They said it wouldn’t make any difference. So I’m grooving up the 405 and the check engine light comes on. Now in the old days, there was not such a thing. But as cars started to feature them, it turned out that many times it was just a matter of a loose gas cap. But […]

Last night Bill Maher said the average price of a Taylor Swift ticket was over $4000. Really. My favorite story on this came from Tony Wilson. His first job out of Oxbridge was in a television news department. On a Saturday night he collected the European football scores and the newsreader got them wrong. Tony […]

I was told I could be President. I learned that in first grade. I could see the opportunity, the trajectory, we were all starting from the same line. Now, who would want to be President? Certainly not me. I was told if I worked hard I could be wealthy. They called it the American Dream. […]

I started reading the new Pynchon book. It got good reviews and I love him in principle, he’s disconnected, he’s a writer, he doesn’t need the penumbra, the media profile. Then again, I bought “Gravity’s Rainbow” and never made much headway, never mind “The Crying of Lot 49.” So I’d just finished this book “The […]