“Let’s all chip in and make Dando Shaft a millionaire.” I was 16 when Don Calhoun’s novel “Dando Shaft” was published, although I don’t think I heard of it until a few years later. It was a halfway unique premise — a mediocre advertising executive setting up a campaign to make himself a wealthy man. …
There are few things that make me more homesick for the 20-plus years I spent in Los Angeles than watching “Bosch” on Amazon Prime. It’s really only one thing. It’s the view from the balcony of Bosch’s home in the Hollywood Hills, usually at night. Look out to the south and west and the city …
I have been a writer for most of my life. When I was 6 or 7 I started writing short stories for my own amusement, and when I was 11 or 12 — I can’t remember which — I actually had a column with my picture in our local community weekly. It was about junior …
I’m old enough to remember when Republicans considered themselves the party of classy people. The GOP was the party of the people who owned and ran businesses, the party of people who belonged to the country club and played golf. Democrats, of course, were the hoi polloi, the folks who carried lunch buckets to work …
I’ve made a. big deal about the fact that I never watch the Super Bowl. It’s the perfect example of American Bloat, a game that seemingly goes on forever. With 30-second ads selling for $7 million, the commercials have become an incredibly big deal. A great deal of time and effort goes into rating the …
I have a feeling recent developments in the news aren’t going to make Donald Trump happy. If there’s one thing people with massive egos don’t appreciate, it’s people laughing at them when they aren’t trying to be funny. Trump’s toilet habits — particularly using commodes to flush documents — have become big news lately, and …
If there’s one thing that’s truly annoying, it’s seeing lists of the best something-or-other of all time and seeing that nearly everyhthing on the list has happened in the last five or 10 years. I never knew that “Breaking Bad” and “Game of Thrones” were the two greatest dramas in 70 years of television or …
MAYBE NOT THE BEST, BUT MY 13 FAVORITE SHOWS EVER Read More »
In 1995, with the baseball season starting late in a year after there was no World Series, I made a vow. I had been a baseball fan since I was 7 in the late 1950s, but I was so angry at the angst every few years as owners and players battled over more money than …
Is there anything we could learn about Donald Trump anymore that could shock the people who have chosen him as their hero? Apparently destroying documents illegally by tearing them up like a child having a tantrum isn’t anything his base cares about. If they did care, if it was something that upset them, Trump would …
For about 20 years — from the mid 1960s to the mid 1980s — Pete Rose was my favorite baseball player. He was never the most talented guy in the game, but he had the most amazing drive and desire to succeed. No one would ever compare him to Willie Mays or Mickey Mantle, but …
