You Can’t Make This Stuff Up

The drive to Holbrook, Arizona was good! Included was a spectacular 24 hours in Camp Verde, Arizona with our youngest daughters 88 year old grandmother. Slept along the banks of the Verde River. Up over into the high country to Holbrook, Arizona where I fell upon this fine machine in transit from California […]

Comedy as Balancing Act

Comedy requires concision. As I’ve been building my story I’ve had to battle filling in enough narrative to make the mind’s eye see the scene while maintaining the pace of the story so as not to derail the momentum. It is a brutal dance of first building the chapter and then removing anything that does […]

All About Bankrupt Heart

Bankrupt Heart A Novel by Dana Smith Bankrupt Heart explores the journey a man begins under some duress when his life on one fateful day vanishes. But wait! This is only where the story begins. Victoria, Ry’s long term life partner, a composer-pianist on tour in London is not only not coming back, but is […]

Children at the Brink

I was running with the wind again. Headed north with Lacey riding shotgun. We had dinner in Ashland Saturday night. Sunday stopped in Eugene for breakfast. I’d been the producer of the street performing program at the Eugene Celebration for a bunch of years. Downtown Eugene has gone from bad to worse in the last […]

Eternity Ringing in my Ears

My 1967 Ford pickup truck was home. It took some practice to get the kinks out. Simplicity was the key. When I got the truck it had a V-8 and when I finished it had an inline 6 cylinder 240 cubic inch motor. Matched weighted forged pistons, steel timing gears, special camshaft profile, roller rockers, […]

When Comedy Goes for Help

Today I’ll harvest sage wisdom from two comic minds. One is a silent clown, the second a gypsy magician. The silent act has spent much of the past few decades doing cabaret inEuropewhen he wasn’t doing odd arena style opening work for major musical acts. The magician by contrast has played everything from children’s […]

Big Bad Boats

Rocket Science a mini-monster from the Cook Islands. This is 50 feet, water ballasted, twin ruddered, carbon fibered, wickedly fast boat with a 13 foot draft!!!! I stepped aboard a monster Sunday. The beast tethered to a dock. Sixty-five feet of ocean going, purpose built, go anywhere, under any conditions sailboat. The beast had […]

Really Loving You Now

Into the breech of our life comes the sight of the other we might chance to love. It comes out of the blue. They enter the room and you look and it’s decided right then. Not for all of us. Some of us sneak up on it. We go to school with them, work with […]

The Nevada Single-Leaf Pinion Pine Nut as Plot

The Nevada single-leaf pinion pine (pinus monophylla) produces a nut. If you’ve ever made pesto you will recall that most recipes call for the use of pine nuts. If you’ve ever gone to a grocery store to buy pine nuts you soon discover that they are expensive. Retail they sell for near thirty dollars a […]

Crying at Weddings

I cry at weddings. I don’t need to know the couple. I just find the whole thing so romantic. My mind begins to wander and I become overwhelmed. You know the sociologists are fretting over the differential emerging between various income groups and their likelihood that they will marry. More money is predictive of taking […]