There are so many ways to keep in touch these days. It’s a wonder people aren’t closer. It used to be in the old days you didn’t see someone for days or weeks, you had to call them, or wait…
Whiskey Charlie Lockdown
Category: Stories
Stories. My stories. (Not all them of them are fiction.)
Breakfast Apocalypse
It is always the end of the world these days. Everyone is apoplectic. No one is apologetic. It used to be that the end of the world would come and go like the tide but it’s everywhere these days like…
Finish the Story
It was Tuesday and I was walking along Hollywood Boulevard when this woman approached me. Her skin was pale and her face so caked with cosmetics she could be the walking dead and no one would notice. She was wearing…
One Interesting Morning
It was the day after somebody shot Cindy Ryder’s dog with a crossbow and most of the people in town had heard about it. The dog wasn’t a particularly well-loved animal, but the shooting of any pet tends to heighten…
Two Bits
There were two bits of advice Bob Ranger gave his brother Kevin before the latter shipped off to college in California. “Never borrow more than you can repay,” Bob advised. “and stay away from women with dogs.” The first piece…
One Iron
Jimmy Killingsworth always told me I keep too many irons in the fire. He was the first person to give me a copy of Gravity’s Rainbow, the man who turned me on to Pynchon, so I was inclined to take…
Who Wants a Twenty-Pound Turkey?
On my first official day of work with the Agency, I went to the main office on Wilshire Boulevard and was told to report immediately to a separate location in West Hollywood. The Agency was expanding and setting up a…
Confessions of an Agency Goon
When I first came to Hollywood, a cauldron of unholy loves sang all around my ears. Which is to say, I was a production assistant at a talent agency that specialized in representing fashion models. This may sound like the…
Face-off at the Fairfax Farmers Market
Tuesday is always a good day to visit the Fairfax Farmer’s Market. There’s rarely a crowd, only in summer when long tour buses line up along 3rd and hordes of Japanese and Germans crowd the market. Since the grass knoll…
Napoleon’s Brandy
Napoleon was an angry little man. This is common knowledge. It is written: Napoleon was short and insecure. Psychology even names a type of inferiority complex after the little general. But like so many things in this darkling world, there…
Wednesday Morning 3 A.M.
When the phone rings and wakes you in the dark of the night, sometimes it takes a moment to get your bearings. It was about half-past two in the morning when my telephone rang and woke me in my Chelsea…
Manhattan Rain
What the hell am I doing in New York? Every time I come to this city it’s raining. Seattle has the reputation for precipitation but it’s New York that really gets the rain. Gazing out the taxi window I can…