Sunrise In The Hollywood Hills

Burnt orange floods the sky at this time of morning. In the distance  a scraggly lone coyote cries fowl. A box sportster races pell mell down Laurel Canyon. A night of depravity or debauchery? Or, a damsel tired of dodging a bloated ogre's hairy paws.

What will today bring? I often times find myself asking if this will be the day I meet my maker;deep down I know it will be more of weaving in and out of traffic on Hollywood Boulevard. Squinting at the sun filtered through the gauze of a brown and hazy afternoon. Lots of anger. Lots of heartache... all coasting into a night of Bacchanalia.

With this in mind, I look out over the house-pitted hills and watch the morning unfold and feel grateful I am alive.

Lost In The Tradewinds Of My Mind

A moment ago I was having the most vivid daydream where I was lying in a swaying hammock being tickled by a sunny tropical breeze. The turquoise water lapped at the shore. In my hand was a Pina Colada in a carved out coconut with a dayglo straw that curled around like Salvador Dali's mustache. A young woman in a flowing grass skirt massaged my ears with her delicate ukulele music.

I normally have colorful dreams--but this one felt so very real.

The Night John Barley Came To Town.

The coyote's call made John Barley twitch. As did the sweat running from his furrowed brow into his eye. It was a windless night and the heat rose as the sun went down.

John Barley walked down Main Street nervously fingering the holster of his six gun. A showdown was imminent. But his opponent was unknown.

Waiting For Lola

One night at a party up in the Hollywood Hills, while I was nursing a Martini and having carnal knowledge of the olive, I was sitting pool side. It was an extravagant pool, very similar to the one at Caesar's in Vegas.  I was staring over at the diving board and the under water light was casting this eerie lunar glow-- that is when I saw the lovely Lola Falana doing back strokes from one side to the other. I watched her with rapt attention. It must've been about 1975. Anyway, it was a night that would change my life forever and fire the loins of my creativity. From then on I became obsessed with Lola and wanted to be everywhere she was. I would follow her to clubs and restaurants and even the beauty salon. This obsession never went away. It inspired my novel Waiting for Lola, about a fan who was so driven by his love for an actress that he committed murder for her and then took his own life by giving himself a Viking funeral pyre.