All of us have, at one time or another, posted someone on a blog that is angry, stupid, insulting, possibly even illegal (threatening, etc.). And then we think better of it and take it down. 

It's gone, right? No longer exists?

Sorry, no. Google sucked it up, and perhaps the best… Read full post »

Here's a fine column from the MSNBC site about the Chinese drywall scandal. Briefly, the construction boom that coincided with the recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the real estate bubble meant that U.S. manufacturers could not meet the demand for drywall, a crucial component of building constructi… Read full post »

His voice is just a whisper, but amplified by the microphone, it rolls out over the audience, low and mellifluous. What isn't soaked up, by the sellout crowd and the velvet stage curtains, resounds warmly in the auditorium.

They've been waiting for him. Standing in the wings during the early… Read full post »

In my recent post about my struggle to find a literary agent, an interesting discussion arose in the comment thread that I would like to answer in a whole post. Thanks to y'all for raising the issues.

Among other things, @tomreedtoon said:

I mean to say that in a short… Read full post »

From 1998 to 2003 I worked on what would become my first finished novel. This book, set in 1960 (I was there before "Mad Men"!), was about a fictionalized Joey Bishop, his relationship to the other members of the Rat Pack, and the 20-year-old would-be dharma bum he hired to drive… Read full post »

I've known some beautiful women, women who are very striking, women who turn heads. I don't claim to have dated many of these avatars, but I've become friends with a few, and there's a question I've always wanted to ask them, but which, because I don't want to be annoying or… Read full post »

On Sunday Sirenita and I went to some Open Studios. In San Francisco there are so many artists participating in the Open Studios event that they divide the city into several weekends. This weekend it was the central-east part of the city -- Potrero Hill, the Mission, Bernal Heights, Noe Valley.… Read full post »

On Twitter, you have x number of followers, and you follow y others.  But on OS it's not easy to see how many people have "favorited" you.

1. Make sure you have posted
… Read full post »

Not long after I started using Twitter, I started to wonder: Why?

Imagine the familiar movie scenario where a detective is desperate to track and find a suspect, or where a detective is hired by a suspicious spouse to trail their errant husband or wife. Or… Read full post »

The Associated Press reported today that 2.5 million Beatles albums were sold in the five day period beginning with the September 9th re-issue of the group's catalog in digitally remastered versions.

I'm not sure what to think about that. On the one hand, I adore the Beatles, as… Read full post »

When I was asked to write a book of sex stories in which the narrators were all straight men, I faced a challenge: What was interesting about straight men?

For years I'd written erotica in which the whole point was to blur the boundaries of traditional sexual identities, to take… Read full post »

On Sunday the New York Times ran a profile of a 58-year-old man who was laid off 18 months ago from a $225,000 job in the loan industry. Expecting "a glut of interviews," he bought two new suits with his severance pay but has never used them, because he hasn't had… Read full post »

One year ago today, Pablo Sandoval of Venezuela made his big-league debut with the Giants. Today, he is quickly becoming the team center.

Fans are wearing panda masks (some frightening, some just plain stupid) around the ballpark, getting jerseys made with "PANDOVAL" on the back, and… Read full post »

1. Who was your first baseman?

Jack Alexander. He was a naturally gifted athletic fourth grader but not very good in school. I disliked him because he could play sports effortlessly; he probably disliked me because I could read effortlessly.

2. Speaking of sports, what was your first-place finish?… Read full post »

Budd Schulberg, a son of Hollywood whose iconoclasm led to his being ostracized by the industry not once but twice, died Wednesday at 95.

Schulberg is best known for two works: the screenplay for "On the Waterfront," with its immortal line "I coulda been a contender," and the novel "What Makes… Read full post »

When I was a high school teacher in the mid-80s, each of the teachers was allowed to make x number of copies per semester. I had 5 classes of about 28 kids each. Want to know how many copies I was allowed to make for the whole semester? 150. That's right.… Read full post »

Americans hold 10.8 jobs between age 18 and 42 -- Bureau of Labor Statistics (and courtesy @kmsalon).

I'm not surprised by that at all. Between 18 and 42 I was a cafeteria worker, school bus driver, dishwasher in a bar, sandwich cook, movie reviewer, messenger dispatcher, delivery tru… Read full post »

Courtesy The Rumpus: the NYT on "What is a Master's Degree Worth." I never went to grad school myself; not really. Seven years after getting my bachelor's from the Univ. of Texas in Film Criticism, I did go for a year to San Francisco State to get my California teaching credential… Read full post »

The former actress Tippi Hedren now runs an animal sanctuary for exotic beasts -- retired circus lions and such -- and took the tigers from Michael Jackson's small zoo when it was closed down in 2005. She let a reporter know that she took the trouble to inform the tigers of their… Read full post »

South Carolina Governor Mark Sanford, whose recent unexplained absence from his state for four days was first explained that he was hiking the Appalachian Trail and then that he was "writing something," admitted today that he had actually spent the weekend in Argentina, fucking his girlfriend.

The w… Read full post »

I went tonight to a terrific film, "It Came From Kuchar," a documentary about the careers of underground filmmakers George and Mike Kuchar, twin brothers who began as adolescent 8mm auteurs and became stars of the New York underground film scene of the early 1960s. George later relocated to San Franc… Read full post »

Hello to those who found me through Sirenita Lake's post about relationships including our marriage. Look, here we are getting married at San Francisco City Hall in 2003:

Yes, we've been married for only five and a half years. We were official San Francisco domestic partners… Read full post »

It is not possible to get from a spot out on Ocean Avenue near 19th in San Francisco all the way back to the Mission District in five minutes. Google Maps says it takes sixteen. Most days it would take twenty or more.

But, as I… Read full post »