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“Hey, dipshit, if you want to lose your house and lose your family, to see your kids a third of the time if you’re lucky, to watch them spin out of control as they learn to pit the two of you against each other, to lose half or more of your income, and to have the happy choice of trolling bars for disease-ridden skanks or spanking the monkey to internet porn for decades on end — all you have to do is nothing. You are right at the threshold of that fate, and it won’t take much of a breeze to push you over the edge.”
 Aristocrats-hat / Beach Photos / CC BY-NC-ND

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story

“Did you ever think about how you go about telling a lie?” I said that. I’m pretty sure no one else in the entire world says things like that.

I was talking to the Skatepunk, who is pretty phlegmatic for his age, but that’s the kind of question to bring out the squirminess in anyone.

“What? Am I telling you something you don’t know? Everyone lies, and the best we can hope for is to put some distance between us and our last big whopper. But it’s there, Continue reading →

“Every one of those guys knows that this could be his last Father’s Day at home, his last chance to see his kids before they get sideswiped for life by the family court system, his last chance to make believe that he and his wife are building something lasting, that he’s not just swimming against a relentless current that will carry him, eventually, inexorably, over the falls.”
 dontshoot.me! / Foter.com / CC BY-NC-ND

A Ramblin’ Gamblin’ Willie story

“Your uncle’s kinda creepy.” Megwyn’s friend Calliope said that. I used to think Megwyn was the dumbest name I’d ever heard of for a girl, but Calliope — once Homer’s muse, now just a noisy sideshow nuisance — owns that trophy now.

“Not creepy, eccentric. He taught me that word. Anyway, he’s not my uncle. People just call him ‘Uncle Willie.’” That was Megwyn herself speaking.

“If he’s not your uncle then why are we here?” She said it ‘hee-yerr,’ a quick elision with a backspin of contempt mixed with ennui.

“Would you rather be back with Cheryl and Jeff?”

“Good point.”

I wasn’t eavesdropping, just inescapably overhearing. Young people seem to think that, if you’re involved in one conversation, you can’t hear another. We were at The Handlebar, a very Continue reading →

The sun-dappled dogs of Duffeeland…

“Your dog’s dying.”

What do you say to that? When you have a wound that won’t heal, there is nothing quite like having someone tear it wide open — expecting you to regard that as a courtesy. How about this? “No shit, Sherlock. A dying dog is obvious to any dog person, and I only get to watch her fading away all day, every day.”

I didn’t say that. Instead I said: “Yeah.”

Naso and I were at Duffeeland Dog Park in Sun City, basking in a late afternoon paradise you know nothing about: A three-digit temperature, a two-digit breeze straight out of the West and one-digit humidity. You sweat and sweat and never know it, and the sweat drying on your skin in the shade of the olive trees keeps you cool and serene, and the light from the setting sun gives everything a golden glow.

If I could pick one spot on the planet for Naso to die, it would be Duffeeland, the ultimate perfect Disneyland for dogs. She loves it there, and so we go there every day, sometimes twice a day. She has other favorite dog parks — and regular-people Continue reading →