High Flying Adored Today, meaning this day when this story is being published, is a momentous day in America and I have been searching for a way to memorialize it in my writing in as meaningful a way as I can. It’s Wednesday, January 20th, Inauguration Day. I’m tempted to say that since today (the real today, January 18th) is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, that in two days we will be free at last,…
The Great Divide Every day that goes by, more and more information comes out to clarify the nature of the events that really took place in the Capitol last week, and it isn’t getting any better. In fact, there is a feeling that we are getting the slow-play version of the real story and this onion peeling exercise might well end up giving us a look at a very rotten onion. Now that Impeachment Resolution…
Special Edition – The Battle for Democracy The Last Castle If you haven’t seen Robert Redford’s movie The Last Castle, you should watch this entertaining film. It’s the story of a top Army General (Redford) who pleads guilty of contravening a presidential order and going into an African war zone in order to rescue some of his otherwise abandoned men. He is set up as a man who acted on conscience, a primary sense that…
The End Game I’m sitting here tonight not watching a movie as is my habit. Instead, I am still watching MSNBC as we head towards 8pm. The election night music is becoming very familiar to me and watching Steve Kornacki tally and project votes seems like a normal thing for us. I can’t say I like watching county-by-county voting results for Georgia or any other state for that matter. That seems like a level of…
Snow Where to Go Today I got spanked by a loyal member of my motorcycle club. This is a group I founded twenty-five years ago. In fact, this past year I authored a 440-page tome titled The Ride is All about the twenty-five years of riding together all over the world. There is an entire chapter up front about all the characters that make up the club. I’m not sure we are any more or…
Double Barrel Every day when I sit down to write I am always want to write about something other than the Coronavirus and the nonsense in Washington. I opt to write about how I feel, how I occupy my time, what Betty is up to, and bigger things underway in the universe. But today, ostensibly the first working day of 2021, I am dragged back to reality, so let’s see what is on the plate.…
Me and Bobby McGee Janis Joplin took the song Me and Bobby McGee to number one on the Billboard charts in 1971 with her posthumous album named Pearl. It was the second such posthumous success after Otis Redding put out The Dock of the Bay, days before his death in 1967. Of course, Janis died of a heroin overdose and Otis died in a plane crash going to a gig, but they both have their…
The Night the Lights Went Out No, this is not another Santa Ana wind emergency or a story about SDG&E and my struggles with Tesla Power Walls and the solar/battery system installed by Baker Electric. That has “resolved” itself by virtue of a simple call from Baker to me on a calm morning when I did not feel like getting crosswise with another vendor. They have done nothing to physically alter my system or its…
The Night Before COVID Christmas I thought about writing a Christmas poem this year as a traditional retake of the Clement Clarke Moore classic and then Apple News and The Atlantic intervened. At this point in the news cycle, I am starting my day by reading many news summaries. I read them in the sequence in which they come in since I am somewhat dogmatic about reading my emails in chronological order. There is probably…
The Cleaning Crews I have three crews of Hispanic (mostly Mexican in heritage, I believe) workers that do things around this household. I suspect I am like almost everybody here is Southern California to some degree or another and perhaps like lots of people all across the United States. Such is the nature of the Hispanic diaspora, it reaches to every corner as people just try to find a place to live a peaceful life…