WINE AND I
It's amazing that growing up in a family of teetotalers, I became a wine enthusiast and collector. I'm not certain where it started....
Proteus
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We are all told, “live your life to the fullest”; I am here to do just that. Proteus serves as a vessel to project my passions, and clue in my loyal readers as to what inspires me in this crazy world. So, sit back, relax, and read on.
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KF WHAT?
In 1961, I was in a Greyhound bus station in Buffalo, New York. I had a couple of hours before my bus would leave, so I decided to have...
I MEET "THE HELP"
California wasn't a racial Utopia, but what I had grown up around had not prepared me for my first trip to the South. In August of 1955,...
THE ARTIST'S PALATE (NOT PALETTE)
I love and collect wine, but I don't consider that I have a discerning palate. I like or dislike a wine. It tastes good or it doesn't. I...
MAHLER
A seesaw bridge between the centuries, the world embraced his lesser arts but frowned on the children of his soul, and yet the sounds...
LOCATION LOCATION
When you return from a foreign country, you're filled with memories, but when you try the same foods and wines at home, listen to the...
A POET'S DEBUT?
My first published words came in the form of a limerick, published some fifty years ago in New West Magazine. For my trouble, I was given...
GEORGES
Not knowing what to do upon graduation from college, I got a management job at Broadway Wilshire in the Miracle Mile of Los Angeles. I...
OKRA'S NOT JUST FOR GUMBO
Okra is an exotic pod to the rest of the country, but in the South you can find it pickled, deep fried, or added to a Cajun soup or stew....
TRUMPED BY THE DONALD
Like anyone else, I knew who Donald Trump was, but hardly gave him a second thought. I neither liked nor dis-liked the man until his...
TONGS FOR THE MEMORIES
I read an article in the L.A. Times that the Swedish ambassador was coming to Los Angeles and a banquet would be held in his honor. He...
A SHRIMP RECIPE GUARANTEED FOR RAVE REVIEWS
Whenever I prepare a Chinese feast for guests or simply want to wow diners, I prepare what I call Aromatic Shrimp. It is delicious. To...
THE TRAVAILS OF PRIVATE PICK
There used to be a character in Lil' Abner called Joe Btfsplk, who walked around with a rain cloud over his head. Wherever he went,...
CALIFORNIA WARS
There are two Californians, the Bay Area Californian and the Southern Californian. Actually, there's probably a third, the rural...
AN EPIC TALE OF ANCIENT EGYPT
In a story of love, ambition, and betrayal, the son of a paper maker rises to be the most powerful man in Egypt. Senmut, the Greatest of...
NOT QUITE A LOVE LETTER TO ITALY
During the Napoleonic era, a naive baker's son in an insignificant Italian village falls under the spell of a radical revolutionary and...
CONFESSIONS OF A WINE ENTHUSIAST
Having come from a family of teetotalers, I probably didn't have my first drink of wine until I graduated from college, unless you count...
FROM A REVIEW BY JON MICHAEL MILLER
Here we meet a plethora of fascinating and satirized characters-writers, painters, critics, even synchronized Olympic swimmers. It's all...
A PASSION ANALYZED, YESTERDAY OR TODAY?
One of my great passions is opera, one acquired in childhood. For me, opera has everything, great music, great drama, often great...
A HUMOROUS LOOK AT OBSESSIONS
A Civil War reenactor finds it difficult to separate his mundane daily life with his heroic life as a Confederate officer on the mock...