The history of mass media is long and complex. It stretches back beyond the dawns of recorded history to the people that figured out that they could reach a larger audience through painting a picture on a cave wall than just by telling the story to whatever group happened to be present. While these distant…
Category: Writing
Gun Control is My Right, Not Yours
I wrote this editorial article for The Horizon. The Student Newspaper of Whatcom Community College in November of 1996. My views haven’t changed 16 years later. GUN CONTROL OR NO GUN CONTROL I was on the bus this morning when a heated debate broke out behind me. I often eavesdrop on the public transit system,…
A Random Seattle Bender
A Random Bender in Seattle I was bored, not knowing what to do with my time, so I settled down in my bus and read Oscar Zeta Costa’s “Autobiography of a Brown buffalo”, a great book by the Chicano lawyer who gained fame through representing and carousing with Hunter S. Thompson. The overall effect of…
The Night I Decided to Sell My Guns
As I, and the world, try to come to terms with the murder of a bunch of kindergarten students in the USA, I think back to the night that decided me on selling all of my own guns. I’d grown up with guns and I had a 12-gauge shotgun, a few deer rifles, a .22…
Mathilda: The Hot Insurance Adjuster
Another true story from the year 2000. I’m still baffled by this one. I just don’t understand what the hell was going on. In the year 2000, I lived in Bellingham but was commuting with my little VW Fox to Seattle every day for a new job. It was a lot of driving, but…
A Typical Greyhound Busride – Farters and Axe Murderers
I’ve heard they’ve gotten better but here was what a bus ride on a Greyhound looked like in 1998. The bus ride was fairly uneventful. The first person to sit next to me was a sweet looking old woman who got on the bus in Centralia, Washington. I made room for her and she pulled…
Thoughts on Living in a Car and Crime in America
For those who don’t know – I used to live in a VW Bus in various places. It was fine in Hawaii but living in a car in Mainland America never felt okay to me…to be honest, it was hard to get a good night’s sleep unless I was someplace I knew was secure. A…
Memories of the Food Bank
There was a time back in the 90’s when I would look forward each week to visiting the Food Bank in Bellingham, Washington. Artisanal breads, whole salmon, whole turkies at Thanksgiving and Christmas, and plenty of exotic fruit and veg. It was food that I couldn’t have afforded back then – just a few days…
Remembering the Day the USA began to Die
This one made it into the book. I wrote the original account in 2000, on election night — the Gore-Bush election, the one that ended with Florida and Supreme Court intervention and a recount that still bothers people depending on which version of history they prefer. I published the reminiscence in 2012, when it felt…
The Dogcatcher Cometh
Another true life excerpt from the current version of Slackville Road that isn’t making it into the rewrite…great story…and totally true. The Dogcatcher Cometh by Vago Damitio I never bothered paying the $50 to license my dog with the city of Seattle. I wasn’t the best dog owner. I would make sure she had food…