Seeing a pair of Saudi officers in the mess hall at Pensacola Naval Air Station was a mere curiosity in 1986. My squadron had sent me there to attend something called Naval Aircrewman Candidate School. The Naval Officer Candidate School across the street from us, not long before portrayed in the film An Officer andContinue reading “Pensacola”
Tag Archives: memoir
Summer Re-run
Summer. Nineteen eighty-something. We were parting the traffic on the 605 southbound for Huntington Beach; I was wearing nothing but shorts and sandals, one hand holding on to the motorcycle seat, the other cradling a six-pack of beer, football-style. We leaned headlong into the wind like a pair of ski-jumpers, as P. effortlessly weaved theContinue reading “Summer Re-run”
Re-run
MementoJune 7, 2008 Memento, n.; A hint, suggestion, token, or memorial, to awaken memory; that which reminds or recalls to memory; a souvenir.[1913 Webster] I thought to capture my history but was surprised to find it won’t stay put; I’m not sure I recognize it. Sometimes it’s a faint image, like a 3-D hologram, shimmyingContinue reading “Re-run”
Still Life and Live Painting
“Is that the Whiskey Bar back there?” I asked the only other guy to turn up at the wrought iron gate leading to an alley behind the bar I’d found locked earlier. “Yeah. You don’t go in this way though. The front doors open at ten.” “I see.” Someone had told me the event beganContinue reading “Still Life and Live Painting”
Ephemera
Chris White Chris White. His name was Chris White. The name returned to me “out of the blue” as they say–in fact it I was gazing on a gnarled grey sky, up to which ghostly ringlets of steam escaping my shower ascended like released souls returning to a primordial mass. The name only occurred toContinue reading “Ephemera”
Your Presence is Not Required
This is going to end badly.Here I am slouching through middle-age; sexually I am hors de combat, as if by some secret but final decree. I lament it but the sentence is just–and just as well (I wouldn’t join any club that’d have me for a member, and I wouldn’t conjoin with anyone who’d haveContinue reading “Your Presence is Not Required”
re-runs
An inborn dread, a sort of latent panic familiar to my line, preceded me. This inherent conviction that things must go wrong will not be loosed by any device of socialization, rebellion, or medication. Ironically, this same fixedness in the breast of its unfortunate host makes it perfectly portable, and impervious to geography–maybe this isContinue reading “re-runs”
That lump in your throat is childhood passing
Summer. Nineteen eighty-something. We were parting the traffic on the 605 southbound for Huntington Beach; I was wearing nothing but shorts and sandals, one hand holding on to the motorcycle seat, the other cradling a six-pack of beer, football-style. We leaned headlong into the wind like a pair of ski-jumpers, as P. effortlessly weaved theContinue reading “That lump in your throat is childhood passing”
ephemera
Ephemera, n.1. A fever of one day’s continuance only.[1913 Webster] Self Loathing and Salvation at the Seventies’ End, on Acid I am transfixed by the excessive make-up on the homely girl sitting next to me. Color has taken on a familiar and peculiar quality; things are sharpened and outlined with a current of acidic lightContinue reading “ephemera”
ephemera
The Girl With Flies on Her Face “Do you have a request?”The Okinawan bartender’s accented words took a while to make their way through the fog shrouding my senses, created as a byproduct of the pleasant psychoactive interaction of sake, Kirin, and what may have been absinthe. After the import of his words welled upContinue reading “ephemera”
untethered 