In New York now it’s easier than ever to find out about things you’d been curious about for years. Intrigued by palimpsests, I’ve always wondered about those old F.M. Ring painted ads about a dozen stories up on several old buildings in the Twenties. I assumed they were many decades old but failed to notice […]
There was a flea market that assembled itself outside the gates of Pratt Institute in Brooklyn some Sundays. The trouble was, it only convened on “some Sundays,” it was unreliable. It didn’t matter much anyways, I and my art student friends were usually broke; and the stuff they offered wasn’t worth much. It was all […]
My friend Susan has been a vegan for decades. She’s invested a lot of time finding the healthiest, tastiest vegan cuisine in New York. When I was in the City, sometimes I’d come along for the sampling of cuisine, sometimes not. Knowing about my burgeoning interest in Buddhist Meditation, she brought me along one day […]
Some of my clearest memories are of waiting on the front porch of my house at 126 S. 43rd West Avenue in Tulsa. It was 1978 and I was 10 years old going on 11. I was a reflective (some might say brooding) kid given to flights of fantasy and whimsy. I sat there, while […]
Twenty years ago tonight I had my last drink ever at my favorite watering hole and hangout, Two Boots Restaurant and Bar in Brooklyn. I was there (as if I ever needed an excuse) to attend the screening, the World Premiere, if you will, of a 90 minute long silent movie comedy called “The Schenectady […]
“Hey dude, yeah you. I see you or someone like you every morning on my way to work. You’re the guy who impatiently blows by me on the road, you know, because I’m only going 10 miles over the posted limit. Do you ever notice that I’m also the guy you see 5 traffic lights […]
I love being tracked. I know people nowadays have concerns about the NSA snooping into their business and whatnot; civil liberties: blah blah blah; but I just look at all that as a sign that somebody somewhere cares. It’s comforting to me. I realize this attitude may come about as a result of negligent parenting, but I try not to […]
To those who care, Hollywood Boulevard conjures up a slew of contrasting images, from seedy to glamorous. The seriously uninitiated believe that Hollywood’s stars promenade up and down the starred sidewalks. Others, equally uninitiated, believe it’s a place too scary to visit, day or night. Well, with 35 years of ongoing experience, I can tell […]
Friday July 20, 1979 my mom took a day off from her job at On the Spot, a cleaning supply company located out in the Valley. It was the 10th anniversary of the Apollo 11 landing and she thought it would be a good opportunity for us to learn something.
Walking through the Pratt campus one hot sticky day in the late spring of 1989, I made the decision to just go for it. My friend Jordan had invited me to stay the whole summer with him in LA. Yeah, California.