Desperate Hobbies
Stamp collecting in the fast lane.
Progressive Country Meets The Phone Forest
Have you ever wondered what’s going through James Taylor’s mind while he’s performing “Fire and Rain” for the eleven-thousandth time?
Star Wars Again
Fidge thinks about why this keeps happening.
Why My Super Ball Is Probably Still In Hong Kong
When I was a kid my mother, who loved to travel, would take advantage of TWA’s offer to break up the long flight to the States from Arabia with as many stops as you like, and for the same fare. (TWA doesn‘t have that policy anymore; indeed, they have no policy at all, having ceased…
Heights
A long time ago I had a girlfriend who was afraid of heights. We were up on the observation deck of a tall building when she told me. I was quick to sympathize. I explained that I’d once tried to help some friends paint the roof of their barn, that I’d spent the entire afternoon…
The Rise And Fall Of Rocket-Ship Medicine
Baby Boomers were told that Science would fix everything. They need to get over their disappointment. “Doctors don’t know anything,” the woman said, and a half-dozen heads nodded in automatic agreement. The crowd at the party was mostly about my age – Baby Boomers, though it’s getting harder all the time to picture us as babies.…
Hunting The Horny-back Toad
Gumby has written here about the futility of asking one generation to understand another generation’s music. I think he’s mostly right, despite a few exceptions that prove the rule, like the Beatles getting rediscovered every twenty years, or that Canadian guy who thinks he’s Frank Sinatra. What Gumby didn’t mention is that there’s plenty of…
Rice-A-Roni Comes To Texas
When I was a kid there were commercials on TV for a food product called Rice-A-Roni. Of course Rice-A-Roni still exists; it’s just hard to imagine a corporation today buying millions of dollars worth of air time to advertise a side dish. But during the late 1960s, there was a media blitz going on for…
Remembering The Past So You Don’t Have To
I’ve had a sobering experience. In the interest of clearing shelf space, but really because I fancied myself a messianic figure dispensing sheer joy and pleasure to a larger universe, I decided to give away about 200 of my old CDs. (Bet you can see where this is going!) It was at a family gathering, and the…
With Sara At Starbucks
Not too long ago a good friend of mine asked me what I thought had changed about Saudi Arabia since I left it many years ago. “A friend of mine is going there to work,” said Sara, “and she’ll be living in the same town you lived in.” Perhaps I had some helpful observations for a…
Gumby & Fidge 