INDIAN HILL

            Brush and timber is so dry in the San Gabriel Mountains it’s if heavy breathing could set it ablaze. Golden grasses waver in a warm breeze while a light coat of dust seems to take the life out of spindly cactus flowers and yucca spears. In early summer morning overcast usually dampens the temperatures and staves off fire season until later in September and October but the winter was dry, almost no rain, and now even majestic oaks have lost their sheen and seem to have given up hope.               In San Dimas Canyon the asphalt is crumbling and it’s only a lane and a half-wide past the point where it winds steeply uphill towards the dam. A Forest Service fire camp is at the end of the road and one of the firemen is up on a ledge behind the garage. He says the road goes into the experimental forest, a kind of wilderness area in the Angeles National Fo...

Inner Courtyard, Claremont, CA. Claremont, CA. Griffith Park, Los Angeles, CA. Hallway, Claremont CA. Inner hall, Claremont School of Theology, CA. Two doors down. Claremont School of Theology, CA. Griffith Park Observatory, Los Angeles, CA.

                                     The brushed stainless steel sign in front of the press box in Dodger Stadium is laser cut with the name of the man for whom the media area is named. The signature of Vin Scully, backlit in Dodger blue, glows from behind the steel and is as elegant as the prose Scully uses to call a baseball game, something he’s done for over sixty years.      No one gets to the club level but fans who will sit inside the modern appointed suites, and media. At the entrance to the press box sits a man checking media credentials, wearing the blue polo shirt and khaki pants uniform of Dodger stadium operations staff.  The nods at writers and technicians he knows, smiles, acknowledges them in some simple way. With me, there is no familiarity yet. It’s my first time approaching the press box, the first night I’ll sit inside and watch a Dodge...

                      Railroad tracks crossed the highway and a diesel freight chugged along southbound. At the crossing was a grey cinder hut with a back-up generator for powering the signal, a tarmac pad to park a truck. Sand hills rolled out for miles, higher peaks hitched up further west and south. The long cross arms lowered. We stopped and stretched outside. Sweat broke out on my neck and back and forehead. Over a hundred degrees, maybe one-ten, one-twelve. Red lights flashed and the crossing bell clanged, the big diesel blasting its alto horn and the engine pounding behind its creased steel maw, all black and orange.  Diesel fumes and grease, I guess you could call that the smell of progress. A dusty coyote stood alone on the opposite side in the heat, black eyes locked on mine, hind legs lean and tense.  Groaning freight cars heaved up the slope grade of track, rusted train wheels singing steel on steel. ...

           I wear ear plugs when I go to bed. There are days, too, when I would like to plug up my ears. My ears are assaulted by sounds. Sounds I do not like and do not want to hear. I have sensitive ears. Hearing is my most highly developed sense and I listen to everything. Years ago, I had my hearing tested, for a job that had no bearing on hearing, but they tested my hearing anyway and the attendant noted, impressively, that I 'can hear flies walking on walls.' I have never actually heard flies walking on walls, but I hear rats in the attic sometimes and I bang the ceiling with an old golf club and that usually scares rodents. Cindy Greer licked my ear one night and I knew she knew things I didn't know about ears and licking but I let her go and regretted it after she was gone. I don't remember if I licked her ears, but she did nice things to mine. The sound was kind of delicious and sexy and after that I never wanted to get my ear pierced or wear an ...

    I had blood work done two weeks ago at Qwest. It looked like a low-budget operation with a back-of-the-lot location,  crummy neighborhood, cheap lobby and storefront.  Then, the magic began.                                                    The little Asian nurse strapped me in and turned my arm over, ran her fingers over my forearm and said in a low, even voice,  'You have beautiful veins.'  I said, 'You say that to all the men who come in here.'  She said, in the same low tone, 'Only the ones who have beautiful veins.' Now, I probably should have followed up with a witty line, gotten a date, met her in a dusty palm bar and exchanged national secrets, slipped on to a sailing ship at midnight and hauled in large quantities of illicit drugs or guns. I pounded the pavement for a while looking for reas...

Clouds swirling above Joshua Trees Spectacular desert light shades and shadows corners                 of natural wonder.                           At night bright  stars spread                                                diamond studs in the blackness. Late afternoon in the desert, Wonder Valley, California. Joshua Tree forest above Yucca Valley, California