This self-guided tour of the Charles Manson murder sites in and around Los Angeles is designed to take three hours. By following the map below, you can see the principal sites described in the following narrative and form a deeper appreciation of the events that took place between July and…
Read moreAfter nearly a year, the end is in sight. We’ve passed through the darkest hours and have reason to believe the virus might soon be behind us. For that reason, many of us are itching to get away, to break out of our confinement and go somewhere for a much-needed…
Read moreGrinning, I worked the levers and lowered my bucket. Drawing the teeth down and back, I chewed my first hole in the soil of Las Vegas, one of several I would dig over the next 90 minutes. Operating the 315CL Caterpillar Hydraulic Excavator at the Heavy Equipment Playground set me…
Read moreAs a child he witnessed magic. Among the spires of orange and russet rock, in the shadows of parapets ribboned with plum colored bands left by long receded seas, he watched as the Hopi medicine man placed the tip of an eagle feather against his mother’s neck and sang. His…
Read moreMy brother Curt and I were sitting in the dining room of the Little America Hotel in Flagstaff, AZ after our ski trip to Telluride when I said, “Look something up on your phone, will you? See if you can find out the steepest pitch a person can ski without…
Read moreSouthwest Texas is vast, and mostly empty. From San Antonio to El Paso, a distance of 550 miles, no town larger than 9,000 people exists. In the entire region, an area about the size of California, the population does not exceed that of Rhode Island. In the 1880s the region…
Read moreShe was not a good student. She had tried college and it hadn’t really worked out. She had fallen in with a hard partying crowd, musicians and such. It was a weakness. So she quit school and moved to Los Angeles, thinking she could become a singer there. But that…
Read more“What a piece of human trash.” “Should have put him in front of a wall and shot him.” “This dude is a fucking monster — the kind of person that nightmares are made of.” “He’s a cruel, twisted, sadistic scumbag.” “I wanna reach through the screen and strangle him.” “Lying…
Read moreWhen I was eight, I saw a vision of my future. According to Argosy magazine, by the time I was thirty I would be getting around with a jet pack. I would be rocketing off to work with 500 pounds of thrust on my back. At night I would be…
Read moreIt was awful, one of the most disgraceful examples of urban blight imaginable. Block after block of gorgeous buildings gone to seed, paint peeling, plaster crumbling, porches sagging, weeds, filth and decay. And there on the porches impoverished retirees clinging to the last vestiges of life, sick, dying, tubes sticking…
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