There’s not a month that goes by that someone doesn’t ask me, “Why do they call you Chili Bill?” I feel the time has come to answer this question in a simple, straightforward manner to…
Posts tagged as “essays”
My good buddy Taylor Stoehr just died and I’ve been leafing through the bulging file of his letters to me, reading passages at random and marveling at the clarity of his prose and the generosity of his spirit.
Editor: My name is William Joseph Newport CDCR#K14307, aka “Bongo Bill.” This letter has been a long time coming. I was a homeless man who had a more or less meager form of existence in…
A year ago this week I wrote about a then obscure independently produced documentary called Searching for Sugar Man, about a Detroit singer/songwriter who disappeared into the dustbin of the American corporate music business in…
Marcia and I had breakfast on Wednesday morning at Ravens’, the wholly vegan restaurant at the Stanford Inn, our meal courtesy of a gift certificate Marcia received for officiating at a wedding. I especially enjoyed the coffee and orange juice and the view of Big River Beach.
I bought an old ’67 Volvo Sedan for $75.00. It belonged to a fella dock mate at the Berkeley Marina, a Pagan witch named Eldrie, who lived on our former boat, the Desiderata. Eldrie had,…
I've got a friend Chris who's a skydiver. A legitimate one. He goes skydiving every Sunday in Lodi/Acampo at the Parachute Center. I've got a little experience in the sky. Way back in my New…
While many writers take to print and electronic media to pooh-pooh Burning Man with pronouncements about false values and carbon footprints and financing I personally question whether they have ever actually attended the event.
No keyboard player of this or any other age has been more wide-ranging than Keith Jarrett. His contributions to jazz extend from the endlessly astonishing treatment of standards to expansive and spontaneous explorations of the…