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The Cutters Lounge -

A REALITY TOO FAR

        We were all invited to The Katman’s Cutters Lounge cigar bar to share in his review of a new cigar.  The Katman’s daughter serves the ceremonial Clynelish 20-year old Sco/… Read full post »

SPESHUL OLYMPICS

        Josef strode behind Roz and spread his arms saying, “I’m sorry, I’m sorry.  You know I love you, but Life is not the Special Olympics, Roz.  Not everyone is a winner. … Read full post »

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I HAVE NEVER BEEN

        Remember that old movie It’s a Wonderful Life?  I was like that silly second-class angel Clarence who begged for a chance to earn his wings.  But you never prayed for me, Polonia. … Read full post »

HUNTING FOR YOUR SKIN

"Death is nothing at all ... Nothing is past, nothing is lost

One brief moment and all will be as it was before

How we shall laugh at the trouble of parting when we meet again."… Read full post »

You are HERE

          My father is descending mentally into the shadowy valley of Alzheimer’s.  And for weeks now he had wanted to see his beloved five-year-old grandson.  His grandson lives 400 miles north/… Read full post »

ORCHARD OF THE GOLDEN APPLES

        She never let him cut her.  Docteur Beau Tétravaux, who is the creator deity of The California Beauty Factory, may have been chosen to co-host the annual Golden Apples Pageant for The Mo… Read full post »

CEVICHE

        I am the manager of a small ranch above Lake Matthews.  I pick up day labor at the Eremos Hill Feed and Supply.  Zolin is the boy from Peru.  Zolin is always one that I beckon to my truck.

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CROSS COUNTRY

        Another private plane had spotted the wreckage of Luke’s Cessna high on the steep and snowy Great Medicine Ridge.  It had been three months since he crashed during New Year’s Eve.

  &nb… Read full post »

DADDY’S DOLL HOUSE

        I am Melissa.  I am this many years old.  Today is Daddy’s Day.  I made my Daddy this doll house just for him.  My Daddy is sad.  My Mommy is at the hopstable.  Dadd/… Read full post »

DINNER WITH MY MENTALLY ILL BROTHER

“This place is heaven!”

“Yeah, China Diamond Palace Buffet has everything.  Remember: I’m paying.”

“Oh, you won’t forget.”

“I see you got y… Read full post »

FLASH DRIVE

          Bob from Sales booms, “AL-VIN!  Haw, y’all!  Good morning!”

          Arvin Haimisch flinches and withers imperceptibly a… Read full post »

 TWILIGHT IN PARIS

          By the April of this year Anno Domini 937 it has already been a long season of drought unpromising to the village of Paris.  The Seine River has disavowed the Island of the Villa… Read full post »

 WALK THE YARD

          Hesutu was a man of the Native American Indian Miwok tribe.  Hesutu was known as “Mike” by those who had not lived in these lands 50,000 years.  Hesutu had killed a rival i… Read full post »

THE BEAST OF TIN CAN BEACH

          Back then in 1956 we all called it Tin Can Beach.  It was a wilderness stretch of sand on the ocean side of the two-lane Pacific Coast Highway, California’s High… Read full post »

LAMBA RISING

          “Listen carefully,” he said, “this won’t be easy for you to hear.”

          Young Lamba raised her eye… Read full post »

 COLD, HUNGRY, NAKED, WET

          Your period was late.

          You said, “Better late than never”?  Well, here I am now in Never-Never-Land!

 &… Read full post »

DUST AND DREAMS

I am a weak, ephemeral creature made of mud and dream

Nikos Kazantzakis from The Saviors of God (1927)

I hope for nothing. I fear nothing. I am free.

The epitaph of Nikos Kazantzakis (18… Read full post »

ANGEL FALLS

Now it came to pass, when men began to multiply on the face of the earth, and daughters were born to them, that the [Angels] of God saw the daughters of men, that they were beautiful; and they took… Read full post »

UNDERGROWTH WITH TWO FIGURES

          Man, this museum is huge.  It’s like a palace.  Ah, there’s the gallery:  Van Gogh Up Close.  Oh my God.  There you are.  Is that you?&nb… Read full post »

THE RAGGED CLAWS OF MICHELA PIATTA

          My parents would take me and my sister vacationing to Spencer Cove in Maine and we would stay in a little blue rental house near the beach.  It was 1958.  Elvis… Read full post »

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