Short Pieces – GTC
Taco Delight
At party after son’s baptism host offers me taco I bite and chew thinking this is worst ever had but maybe I’m mistaken. Since tacos are always good I try another bite and gag and almost vomit before parting tortilla to see not ground beef but something like guts oozing nightmarish white. What’s this stuff,…
Read MoreThe Right Room
First time in Puerto Vallarta I was hungover standing at basin, looking into fright, when woman popped from stall behind and said sir are you aware this is women’s bathroom. Years later long sober I stood in Bakersfield theater as two women entered and one said what’s guy doing here. Leaving quickly I forgot to…
Read MoreGold Rush
Poor guy farming hardpan back East hesitated and missed first California opportunity but rode fast and walked hard in eighteen fifty-five for Kern River Rush yielding most miners three, four, even five ounces of gold daily and up to fifty bucks per. Guy didn’t have many good days and following year wadded smart aleck newspaper…
Read MoreGun Lover
Firepower’s important and guaranteed by Second Amendment because Founding Fathers wanted us free and would be proud how well we protect personal liberty. So don’t blame gun lovers for slaughter of twenty children at school in Newtown. That wasn’t our fault. We’re law-abiding parents who want kids safe. Trust me, laws restricting guns are already…
Read MoreCable Wars
Ben loves war documentaries especially those with Alexander riding Bucephalus into hostile flanks, and Washington rousing frozen untrained troops, and photogenic Grant and Lee posing before ordering slaughter of several hundred thousand young men, and grainy Great War footage showing death in fetid trenches, and better films of proud performers Hitler, Stalin, Mussolini, Roosevelt, and…
Read MoreSupermarket Bulletins
In supermarket checkout headlines and color photos pronounce this star’s fatter than you, that one’s more wrinkled, both had botched plastic surgery, another’s anorexic, he’s drunk, they’re addicted, she’s in treatment, he’s in jail, she’s spendthrift, he’s abusive, she’s vain, he’s unfaithful, she’s gay, wonder what rag publishers are like.
Read MoreBlack Friday Binge
I love Black Friday, MY favorite event of year. After stuffing myself Thanksgiving Day I’m ready to stand in A crowd of cold shoppers. We feel like Christmas is about here, panting, pushing, and groaning, and finally cheer when through glass we see them coming to open THE store. I’m A pretty big guy, almost…
Read MoreBlogger
I’m chief of Iranian Cyber-police but you don’t need name. You also don’t need names of three policemen I arrested and will detain while death of blogger Sattar Beheshti is investigated. You must, however, understand we won’t permit Iranian Revolution to be subverted by U.S.-fomented computer agitators. I guarantee Sattar Beheshti deserved to be imprisoned…
Read MoreJohn Wilkes Booth Today
We mustn’t permit deed of John Wilkes Booth to stand and therefore shall remove from time and place and raise today in theatrical family thriving in Manhattan and nod when Hollywood beckons splendid Booth who becomes movie star in early twenties making millions while he drinks and snorts and occasionally crashes cars but fires only…
Read MoreInterned American
I’m doing pretty well for old man. Twenty years ago I retired from gardening at seventy-five. I was in twenties when Pearl Harbor hit and things got bad in California for people like me. I was born here, you know. That didn’t matter. They sent wife, three kids, and me to internment camp up north…
Read MoreBerlin Jewish Cultural League
What wonderful idea is Berlin Jewish Cultural League that comfortably immerses in arts we hundred seventy-five thousand Jewish Berliners who shall relax until Nazism disappears which will surely be soon. In meantime we have music and other outlets here and around Germany. It’s unfortunate but tolerable only Jews perform in orchestra and only Jews attend…
Read MorePanama City Squeeze
At the international airport in Panama City scores of designer stores form glittering hallways to tiny bathrooms where long lines point to few urinals and but two stalls each hosting a toilet sans seat. I tried several such places before asking an employee, “Don’t you have any larger bathrooms and with seats?” The man was…
Read MoreBag in Stall
In a crowded holiday airport he long waited for a stall and was thanking god when, fast as he blinked, a hand reached under the door and yanked his bag.
Read MoreMiddle of River
Don’t go in the American River, kids in our neighborhood were often told. There are branches, rocks, and an undertow you can’t see. Here, read today’s newspaper; another boy’s drowned. We still couldn’t stay out and swam whenever we wanted, never meeting danger until mature enough to drink Friday night. The cops yelled, hey you…
Read MoreThe Tumble
An old woman carefully descended steps of a museum amphitheater, stopped at the second row from the front, and said, “Excuse me.” I immediately rose, and she planted about half her foot on the step, a semi-high heel hanging over, spun ninety degrees and fell, her hips landing on the first step and then her…
Read MoreSecurity Dreams
Night before first day as security guard John seldom stopped twisting and wife retreated to sofa. After work he happily returned home and reported job wasn’t stressful as anticipated. Few weeks later he began to occasionally snooze at post. Following month someone used cell phone to immortalize peaceful John on Facebook. In morning boss fired.…
Read MoreSavings
Pushing hand between armrest and cushion of ragged sofa, I searched for unknown artifacts and pulled out faded savings pass book revealing thirty years ago had opened account with hundred dollars, inauspicious total for man in twenties. Two weeks later I needed ninety dollars. That happens when make few hundred monthly. I still rebuilt balance…
Read MoreExecutive Confusion
New executives understand little about business yet often rudely give nonsensical orders to experienced professionals. Pros are quite upset but executives proclaim way of future. They never actually learned any way but no matter since all have special degree authorizing to transform ignorance into arrogance. Expect more problems until system changes. It will change when…
Read MoreKit Foxes in the Road
Four years little kit foxes, bearing the sharp angular look of underfed and downtrodden foxes, instantly scattered from the road as I reentered my neighborhood, interrupting asphalt gatherings that had followed their nocturnal dashes from dens to seek duck eggs, lizards, and insects. A few months ago the kit foxes began departing leisurely and, instead…
Read MoreBakersfield at the Movies
Legions of teenagers and adults march into theater carrying troughs of buttered popcorn and sodas large enough for elephants, and guffaw during previews of teddy bear wrestling man, creamed pants jokes, president slicing face open to reveal he’s bullet-dodging, axe-wielding “Abraham Lincoln Vampire Hunter.” Amid chomping and slurping, I wonder how many here have watched…
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