good to get out of the Valley and see a thing or two. My Mom Muriel Ellis decided to go to a writer’s conference at the Shattuck Hotel in Berkeley. I suggested that…
Posts published in “Essays”
Remember the War in Vietnam? Indeed, how could anyone forget napalm, tiger cages and the Ho Chi Minh Trail, or the rag-tail army of pacifists, GIs, hippies, self-styled revolutionaries, Catholics, Buddhists, rock bands, and just…
California Governor Jerry Brown has signed into law the nation's most stringent restrictions on the use of antibiotics in the production of meat. Is this a good thing? It certainly is - perhaps a crucial step in our survival, in fact - and I am not prone to exaggeration of such things. Now our state's new policy must become that of the entire nation.
Just back from Ashland, Oregon, where I saw two plays. The good news: fifty to sixty high school students in attendance at Much Ado About Nothing. The bad news: average age of audience goers one…
It was a beautiful sunny day on the beach in Cardiff-by-Sea, Ca. during the early 1970’s, when I ran into this tall, friendly guy in a weird converted school bus. Now there’s a hippie dude…
Entrusting the USA to its patroness, Mary Immaculate, then offering one final “God Bless America,” Pope Francis launched heavenward from Philadelphia on his Alitalia jet nearly two weeks ago. The diverse music that graced and…
Forester Greg Giusti doesn’t fight fires with water, hoses and aerial assaults. He didn’t fight the Valley Fire or any of the other conflagrations — at Elk and Jerusalem — that swept across Lake County…
Most artists are unknown or little known outside their neighborhood or town or small circle of friends. This is not a bad or good thing, but merely the way of the world. My favorite poets are known to only a handful of people, and many of the finest musicians and painters and actors I’ve had the good fortune to hear and see will never be known outside the little kingdoms inhabited by their personal friends and acquaintances.
There is an old adage about the cobbler's children going unshod that makes me wonder what trade or profession, if any, breeds the most problematic children. Is there a segment of the population, career-wise, that…