When I made my three-day trip to Los Angeles to get evaluated for a kidney transplant, I got back in touch with my old friend Hanna, whom I hadn’t seen or communicated with in some 20 years. We had a…
John McCain’s acceptance speech reminded me of no one so much as…Al Gore.
In the summer of 1983, I worked for four straight months, six nights a week, in a rock and roll band that played the lounge of the Sheraton Anchorage Hotel. I had gotten a kidney transplant two years before, and…
“So what do you think of the election so far?” my friend Brian asked me. This was back in March, when the Republicans had settled on McCain but the Democrats were still undecided. All American discussion, Brian behind the counter…
James, I decided long ago that, given enough time, Muzak would play virtually anything. Some 20 years ago, I was wandering a grocery store, while the Thousand Strings zinged away in the background, and I wondered, “What is that tune?”…
Last week, I had one of the worst days of my life. I had assumed my kidney transplant would take place about October 1. I ordered dialysis supplies to be delivered to Los Angeles, and prepared to leave about the…
How should the Georgian crisis have been handled by any competent administration of either party? 1) Intelligence should have pointed out the Russian troop buildup and provided an analysis of its likely result. The President would have this estimate on…
I used to know a writer named Mignon McCarthy, who co-authored Kareem Abdul Jabbar’s second autobiography, Kareem. On that assignment, she spent two and a half months with the Los Angeles Lakers of the 1980s: the Magic Lakers, the Lakers…
Robert, your post immediately brought to mind a song that a favorite L.A. band used to play once in a while, a little country ditty ending with the lines: “Omigod, I musta drank a fifth You’re not the one I…
What a change in feeling! I’ve been writing for years now about the frustrations of trying to get a kidney transplant, and about it not happening. Now it’s happening. It is clearly happening. I have seven weeks of grinding health…