On the day Nanci Griffith died I received calls and texts from friends far and near like a loved one had passed. It truly was extraordinary. “Thank you for turning me on to her all those years ago…” “What??” I thought, thinking this person only listened to grunge. Another one: “I’m remembering the night you…
The Strain, Part 8
“Let’s do a chest x-ray, just to make sure.” The doc knows I’m climbing the walls because I’ve had a tiny cough all summer. During my annual physical in May, he had initially told me to ignore it, but the damned thing never went away, so here I am again in the panic-inducing office. …
The Strain, Part 7
“There’s something going on right now – in your line of work – in your life – it’s in the process of popping. Coming to fruition. What would that be?” Sarah the Ojai astrologer leans in, waiting for the answer. One of the few people who recognize me from my work in tinseltown, she’d seen…
The Strain, Part 6
I wasn’t going to write anything about this Christmas. I didn’t have the energy. It wasn’t anything like, “If I can’t rip off my mask and French 50 other folks over fondue then I’m not doing it.” It was simply the fact that this year has gone by so incredibly fast it didn’t seem like…
The Strain, Part 5
When I was a kid, my next-door-neighbor Stephanie Carter’s mom loved horror movies, the gorier the better. When she heard a man’s legs were hacked off in the middle of the night in some British schlockfest none of us had heard of, we were piled into the car and driven to the Eagle Drive-In tout…
The Strain, Part 4
Thank God I’d had a second cup of coffee so I could see the cars ahead of me, all twenty-five of them, screeching to a halt. I could already make out the man, disheveled, maybe homeless, holding a bottle of beer with one hand and the railing of the overpass above us with the other. …
What About Me??
My first day on my first job in LA began disastrously. The coke-snorting manager of the high—end-ish restaurant where we all dressed like pirates took me into the kitchen to meet the chef. His name was Sal. He was African-American, well over six feet tall. He nodded, carving something big, juicy and pink with a…
The Strain, Part 3
So overwhelming. Everything. Like we need one gigantic miracle after another to give us some sort of light at the end of the lockdown tunnel. A gigantic miracle that never seems to come. “You know how the South Koreans did so well with the corona? Kimchee. They put it up their noses. Worth a try, …
The Strain, Part 2
I woke up knee deep in another day of the apocalypse and decided to make another list. Because I know the vast majority of people are waiting to see what it is I’m going to say/do about a particular thing before they do it. So see attached in no particular order: We’re all currently, in…
The Strain, Part 1
It was over so fast I wasn’t even sure it happened. I was at the window at the bank. There had been no line. I was separated from the teller by a ceiling-high sheet of glass. I noticed an industrial-strength can of Lysol on the counter next to her. In the nanosecond between the time…