Too soon for Halloween? No way! Not when Costco and Walmart are already jam-packed with Christmas crap on October 1. I wanted to mention a podcast I’ve been enjoying in the run-up to All Hallow’s Eve: “Spooked.” Every Thursday, the podcast features regular people talking about eerie stuff that has happened to them. You know, spectral visitors and phantom hitchhikers and an assortment of unexplained phenomena. Some […]
A good time for fiction
I know; it’s been awhile. The Trump nightmare keeps getting darker, and writing about anything else has seemed frivolous. But life goes on. I am just determined to outlive this bastard, to dance rhetorically on his grave when all this passes, as it must. So I’ve deleted Facebook and Twitter from my phone again, and I’ve resumed writing fiction. Rewriting it, too. Recently I decided to repackage […]
Bonfire of my vanity
Take a look at the composite picture above: What do the five faces have in common? I’ll just wait here while you ponder. Hint: It’s not the Dave Clark Five. It’s not the Five Amigos. It’s not the Five Horsemen of the Apocalypse. It’s not the Five Guys. It’s not the Five Pillars of Islam. No, my friends, these five faces represent the closest resemblance to yours […]
It could be worse.
Just ask Grant
If you’ve ever thought America is going to hell in a handbasket — and who among us hasn’t? — take a trip back to the mid-19th century and see how you like it then. That’s what I’ve been doing since the first of the year: Reading Ron Chernow’s 960-page biography of Ulysses S. Grant. I’ve learned a lot from “Grant,” but mostly this: Crises and cataclysms come […]
Vain hopes for 2018
Last night we headed for bed just before midnight. The New Year’s Eve gunfire was like the opening battle scene in “Saving Private Ryan,” to the point that the dog followed us upstairs to cower by the bed. My wife asked me what my hopes for 2018 might be. She asks things like that. I hadn’t thought much about it, but the answer came pretty quickly: “To […]
Another Christmas tale
Cynthia from HR brought around the Christmas card. By the time it reached Henderson’s desk, it was already bulging with bills. Henderson sighed and reached for his wallet. He wasn’t crazy about diminishing his meager supply of cash, but it was Christmas time and he supposed he should do his part to help the less fortunate. Probably a coworker had suffered some medical emergency, some unforeseen household […]
Will Roy Moore
ruin Christmas?
This is what it’s come to: Watching the results of an Alabama senatorial election likes it’s the freaking AFC playoffs. Does scrappy underdog Doug Jones come from behind to knock off crappy horndog Roy Moore? It’s anybody’s game! Who’s ready for some football? My prediction just before the polls close: Roy Moore will win it handily. Not even close. Two touchdowns and a field goal. Why? Because […]
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