“I’m so alone,” the Poet cried,

his heart awash in tears.

“The world’s a cold and empty place;

a hell of dream-fed fears!”

“Oh, why can’t someone love me?

I’ve got so much to share!

Won’t someone… Read full post »

My mind has a tendency to go blank at the most inappropriate times. (And an "appropriate" time would be...?) Usually it happens when I most desperately need it not to go blank…like when introducing two people, each of whom I have known for years, and suddenly can't remember one, or ofte… Read full post »

I admire people who have patience. I also admire people who have $28,000,000 in the bank. Unfortunately, I have neither.

Patience—or, more accurately, the total lack thereof—is one of the most consistently recurring themes in my life. I can readily acknowledge the value of patience… Read full post »

Not all jobs are jobs from hell. Some are very nice jobs, as was my employment with the porn mill. And some jobs are, well, a couple steps above hell. I've had a couple of those too, the most memorable being the one I had immediately after leaving my glory days… Read full post »

We pick up our fascinating tale of my personal Jobs from Hell where we left off in the last blog, describing my fun-filled days working for an L.A. public relations firm shilling a land development project laughingly called Golden Hills in beautiful Tehachapi, California, and our project of th… Read full post »

Reminiscing about my days in the porn industry in my most recent blog posts reminded me of a few of my less pleasant working experiences...so “less pleasant,” in fact, that I consider them my Jobs from Hell.

The first and most memorable of these was my first job in Los Angeles,… Read full post »

Thoughts, like soldiers battle-clad,

clash within my mind.

And in the chaos swirling there

no logic can I find.

A single thought,

its saber drawn,

rushes past me,

then is gone.

I stand upon the battleground

and view the muddied scent;

the thoughts adorned in tattered rags… Read full post »

I explained in my last blog how I came to work for the largest “porn mill” on the west coast in the 1970s during the height of the “sexual revolution.” I use it as an example of how we seldom fully appreciate the uniqueness of our experiences while we're living them.… Read full post »

I’m not out to offend the pure of heart. Really, I’m not. But it is the not-ordinary that tends to make life most interesting, and I’ve had quite a few not-ordinaries in mine. Here’s a look at one of them.

When my mom died shortly after moving to California to… Read full post »

 I’m Not Going Anywhere

I’m not going anywhere:

I plan to live forever.

(And just how often’s that been done?

Well, okay, maybe never.)

Life is after all a gift

and one must not tempt fate

by examining it too closely

for an expir… Read full post »

Rules of the Game

I’ve played at romance for a long time,

and one basic rule stays the same:

the sooner someone says “I love you!”

the sooner they forget your name.

     --Dorien Grey 

  Read full post »

I found myself drawn, as I am from time to time, to revisit the letters I wrote my parents while I was in the Navy so very long ago (1954-1956). I guess I like to check to see what the oh, so very young me was doing on a… Read full post »

The Road to Success

So sayeth Wikipedia, and who am I to question so august an authority as Wikipedia? The fact is that I find myself sub… Read full post »

I knew a man who,

as a teenager, only liked teenagers.

But as he grew older,

he still only liked teenagers.

When he was about thirty,

he took a lover who was eighteen.

They were very happy…

until the teenager turned twenty.

I knew a man who,

though… Read full post »