A Beirut Souvenir
When I toured Byblos four years ago, there was a tiny shop tended by an distinguished gentleman who’d once bought artifacts from the workers at the dig for pennies and now he had a thriving small business selling them to tourists like me. I bought a small cobalt glass bottle and a palm-sized stone carving […]
Goodbye, Stephen
I’m not sure Stephen and I even liked each other very much when we first met. My great friend Robyn Zeiger, who’s a brilliant therapist and specializes in pet loss, told me that it’s best not to get the same breed, gender, or color as my Bob Slobbers, the smartest most intuitive dog in the world. […]
The Strand in Yangon
I had a 1:20a flight out of Yangon and I’m now nestled in an airport lounge waiting for the flight to Newark. The wound stings, especially when I walk on it, but hey, I guess that means it’s healing! Much of Yangon is lined with 19th Century colonial buildings in disrepair, covered in years of […]
Ludlow
WRITTEN 02/23/2009
The Fob
I went to my first estate sale on Saturday, and I discovered they’re sad; someone’s life with dangling white price tags. In this modest Glendale house lived an elderly woman, a fire-and-brimstone Baptist from what I saw on her bookshelf, who’d been moved recently to assisted care. I bought one of those fussy old Art […]
More Paris, only in LA
Can you have a weekend that was both fun and profound? Emotional yet giddy? Dirty hot while tender? Is it possible to see your hometown through brand new eyes, uncovering that city’s secrets with surprise and awe? Turns out you can. When you’re a lucky man like me, a man who’s been able to extend […]
Aunt Bessie’s Trunk
The only thing I knew about my great-Aunt Bessie before she passed away while I was in class during my first year of school was that she had her left leg amputated from a bad bout of diabetes, and that she had a trunk that my whole family wanted, especially my grandfather’s side since she […]
Happy 44th, Bildoe!
The Miata
There’s a black Miata parked right in front of my house taking up prime parking real estate underneath the bird-shit factory, an enormous fichus tree that must’ve escaped someone’s living room in the Twenties and laid its roots by the curb. The little car has a broken convertible top so its owner secures Saran Wrap […]
Mario on the Corner
I didn’t know Mario, didn’t even know his name. The only thing I knew was that on Memorial Day, I saw a crowd of people standing on the corner of the 7-Eleven where I stop every morning for my Super Big Gulp. Some had their fingers jammed in the air pointing at something or someone, and then […]