Looking back on my life, what do I regret? Quite honestly, I don’t even think in those terms. The Past is over, and there’s no point in having second thoughts about it. Did I make any wrong decisions? Should I be sorry for mistakes I’ve made, for people I’ve hurt, for exercising bad judgment (something […]
I rarely carry a phone. I feel like a visitor from another planet watching my fellow hairless apes walk around like zombies, staring and poking at tiny screens. Which is master and which is slave? Phone or user? Phones use us to make more phones, like a virus. Quite a prolific virus. Over 17 billion […]
Recently Trending
More from Montecito
In a famous passage from Shakespeare’s Merchant of Venice, the character Portia, disguised as a lawyer, is defending Antonio from being required to pay Shylock, to whom he is indebted. By the laws of the time and place, the debt is legitimate – and only by being shown mercy can Antonio escape paying it. Portia’s […]
I just flew back from The Netherlands, and boy are my arms tired. This old sepia-toned quip still charms me with its Americanness – its nod to Henny Youngman and to the large, ornate pre-television radios families once gathered round, heads bent in rapt concentration. But, yeah. Holland is a round trip 20-hour journey through […]
In the early chapters of the Old Testament, we find the story of two brothers, Jacob and Esau, one of whom (Esau) sold his entire inheritance (his “birthright”) to his brother for a single simple meal (a “mess of pottage”). That might be regarded as a very bad bargain. The more civilized method of determining […]
Throngs of people, er, dozens of people, er, okay one person in my humor workshop once asked me what skills it takes to be a humor writer. I leaned back and thought a while. “Excuse me, are you sleeping?” “Huh? Oh, ah, no, of course not, ha-ha, it’s one of the skills required for all […]
“Shock and Awe” was the G. W. Bush term for his attack on Iraq in 2003. Trump’s Big Ugly Billionaire Bailout Bill (BUBBB) is a shock and awe attack against our own people. Perhaps this should be called “Shock and Awful.” The bill adds $3 trillion to the U.S. debt – almost all from tax […]
There is probably nothing more thrilling to the average reader than the idea of somebody being saved or rescued from something terrible. I have just seen part of a video in which a woman is apparently trapped in her car which has been swept off in the middle of a raging flood. A man, who […]
When I was studying to be a California school teacher – an incredibly long time ago (actually in the 1950s), one of the required courses was about Learning. The only important thing I seem to have retained from those lessons was something which may seem pretty obvious – the physical comfort of the student. The […]
Read more...
There is something special about a man’s relationship with his barber. The very essence of a barbershop is masculine. Unfortunately, it is no longer a place for singing quartets – but at least it’s not what it used to be – a place for surgery. The very word Barber is related to the word “Barbarian.” […]
When we yet had the luxury to do so, my friends and I chose art, with the result that one evening in the bar-spangled early 1980s I found myself in the restroom of a chicken sandwich joint, dressed in a New Wave rock n’ roll getup and helplessly retching over the single sink. Ah, I […]
Why is Love the only emotion we fall into? We don’t fall into Hate, or even into Apathy. For better or worse, there are various diseases which can cause us to fall. One of the best known is epilepsy. One of its supposed sufferers was Julius Caesar. In Shakespeare’s play, one of the people who […]
I occupy a very particular demographic; balding older men who don’t know how awful they look in skinny jeans. We are many. It’s nearly an epidemic. A teary woman in the Vons’ parking lot shakily pointed her finger at me and used the word “plague,” which I thought was going a bit far. And for […]
In this country, we have a big annual festival, originally a religious observance, dedicated to giving Thanks. The occasion is mostly to do with thanking whatever gods may be – for our lives, and for all the good things they may contain. But why? Wouldn’t we be equally justified in cursing, or at least objecting […]
