INDIAN HILL

Join me at the Federal Bar in North Hollywood for the New Short Fiction Series, featuring my work;  "Horsepower and Other Stories",  Aug 9 Tickets are available now! https://web.ovationtix.com/trs/pe/9994799

            It’s ten o’clock and Grand Central Market in Los Angeles is crowded. I’ve been here during the week a couple of times a few years ago before the downtown area drew in hipsters and creative types to fill in the old bank buildings and offices in their newly designed loft apartments. It’s Saturday and business is moving.             There’s a seat at the counter at Wexler’s Deli and I order a bagel with cream cheese and lox and they do it with capers and thin sliced red onion. Next to me is a young couple having the smoked fish plate and a photographer and his wife on my other side. He’s shooting black and white, he says, so his flash won’t go off. The server checks on me once and smiles while two cooks slap cheese and slices of fish on bagels before ringing the bell for the pickup.             The ...

Summit Valley, Ca. North east of Big Bear Lake, Ca. The Packing House, Pomona, Ca. Griffith Park Observatory, Los Angeles, Ca. Los Angeles, Ca.

            Steve Harrison is relaxed, confident and hopeful, sitting at the desk of Claremont's newest art gallery, Hillside Fine Art.                           “I’m pleased with the way the gallery looks," he says. "All of the artists are members of the California Art Club, full-time professional artists. That's what I wanted, a certain quality in the art.”               Hillside Fine Art features California representational art in the traditional style, scenes of classic and contemporary venues throughout the state.                          The gallery was born from Steve’s love of art, coming into full development after his recent retirement from 33 years of teaching.     ...

            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...