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50 years of Billy Reed’s
It’s one of those places everybody knows. Locals, obviously. But over the years, I’ve been surprised at how many tourists and visitors to Palm Springs know it. It’s not fancy or high-priced. It doesn’t have a Hollywood backstory, which so many Palm Springs restaurants do – like “Frank Sinatra once tipped his waiter $20,000 here…
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No World AIDS Day in the US
There was a time, when to hear the words “your test results came back positive for HIV” meant “you are going to die – soon.” In the western world, those days are part of the history of the AIDS pandemic, a history so recent that many of us alive today living with HIV can recall…
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Wheelchair Invisibility
I arrived at the furniture store around 11:45 last Sunday morning. I am in the market for a new recliner. A recliner is not just something in which to relax while watching the television for me – it is as essential to my life as breath itself. I can’t walk. I can’t stand up without…
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Family
Back in my 30s I dated a guy named Jojo. He was a Filipino (or Pinoy as they call themselves) from the Philippines who had come to America on a student visa for college, and when he graduated applied for a green card and stayed. As a gay man (and a handsome one at that),…
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Files
I am an adult survivor of childhood (teenage actually) sexual abuse by a Roman Catholic clergy member, a priest to use his more familiar description. Thanks to two years of very intense and emotionally painful EMDR Therapy with a very skilled therapist who specializes in post-traumatic stress, serving both civilians and combat veterans of the…
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Fruits and Nuts
The other day, someone asked me how I come up with the topics I write about. I answered honestly: I don’t know. Obviously, current events are a source. But ultimately, a topic must be interesting to me. I do this (blogging) for fun, the way some people play golf or collect stamps. If it was…
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From Madeleines to Saltines
My first encounter with Marcel Proust was not academic, or even literary. As a teenager, I was obsessed with Monty Python, which I’d come to know through a dedicated, bordering on religious, listening to Dr. Demento every Sunday night on 94.7 KMET (“the Mighty Met”), at the time the most listened-to Sunday evening radio program…
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Loud Joyce
This week marks ten years since I have lived at Stonewall Gardens Assisted Living in Palm Springs. It has, on the whole, been a good experience. There have been ups and downs, but that’s life, isn’t it? If I were writing a Yelp review, I’d give it 4.5 out of 5 stars, holding back that…
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Different from the Others
I know how lucky I am to have been born when I was. I know that where I live – Southern California in general and Palm Springs specifically – gives me advantages others lack or can only dream of. Even now, with Trump and Company leading an all-out war against diversity, looking to rollback decades…
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Enough!
Ah, November. It is the beginning of so much in the Coachella Valley. It marks the official start of what we call “the season” here in Palm Springs – a period of six months, more or less, of heaven on earth: highs in the mid-70s, rarely a cloud in the sky, maybe a raindrop or…
Your mileage may vary.