I used to live in the mountains. I didn’t live there for very long, but I did live there for awhile. Back around 1961 or 1962, when I was just a wee lad, my parents bought a mountain cabin up in the little mountain town of Wrightwood, California. They had planned to retire there. I actually have memories of going up there with them when they were looking for property. They ended up buying a tine two-bedroom cabin just across the street from where the town began. The town was only two streets. On the first street was a small mom and pop grocery store. The entire store, butcher shop included,...

There was a time, as many of you know, after my first wife asked me to leave the house, that I found myself living in a small trailer. At the time, I was disabled due to a back injury, so I wasn’t able to get out much. This was a period of profound depression for me. For a while, my closest friends would stop by to visit me. But you know, it’s kind of a drag to hang around a depressed person, and after a while, the only friend who came by to visit with any kind of regularity was Paul, who passed away a few years ago. I think God must make it a drag to hang around depressed people on...

Not terribly far from me here in Redondo Beach, in the city of Garden Grove, is the Crystal Cathedral. It was built by a man named Robert Schuller. Perhaps you’ve seen him on television. I suspect you probably surfed the channels right past him. I know I always do. The Crystal Cathedral is a huge structure made of glass. It stands as a monument to prosperity theology. It was built by the donations of thousands upon thousands of the faithful who sent in whatever they could afford, and even what they could not afford, in the hopes that if they did, God would reward them for their faith with...

Okay, Friday is the birthday of Abraham Lincoln. It used to be a school holiday, but then some bastards went and combined Lincoln’s Birthday with Washington’s Birthday, called it President’s Day, and now we only get one day off instead of two. This ought to be reason enough to be angry. But what really gets to me when I stop to think about things and dwell upon them, and then ruminate some more, is the god-like status we give to someone like Abraham Lincoln. Being an American and loving your country is a lot like being at Disneyland. You really want to believe in the fantasy,...

I really like Bonnie Raitt. I have had the good fortune to see her perform in concert four times and each time, she was brilliant. I believe her to be, probably, one of the best blues guitarists alive today. There are few people who can match her skill with a slide. And, of course, she is a huge star. She’s not as big, perhaps, as she once was, (but then, who is?). But for awhile in the 90s, she was huge, with hit after hit. And the way she appeared out of nowhere made her appear an over night success. But she was an overnight success that was twenty years in the making. She began performing...