It is very difficult to explain to anybody born after 1955 or so exactly what was so special about the Beatles. I know that a lot of younger people have listened to Beatles music and appreciate how good it is. I’ve heard young people say how Beatles music makes them feel good inside. Some young performers have even been strongly influenced by the music of the Beatles. And of course, it’s a little hard to explain exactly why everybody went nuts every time they performed. I’m sure you’ve all heard that the screams were so loud that the Beatles themselves could not hear what...

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...

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...

I always find it amusing in a sad sort of way, that so many women I have known have met some man, someone they consider to be mister right, someone whom they love, someone whom they plan to marry, and as soon as they do marry him, the spend the next several years working on changing him. And then, once they change him, they complain that he’s not the man they married. You don’t really know anybody until after a few years, do you? My kung fu teacher, my sifu, says that you don’t really know anybody until you’ve known them ten years, and while that seems like an awfully long...

I would never go skydiving. There are many reasons for this, not the least of which is the somewhat unnatural act of casting oneself from a perfectly safe aircraft for no good reason. However, one of the main reasons why I would never jump out of an airplane is that, from what I understand, you must pack your own parachute. Now I am well aware that how a parachute is packed may well mean the difference between life and death. I am also well aware of how well I make a bed. If I were to pack a parachute with the same deft skill as that which I use to make a bed, then I am doomed for certain. Of course,...

Unlike many men, I like going to weddings. For one thing, it’s fun to see just how ugly a bridesmaid dress can get, it’s fun to see how the ring bearer and flower girl screw things up. I also enjoy watching the wedding because it reminds me of my own. I know a lot of people don’t see any point to weddings and marriage itself has taken quite a hit in the past forty years or so, but I still like the institution. It’s kind of nice to stand there before a group of people, friends and family, and publicly announce your commitment to another person. I realize it doesn’t...

When I was a kid, I used to have to listen to my mom’s stories about her family. These stories used to go all the way back to the very beginnings of our family in America. She used to talk about the Oteros and how they came from Spain with a Spanish land grant. She used to talk about how our family, once upon a time, used to own all of what is now Tucson, Arizona. She used to tell us stories about how they were wealthy in cattle. And I used to listen to these stories and think, yeah, right. Then how come we’re so poor now? Then I would hear the story of the daughter who was cut off,...

Today is the feast of the Epiphany. This is, in the Roman Catholic Church, the last day of Christmas. After today, most people take down the Christmas decorations. The tree is now down and the lights all packed until next year. Today’s feast celebrates the arrival of the wise men who came from the east following that star in the sky to a cave in Bethlehem. The word epiphany comes from the Greek word, epiphaneia, which means to appear, or to show. In English, we give the word three meanings. It is, first, of course, this feast day of the Church (since that’s how the word came into the...