GULF BREEZE, FL -

In June my husband signed us up for a program called “Golf for the Fun of It!” at the local country club.

“Golf for the Fun of It!” is a free class for beginners. It runs for six weeks. The lessons are taught by a PGA Professional, and the country club supplies all the equipment.

During the six weeks of class, students can go to the club anytime and practice at no charge.

When the class is over, the country club provides graduates with a set of clubs for 30 days afterward, also at no charge, so they can continue working on their game.

That’s a lot of free stuff. It’s a pretty sweet deal.

I mean, you know. If you’re into that sort of thing.

(more…)

SARANAC LAKE, NY-

It might be because this is my last summer in these mountains, for a while at least.

Or because my friend Amy is obsessed with the Tarahumara Indians of Mexico and their barefoot running.

Or because I just quit my job of nearly 10 years.

In any case, I’m conducting another experiment, exposing tender skin to the jagged edges of my world.

(more…)

GULF BREEZE, FL -

The setting is Greenwood Lake, New York, during the summer of 1951. A small resort located 50 miles northwest of New York City, Greenwood Lake first gained national attention in 1936, when it was the site of the first successful U.S. rocket mail demonstration. In the ensuing years, celebrities including Babe Ruth and Greta Garbo visited the resort. However, it was also the vacation spot of considerably less chichi visitors, the four figures in this photograph among them.

(more…)

PARIS-

A Guide to French English for the English 

Or 

How to understand what the hell the French are saying to us in our own language.

Note: there are many words in both the French and English language which have been incorporated and used correctly. Words such as “rendez vous” and “entrepeneur” on the English French side and “rock and roll” and “donut” on the French English side.

I am not interested in these words. 

I am however very interested in the misappropriate (sometimes bordering on psychedelic use of the English language in daily French life) Yes, I am talking about instances where a foreign word has been incorporated so incorrectly, so weirdly, it borders on dadaist art. 

(more…)

SEATTLE, WA-

Let’s start with the Twitter advice for you, since the majority of you fit into that category. If you’re Johnny Depp or Mary Lynn Rajskub, you can skip to the relevant section.

Scenario: You are you. You’re on Twitter. If you’re totally lost, you can get the basics from Greg Olear, but whether or not you hit Olear’s brief survival guide, I’m going to tell you what Twitter is:

It’s a site where people type what they’re doing into the Internet and then nobody reads it because nobody cares.

(more…)

PHILADELPHIA, PA-

“My wife is not allowed in Atlantic City,” I hear my husband tell his friend over the phone.  D. has been working near AC, building a house. Now that it’s done, he’s frequently encouraged to visit. We always say no thanks, but not because AC is a dump (which some might agree with). There are other reasons.

“It’s not like I forbid her to go. She’s on the casinos’ Banned list. They know who she is, they look out for her.”  Big pause, while I assume his friend wants to know why.  None of the likeliest reasons are particularly classy, now are they? I cringe, but D. loves to tell this story.

“I mean, she’s not allowed in the city. It’s crazy, man.  My wife is a card counter. Brain like a computer…”

“They shook her down, raided her hotel room, grabbed back the money, messed her up, even threatened to execute her if she ever came back.”

(more…)

COLUMBUS, OH-

If I’d been with David Foster Wallace on the last day of his life, I might have offered him a chocolate bar and put some Prof. Longhair on the CD player. Chocolate’s always good for getting the Dopamine flowing and enlivens the “reward center” in your brain. As for Prof. Longhair, well, who can be depressed after hearing his Rum and Coco-Cola or Big Chief? (more…)

SOUTH COAST, ENGLAND-

I normally always wish I were somewhere else.

Wanderlust.

I mentioned in one of my first posts a vision I have, the sort of thing that would be a recurring motif in an artsy movie.

I never said where it was; it was San Francisco. Along with an abundance of other clichés, that’s where I left my heart. I love that city; I loved every moment I spent in California. I want to roll out towards LA— perhaps soon they’ll be another TNB live event there and enough money in my back pocket to be able to fly out.

As it is, I just have to sit here and be content with a dwindling bottle of Havana Club rum and my rose tinted memories; a bitter riposte to the world of broken beer bottles, unsupervised kids who are probably drunk and willing to kill me for a cheap thrill.

(more…)

BERLIN, GERMANY -

Admiralstrasse, Kreuzberg, Berlin… What’s conjured up by these words? Lou Reed… Nico… naked people with strapped-on plastic dildos dancing in underground nightclubs in the name of Brecht and Art? Yes, all these things. Oh, and something else. In this capital city of Germany they have now also evolved a hamburger known as the Suck-u-burger. Unintentional but weird…

(more…)

SOMEWHERE IN MENDOCINO COUNTY, CA-

For dinner we have masa harina corn cakes with herb sauce and a dilled potato salad.  Johanna, though dejected at another day of meatlessness, eats voraciously.  We all do really.  She and I sit at a rust-painted picnic table with Lance, Crazy Jeff and Gloria, Hector, and Charlie the Mechanic.  The field crew eats with hunched shoulders, cramped forearms, aching lower backs. Johanna sits abnormally straight, exhibiting her self-described “perfect body mechanics.”   We all swat at the flies and mosquitoes as we eat with the exception of Charlie the Mechanic who seems oblivious to them.  He is oblivious also to the mayonnaise in his beard.

(more…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

El Camino. 1984. V8 engine. 350. I never had one and I still don’t. But my just-graduated-son Landen gave me and a six-year-old punk girl named Jai Ann our first El Camino joyride. Destination: McDonald’s.

