Slouching into Oblivion

I will keep this short. I had planned to spend Christmas with my one true love, Lorena. Death intervened. It has been six months now. Lorena died too young and was deprived of a beautiful life. And I was deprived of the life I dreamt of. And I have cried a million tears. This year my parents invited me for Christmas. Hard to believe, I know. My parents are still alive. 90 and 99. And so I am here. Back in what they, and so many Americans, call the “greatest nation.” A couple of hours ago I went to get them a sandwich at Subway. Standing in below freezing weather was this woman. I sat in my car and watched as people came and went from the sandwich and neighboring shops with not one giving her a dime. I approached her and handed her some money. She asked God to bless me and I smiled and thanked her. And then the tears began. Not hers. Mine. I heard myself say, “I am so sorry. No one should have to live this way, to do what you are doing. Not here.” She put her sign...

During my first decade living in Mexico while still practicing law in the U.S., I wrote a column entitled “Me and Big Joe” that recounted my adventures with a 350-pound Mexican bodyguard, Big Joe, a lunatic psychopath with a serious grudge to settle. He was big and stupid, but loyal. I have republished a few of those stories here and I do so again today if only because I have spent the last three months writing only about grief, about pain. I am tired and I am sure you are, too. It is time to get back to The Front . . . March 3, 2008. 33,000 feet somewhere between LAX and Houston Intercontinental It ended like it began. Suddenly, no warning. The evil bastards who had told us from Day 1 they had a lock on the case just gave up. After six weeks of hand to hand combat, it ended with a whimper instead of a bang. When I was younger, and a lot stupider, I would demand they stand up and take it like a man, but years have taught me that hits, runs and errors are no different than a ...

There are not many people I converse with comfortably. Most want to talk about the past. Glory days. When they were an astronaut or got screwed in a real estate deal or made a lot of money because they were so shrewd. I don’t care about the past, Even my own. I used to talk politics and government until I concluded that we are irreversibly doomed. Which makes any discussion pointless. And stuff? Same problem. The jig’s up. More are learning the hard way that more and enough are different. We are pigs with the world’s resources are running low. The poor are petrified and the rich are ready to haggle over the ruins. The End. I also find it less than satisfying to talk about a future that most likely will never become the present. Wishful thinking. Which leaves the present. Here. Now. “You like your food?” “Want another drink?” “Are you still fucking Cindy?” Not “Did you fuck Cindy last month or do you intend to fuck Cindy next week, but ARE you fucking ...

What I would tell my 20 year old self if I could pass along what I know now. Make friends. Real friends. No more than a handful of people you would feel comfortable playing poker with over the phone. These are the people who will get on a plane in the middle of the night to come and bail you out of jail. If you are lucky, you might find three of these in your life. These are your real friends. If you ever get good at anything, make it reading people. It should take you no more than 30 seconds to know if someone is real or a pretender. Actually, you never really know, but if you stop thinking you will feel it. Learn to trust your feelings. Going out so you won’t be alone is waste of valuable time. It may keep you from being bored or it may make you feel important. But you are not important, so if you hang around with people who kiss your ass but don’t really mean anything to you, ask yourself “why?” Being alone is a fact. Being lonely is a decision. Stay debt free. Don’t owe anyone an...

I can’t remember a time in my life when the world appeared so close to Armageddon. Well, maybe once during the Cuban missile crisis of 1962. But I was a young boy then and didn’t really understand much except that I was made to crawl under my desk at school for reasons that were never explained. No one ever threatened to actually use their nukes, as I recall, but their sheer proximity was enough to laser focus an entire nation on that existential threat. Today, we face an authoritarian fascist with much more powerful weapons who openly threatens to use them. We also have climate change pointing to the extinction of life on earth, something unheard of during the happy days of the 60’s. Today, if you read the news, no one seems particularly concerned about the melting of the earth, either through nuclear war or the impact of greenhouse gases. Rather, most seem far more interested in the current meltdown of the stock market. While few know or care that a Russian first strike w...