I was too busy to recognize it at the time, but I think I can pinpoint the exact moment when I missed my midlife crisis. It was a mundane afternoon in the middle of the week, in the middle of the month, in the middle of my life. I was driving around and saw a…
I went downtown to L.A. Live the other night to try out a cool nightclub called Lucky Strike that promised to be the “most exciting foray into chic entertainment,” but instead became a head-on collision with my past. It was a bowling alley. That’s right, that thing you used to watch on Saturday morning after…
I caught a frightening glimpse of the apocalypse, and it’s worse than you think. Yesterday our power was out all day and we were plunged into a darkness beyond what light can illuminate. I have read many post-apocalyptic novels in my day, but they couldn’t begin to prepare me for a world without power. At…
At first blush, it seemed like my boss had done me a huge favor by letting me off early last week. What a great opportunity. I could catch up on some errands, do some banking in person, maybe finally weed the garden (or garden the weeds), wash the dog, clean the baseboards, make something real…
You know what really crisps my bacon? Hospitals and colleges. I am so tired of getting solicitations from hospitals and colleges asking me to give generously, or how about sending us some extra money because we fixed your flooby valve, or don’t forget us in your will. My will! The cost of attending either one…
Here in Los Angeles, everyone wants a massage all the time. To hear people talk, you’d think that it ranks right after air on the list of basic human needs. The problem is, where to go? It seems like there are only two types of massages available in the Great Southern California Basin. The first…
For the first time in my three hundred seventy five years in Show Business, I worked on a commercial for lawyers. Usually the only lawyers who advertise on TV are the bottom feeders that want to profit from your denied disability claims, ancient asbestos exposure, or your, gulp, vaginal mesh debacle. But this was for…
Here is something that happens every October in Southern California that I’ll bet most of the country never has to experience: a heat wave. Temps are forecasted to be in the 100’s by this weekend. Oh goodie. Everyone else has already broken out the winter wardrobe, and rotated the liquor cabinet to bring those…
Okay, by now you have probably gathered that I am highly impressionable and easily swayed by what I see on TV, which is dangerous since I work as a sound mixer on commercials. I recently worked on the Energy Upgrade California campaign that makes use of a live action animatronic bear to encourage Californians to…
I am convinced there is a higher force watching over us, but not the kindly, altruistic, divine type you’re thinking of. No, this one is much more sinister and devious and, well, greedy. It’s the Financial Devil. This Satan of Simoleons knows exactly what is going on in my house and life, as though he…
Forrest Brakeman 