VIDEO: El Camino Cruisin’

It goes like this: We hit Gosford Road and flew like the Furies were chasing us. Clouds rolled past. Time slowed. This was our video game. Pull out the joystick. Hit the fire button. Blast some asteroids. Jump like Frogger. Fly like the Pacman family. Donkey Kong it. You get the picture. Soaring Xervious adventure. This was old school. (more…)

PHILADELPHIA, PA–

June 4, 2009

Dear Bob,

I know I have written you many letters during the course of our relationship.  You must have a virtual book of my letters—thousands of thoughtful, tender, loving words.  All of them probably took me a solid month of my life to write.  Enjoy them.  Toss them.  Whatever.  This is the last letter you are going to get from me.

I really appreciated you dumping me after I got out of the hospital. Yes, thank you.  It could have been much worse.  You could have dumped me while I was IN the hospital. You could have visited me there (you never visited) and dropped off a pile of my letters to you, and I would not have been able to rip them or burn them or even throw them away because I was so heavily medicated and bed-ridden and I did not have the use of my limbs (also, you can’t light things on fire in the hospital).  But you waited to dump me until I recovered and could come to see you after months of being laid up, after re-learning to walk and talk and use my hands, and longing for your kiss the whole time.  It was at least semi-thoughtful that you waited.

(more…)

LOS ANGELES, CA-

Well, it’s official: after 37 years on this planet– 37 years of being chased by homicidal maniacs, trapped in mazes, falling off cliffs, forgetting how to drive stick while the steering wheel comes off in my hands as I navigate particularly treacherous mountain roads, having my teeth fall out when I show up late for school with no pants on only to find my term paper was due the day before, falling into the ocean while clutching my computer which contains the only copy of the book I’m writing, oh and going back to college and finding that somehow I wasn’t assigned a dorm room and have to live on the street oh but I didn’t register anyway and all the class are full and nobody seems to care about my predicament– um, stop here, sentence too confusing.

I finally had the most fucked-up dream of my life.

If I weren’t listening to Judas Priest right now (Sad Wings of Destiny) I would never have the strength to talk about it. But luckily I am!

So. I had this dream. And in my dream, I was in… Walgreen’s!
(more…)

BAKERSFIELD, CA-

It’s summer. You’re lazing on the patio and you’re ready to escape to another world. But you haven’t gone to the bookstore for your summer reads. In fact, you’re not even sure what to buy. You just know your mind needs to take you really far away. Don’t worry, your summer reading list has arrived:

Action-Adventure: Back in the 1970s, reading “Jaws” (or watching the movie) kept your grandpa out of the water and in a paranoid fit. Look no further, the fourth installment of Steve Alten’s MEG series was recently released. We’re talking 76-foot sharks and a lost world of monsters tucked away beneath ocean plates. Turn on the grill but make someone else cook. “MEG: Hell’s Aquarium” is an addictive heart thumper. When I asked Alten to describe his book in a short sentence, he said: “The most frightening sea monsters in history…are no longer history.” Yikes. (more…)

MADRID, SPAIN

Dear I-

In the several week run up to my exit here from your beautiful country, many people, including yourself, have asked me what I will miss about Spain. The main reaction of those who find out I’m leaving resembles this: “You been here how long - six years? Shit man. That’s a long time. Damn.” Most follow with “Why are you leaving?”.

These reactions naturally force you to consider the reality of your exit. These final days have been flashing before me like a movie reel, unable to to see one frame and appreciate it. As I type these words, I can already feel the credits starting to roll.

(more…)

COLUMBUS, OH-

I mentioned to my girlfriend last week that we should make love on James Thurber’s grave when the weather becomes warmer. It was an idle suggestion, a sort of thinking out loud comment that I should have put more thought into before I spoke it. (more…)

MELBOURNE, AUSTRALIA-

Very recently, I published a blog here on TNB about an attempt that I made to sleep with Janeane Garofalo. This attempt was made in the form of certain letters, written by yours truly, in the pages of a Melbourne street press magazine while Ms. Garofalo was in town. Now overwhelming public demand (and by overwhelming public demand, I mean two people, but that’s more than enough for me) has induced me to republish those letters here. I feel I must warn you - even if you are not Janeane Garofalo, you may very well be seduced. (more…)

NEW PALTZ, N.Y.-

You’ve heard of Twitter. You either use it, have friends who use it, or you’ve read about it in snooty op-eds. It’s like heroin, in that way. That and it’s addicitive as hell.

Another way it’s like heroin: it doesn’t come with an instruction manual. You either have to have a junkie explain it to you, or you figure it out as you go. I’m not a Twitterholic, not yet, but I thought it might be beneficial to dish what I’ve learned about this odd new medium to the TNB community.

(more…)

SARASOTA, FL-

Sean Connery is not a tough guy. That’s what he wants me to believe in this coffee bar that’s so hip no one knows it exists. “If I thought you were screwing me in this interview,” he says, “I might bite your balls off. But never mind that. I’m no longer double-07. I’m double-7. I wear a girdle in the few action scenes that don’t involve stuntmen, like sitting down. I’m still growing as an actor and a man.” (more…)

NEW PALTZ, N.Y.-

This past February 11, Jennifer Aniston turned forty.

I am aware of this milestone because it has been covered in the celebrity tabloids with a ferocity usually reserved for moon landings and presidential assassinations. Another week, another Aniston-over-the-hill story. This past Friday, for example, in the “Celeb Crisis” section, Life & Style did a two-page story entitled “Jen’s Struggle With Aging.”

Aniston, to the tabloids, is a tragic figure. Has been since Friends went off the air five years ago.

(more…)