I had a vague plan back in 2004 to move to Scotland. It came to me while sitting in a mostly empty Upper West Side sublet on West 86th in New York City. I liked the place and added some tall red curtains to cover the large street-facing windows. I also bought a few dishes […]
Category Archives: Posting
And In Walked Den
Saturday, May 17, 2025
The trouble with eulogizing Denis Munro is that one wants to consult Denis Munro. His prose was lean, his words precise and his recall phenomenal. He enjoyed language in all forms and saved newspaper clippings for humorous reference. Of particular interest were the obituaries in the Perthshire Advertiser and bereaved family members who, much to […]
Spears
Saturday, February 8, 2025
John Spears died a few Saturdays back. He had various handles: “John Costin Vincent Spears,” “JCVS,” or, more often than not, simply “Spears.” I knew him well and yet could probably count on one hand the number of times I called him John. There were other less formal tags, some but not all applied by […]
Grimaldi’s Head
Sunday, December 22, 2024
Time marches forward and waits for no man. Nowhere is this more apparent than the South Ferry subway station in the chilled wee hours of a Sunday morning in December, half crocked on good whiskey following a rare appearance at a holiday party. I’d appear more if I felt less conspicuous; less alone, sweaty and […]
I Had Some Help
Wednesday, September 4, 2024
.. they say teamwork makes it dreamwork – Post Malone Damn straight, Post Toasty. To start with you lifted the opening riff from T.P.’s “Learning to Fly.” If you’re gonna steal, steal well, I always say. We all need a little help, particularly with those white boy hip-hop to country transitions. Everybody seems so angry these […]
Mayday
Sunday, May 5, 2024
Some days are diamonds, some days are rocks – Tom Petty It’s the fifth of May and there’s snow on my deck. A full foot of it by my estimation. I was driving to the 7-11 in a whiteout blizzard last night for a bag of cookies and premade sandwich, thinking “really? …” But weather […]
Diggin’ up Bones
Saturday, December 30, 2023
“I’m back ..” – Ace Frehley It temporarily wipes the slate clean. Makes you forget old regrets like backing down to Bill Shubin in eighth grade or letting Dave Rios call you ‘fuckface’ in front of Michelle Giacchino at high school scheduling. Erases the times you should have pulled the trigger but didn’t, opens that […]
Myers and the Chief
Wednesday, October 18, 2023
I traveled to Tahoe with Scott Miller and Tom Myers last week for our sexennial Sierra event, which sounds a bit gay (not that there’s anything wrong with that) but is the proper way to describe something that takes place every six years. I posted on the last trip back in 2017 and included a […]
Van The Man, Indeed
Sunday, October 1, 2023
“No white man sings like Van Morrison.” So proclaimed the native San Franciscan and music journalist Greil Marcus. Whenever I use this observation in a comment section, I invariably get hit with “watch the racist generalizations” or similar sentiment. To which the reply “blow me” seems to suffice. And this is what I figure Van […]
I-80 East Revisited
Thursday, September 14, 2023
Spending a lot of time on the interstate lately between sea level and Tahoe. I was stuck in a three-hour standstill just outside of Roseville a few Thursdays ago. Ninety degree heat with the engine off watching a lot of men unsuited for shorts getting out of their cars to try and get a look […]