San Quentin Prison, which stands on a point of land just south of the Marin side of the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge, is the oldest prison in California and one of the most famous in the…
Posts published in “Essays”
The local old timers called all us new arrivals of the early 1970s “hippies” regardless of our relative commitments to drugs, promiscuous sex, bad housekeeping, and George McGovern, the whole package being Boonville code for…
A good sharp sense of the absurd is a great asset in life, and there was a lush crop of 50s TV shows ready and able to help us develop it. “Queen For a Day”…
I’ve always thought the fastest way to make a bunch of money is to steal a U.S. Mint printing press and start running off 20s in the garage. Not so sure anymore. A car wash…
We returned to Ukiah for a limited time but long enough for me to fret over my missing Swallowtail butterflies. For the past 20 uninterrupted summers wife Trophy and I have been quietly thrilled at…
In the movie business typecasting can be as much of a curse for composers as for actors. Marco Beltrami made his name in Hollywood with his score for Wes Craven’s satirical slasher movie Scream back…
At various times during the checkered decade past (the 60s) I have been called licentious, a profligate, and adventurer, a sensationalist, a wastrel, a capitalist guerrilla, a boozer, a corporate wrecker, a degenerate, a wheeler-dealer,…