Processed food is bad for you. White sugar and bleached flour are unhealthy substances. You shouldn’t eat them. I understand that these ideas are true. My diet is mostly organic and vegetarian, but sometimes $1.25 for some nice vanilla cookies seems like a good idea, too. If I choose to find a dollar bill flat […]
Secret police don’t have a good reputation in America. The Nazis, Soviets and East Germans gave them a bad name. Since America is The Only Exceptional Nation, we don’t have secret police. We have “undercover officers.” Our secret police pretend to be students, entrap classmates and help create a climate of suspicion and fear on campus. […]
Here is a brand new Surface 2, the result of diligent shopping and careful research. Microsoft might have taken a billion dollar write-down on the first-edition Surface, but maybe this time around they will do a little better. So far I think this is a beautiful new product. Too bad they make it so hard […]
Here is a picture of the Hollywood High School Still Photography Club. This shot was taken on February 20, 1976. Here I am, front and center, the consequence of a discrete transaction with the photographer. Although I can identify most of the other people in this picture, I’ll leave it to everybody to tag themselves […]
How many of you have ever watched super-8 movies? These items are to video as cylinder recordings are to audio. During the 1970’s I spent many hours shooting, editing and watching creations made with this art form. Here is a large pile of ephemera – 80 little reels of 40-year-old movies, half a dozen larger […]
Other beach communities are worried about litter and parking problems. Share on Facebook
July 24, 1978 was a hot day in Anaheim, California. I was there with 50 or 60 thousand friends to see The Rolling Stones, with Peter Tosh opening the show. A few months shy of my 20th birthday, I was one of the younger audience members. The scene was as decadent as any I had […]
Audio is my favorite media form. Sound artists always have captured my attention and my imagination more fully than the visual arts. Years ago I wrote an inspirational tech piece about installing a new hard drive in an old Fujitsu laptop. Finally the time came to retire that ancient device – but the ‘new’ hard […]
Many of us have fond feelings about cars we had when we were kids. Here’s a 1980 picture taken in Forest Grove, Oregon, featuring me and my 1968 Mustang. I drove this car for many years, from college through law school and into the early years of my professional life. Although everybody agreed it was […]
Highway 20 is a magnificent place to drive. You take the 101 into glamorous Willits, Gateway to Redwood Country, and turn left towards Fort Bragg. A series of remarkable events found me on this wonderful road on April 20, headed to Garberville in southern Humboldt County. The graffiti is from a rest area bathroom off […]
I got this poster in England while I was studying law at Magdalen College back in 1982. It has stood the test of time better than the ideology Maggie and her American soul-mate offered the world. “Maggie Thatcher, Milk Snatcher.” Share on Facebook
Newspapers have been an important part of my life for as long as I can remember. The Los Angeles Times always was scattered around my parents’ house, and I got my first newspaper subscription (to the Portland Oregonian) when I went to college at age 17. These days, the number of Americans who read print […]
Sometimes it is nice to follow one’s own decline – after all, it can be a fun trip! It’s a relief to know that the simpler things in life really are quite fulfilling, and as the years go by I find that this is increasingly true. With regard to chocolate, I am blessed in many […]
Is there visual evidence of a woman speaking on a cell phone back in 1928? This is a question that has caused some controversy in recent months, and it’s about time somebody looked into it, with sober determination to get at the truth. I’m pleased to report that my investigation advances the effort to resolve […]
Are you a good screw or a bad screw? This is a question everybody ought to ask out loud before each step of any serious laptop repair or upgrade work. The image to your left is an example of the former. This is a fine screw indeed, for one simple reason: it goes out as […]