The nameless is the beginning of art and baseball. While the named is the mother of statistics, the nameless is the gateway to the mystery of everlasting hardball truth.
Heaven and Earth
Living on the Left Bank
In the 2020s, Chimpanzee culture is alive and well. We’ve moved beyond the ape-ish shrieks of Trump into the deviant forms of House Freedom Caucus Lancelot Link aggression. But as Frans de Waal says, “Dominant males are always paranoid.” That paranoia was easy to spot back in the 1990s. That’s when I created my first political hit piece. It’s banner featured Orange County Congressman Bob Dornan’s head Photoshopped onto the…
A Reality Shrine for a Wired World
The first time I saw the Carl Diedrich Memorial Van was in 1978. It was parked outside Diedrich’s 10-foot-by-25-foot coffee import shop at the back end of a strip mall near the corner of Irvine Boulevard and 17th Street in Costa Mesa, California. In fact, the VW van is how I found Diedrich’s. It was a landmark. If you spotted it, you had found the best coffee beans in the…
Little Beasts
I am not myself today. It isn’t because I am awash in all variety of ruination — that my 17 year-old dog, Luna, died in my arms last Wednesday or that my 100 year-old senile grandmother — of whom I am the only grandchild — called me Herman (her long deceased brother’s name), and told me to milk the cows (I consented, hundreds of miles from the nearest bovine utter)….
Heat is Murder
Hell is hot for many reasons. Punishment, by itself, is not the only consideration. Dante’s thermostat may be in the red for inspiration…or as a forewarning…or as a symbol of passion to motivate us up here on the upper crust of planet earth. But sitting in the summer heat of an un-airconditioned doctor’s office yesterday, I was convinced that, at the very least, hell is real. My visit to Dr….
The Enlightened Phlebotomist
Every year, my personal physician wants to drain blood out of me for testing. I oblige and the results, so far, have been excellent. On the other hand, my visit to the phlebotomist — the one who draws my blood — makes me ill at ease. Since I’ve never been a diabetic or a junkie, jelly popping needles into my blood vessels isn’t something I’m comfortable with. It’s not that…
The Patron Saint of Obscenity
The other day, my cousin Wayne — who, by his own admission, is a very religious man — told me I’d go to hell because of the language I use. He was half serious and half right. I do use language that could get me in trouble. Let me explain. The podcast broadcast you’re listening to is designated as “explicit” on iTunes. One definition for the word “explicit” is “precisely…
The Treason of Images
I’ve waved it, hung it, and ran it up a pole. I’ve “pledged allegiance” to it — to freedoms that include the right to criticize and to think freely. The American flag is a symbol of my government — a fabric rectangle, red, white, blue, stars and stripes — the representation, but not the foundation, on which we stand. Anyone can fly the flag and anyone can hide behind it.
LSD and the Flaw in the Fabric
In 2017 — the 50th anniversary of the modestly named Summer of Love — Researchers from the Department of Psychiatry, Psychotherapy and Psychosomatics at Zurich University determined that LSD can turn a common event into a game-changing sacred experience. This heightened transformation in meaning takes place due to the stimulation of certain serotonin receptors not only during an acid trip, but after — in-other-words, with LSD, personal change could be…
Common as Crows
I like crows not because of James O’Barr, Brendon Lee, Carlos Castaneda or Irish cock and bull mythology. It’s not because of the crow’s “nevermore” reputation, their association with a trendy dark underworld, either. This spooky crow profile was unfairly earned during the plague, when crows plucked the eyes from the dead. Well, yes, they did. It was good eating — food on the run. Eyes of corpses are hassle-free…
