Comprender Espanol pour favor?

The Romanian was certainly a hail fellow well met. Especially when one considers his situation.

He was on vacation in Alicante, the centerpiece of the portion of Spain’s Mediterranean exposure known as Costa Blanca. Instead of sailing or lolling in the sand, he found himself at the police station, attempting to explain to the earnest Spanish speaking-only clerk in a fractured tongue that his pocket had been picked while strolling the tile walk that defines the beach.

Music Abides

We were young.

We were immortal.

Sooner or later both were lies. It was inevitable.

Whither New Orleans?

Bob’s back at Galatoire’s. Sumptuous and gracefully worn, it’s New Orleans finest old line eatery. Both survived Katrina. So far.

For the last several years, Bob has waited on our gang at an annual Galatoirean feast the night before the first day of JazzFest.

That the New Orleans Jazz and Heritage Fair itself would survive Katrina was far from a given. Its survival is the work of some supreme spirit force that bestows gifts on the flock.

Are We Really Better Off Now?

I turned on O’Reilly last Thursday night just to see that pundit’s take on the important news of the day.

Mr. Billy was vacationing. His replacement was doing his best to adopt the star’s condescending tone. Not an easy task. The guy couldn’t pull it off. The temp sounded almost objective.

Old House + Renovation = Gastrointestinal Distress

It was simply, let us say, the latest Moment of Truth, in what has become — all hyperbole aside — the Home Renovation From Hell. Okay, that’s a bit over the top. But the frustration levels for my personal boss and myself as we navigate the fix up of our dream bungalow are increasing exponentially on a daily basis.

And we’ve only just begun.

Whither This Damnable Weather?

This is the poesy of our discontent.

Ungebludgeon Blues (Blue Yodel)

Frankly, I’m a little ungebludgeon.

Which word, if memory serves, my mother would use when she was way out of sorts. It may be Yiddish. Then again, maybe not. It may be misspelled. It may mean something else entirely. Or nothing at all.

Twin Spires No More

Look at what they’ve gone and done to the Downs.

Somewhere on high, Joseph Baldez caught a peek at what they have done to his handiwork. His head in his hands, he can’t look again.

A Last Tribute To Thompson

“You should do this in Hunter Thompson’s voice.”

It was my radio engineer speaking. I’d throttled my way into the studio to record a commentary on the recently departed icon, leaving other Thompson acolytes who wanted to be heard bobbing in my wake. A day late and a dollar short they were.

Surviving The Phileas Fogg Effect

Was it a brown acid flashback, or simply another wintertime nightmare at O’Hare?

It would be nice to report that O’Hare Airport Transportation Security Officer DeMarco was a gracious host of the highest order. After all, the Chicagoan was present to provide some extremely weary travelers with shelter from the storm.

In the end, ATSO DeMarco, more than likely the second cousin of a precinct captain who attended elementary school with Mayor Richard M. Daley’s sister-in-law, proved but a nightmarish exclamation point to the longest sleepless weekend of several wayfarers’ lives.

No Talkin’ To The Big Guy In Red

Or how a little planning ahead might have helped an inveterate scribe without foresight.

“Bluffstein. Talk!”

I understood from past experience that Bennie Bluffstein, Kris Kringle’s press flack, is nothing if not a guy with something else pressing at every moment. “Yo. Hello. Time is money. Anybody there? Talk. My phones are blinking like Circus Circus.”

Dreaming Of Adventure? Just Do It!

How I learned that some experiences, like, oh, climbing a mountain, just can’t be explained.

Now it becomes clear what Dr. Kesselman, a political science professor of mine in the ’60s, meant when he talked one day in class about his reaction — and that of many others — after visiting the Soviet Union. So exotic was the monolithic Communist empire that a visitor from the West with curiosity and intellect, upon returning home, felt the need to write a book about the excursion.