The title to this post is what I sought and found in Las Vegas. Many ask why I relocated to Nevada from New York. Too many surmise taxes, the weather, or crime chased me out of civilization. Not at all.
Of course, the tax rate is higher back East but services are extensive. Taxes are low out West but just looking around informs of a deficient society compared to what was left. Continue reading A Nice Soft Spot
Other than oasis stops on some caravan route, maybe, where else does so much diverse as well as damaged humanity cross except Las Vegas?
There are bigger, better, brighter, more dynamic cities upon our globe. Yet in them the cast of characters, residents and visitors, rarely change as often nor as rapidly or as abruptly as in the Big Mayberry. Continue reading Stray Cavalcade
While rummaging and discarding, I came across photos of Chantal. We met what must’ve been a whole ‘nother lifetime ago.
Ours was the most casual of fleeting acquaintances. In 2006, I attended a World Cup soccer match in Germany. Or eventually intended reaching Germany in order to watch Ukraine against Switzerland. To say I detoured stretches the phrase “taking the long way.”
First into London, then through the Chunnel into Belgium and a dogleg into Holland which would finally funnel me into Germany. The trip was, after all, for pleasure. In early June when Old Europe remained temperate to American skin and this Yankee had no need to insist every interior to be airy and artificial.
Frankly I’d forgotten Chantal. We’d been one another’s one-night stands. Or, she’d certainly been my one-nighter, while I suppose I sufficed as her any port in a storm. Continue reading At the Philosopher Hotel
Below is an extract from the first of three stories comprising Cool Brass, the second Slow Boat Media e-book.
Marianne Messing, alluded to all over Reveries, shows up and shows off in each Cool Brass vignette. She and Caleb Abercrombie enjoy a connection closer than intimate. Their friendship emerged from instinct. From that start it’s matured into utmost trust.
In a tangent, Hatun Sürücü, a 23-year-old woman the West barely noted and quickly forgot, despite having been one of the better publicized victims of clannish ignorance and exceptional violence, haunts the first and third stories of Cool Brass.
Years on, Sürücü’s waste remains an incomprehensible indignity. Not only could she have done things and gone places, she might’ve become a big somebody. Continue reading Marianne, a Friend from Germany