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Metonymy
I was born and raised in Los Angeles, and I spent my career in Hollywood. Both of those things are true, but they are not literal. I was born in Santa Monica, on the coast about 16 miles west of downtown Los Angeles, and raised in Glendale, a suburb of the city located about 10…
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Kintsugi
We live in a culture that is far too quick to discard that which is broken. I think that comes from cheap goods readily available. Growing up, we lived across the street from Mr. And Mrs. Marcus who owned a repair shop called Marcus Electric. A repair shop was a place you took broken household…
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In Memoriam
An 86-year-old retired congressman from Massachusetts died last Tuesday at his home in Maine. He had congestive heart failure and had been on hospice care since April. He had many legislative accomplishments to his name, serving in Congress from 1981 until his retirement in 2013. He is perhaps best remembered for his role in crafting…
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In Defense, and Praise, of Bread
Few things in life are more satisfying than bread. And when it comes to bread, there really is only one choice: the baguette. The baguette is one of the simplest breads in the world, yet it is also one of the most beloved. Made from only a few basic ingredients — flour, water, yeast, and…
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One Ringy Dingy
I often if not always tell the story of my working life as the heartwarming rags-to-riches tale of the boy who left the seminary, got a job in the entertainment industry as a secretary, and retired 17 years later (for health reasons) as a facilities, logistics, and infrastructure vice president. And while that is true,…
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Friendship
I have lunch plans today. I’ll be meeting a friend, and his husband, at Billy Reed’s, a famous Palm Springs eatery not a quarter mile from my residence; I wrote about Billy Reed’s last December on the occasion of their 50th anniversary. It is one of four restaurants in my neighborhood close enough I can…
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Scanxiety
And the word of the day is scanxiety. It’s a neologism, but what it describes is all too familiar. Back in the 90s, before I tested positive for HIV, I had something similar, though it didn’t have a name. My gay thoughtful readers will know what I’m talking about. Every six months, you’d go to…
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The good old days
I like music. Everything except country. And the really hardcore rap about da bitches and da hos. I have an extensive iTunes library with 557 songs in it, and I love putting it on “shuffle” where one minute I’m listening to Earth Wind & Fire’s “September” and it segues into “Smells Like Teen Spirit” from…
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The Choice
Even little Cindy in Mrs. Johnson’s 2nd Grade class at George Washington Elementary School in Some Town, California knows Gavin Newsom, whom President Trump has taken to calling Governor Newscum because the leader of our nation has the intellect and character of another child in Mrs. Johnson’s class resorting to petty name-calling on the playground…
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Poodles say the darndest things!
I have a knack for saying the wrong thing, innocently and unintentionally of course. I honestly thought a “teabagger” was someone from England, because they drink tea there. So I introduced the new head of Technicolor New Media’s International Versioning department at a staff meeting as “the newest member of our management team and our…
Your mileage may vary.