Winter Sun was unloading its guitars, the Fender keyboard, PA speakers, and microphones into my Andover Street garage. It was about 3 a.m. and we had just done a free gig to benefit the Dore Street Garage, a woman’s auto repair collective. This all happened in San Francisco when feminism’s second wave was rising strong,… Read More

I grew up in rural New England and, altho my dad was a scientist who worked in Boston, I spent my school years in a small public school that embraced equal measures of college prep students and shop kids. Many of my friends were the sons and daughters of farmers and mechanics. Out of family… Read More

I had just returned from a tour of Alaska with a rock and roll band. It was June, 1980 and we were about to descend into the Reagan Era. The glow of the late 1960s had contracted into the dire and apocalyptic 70s and promised to flow headlong into Iran Contra. Our friend Carmelita, one… Read More

Asshole bosses often don’t realize they’re assholes because they’ve been assholes all their life. Like a frog who doesn’t grok that he or she is slowly parboiling in a pot of hot water, asshole bosses have usually been considered assholes since infancy. Consequently, most assholes develop early defenses to assure themselves that asshole behavior is… Read More

Ever lose somebody without saying goodbye? A friend goes off to war, he wasn’t drafted, he enlisted, it’s been awhile, you’ve gone in opposite directions. No rancor, just divergence, then gone. A girlfriend slides into her father’s car to drive home too late. You lean down, kiss her through the window. She’s so pretty, her… Read More

Then: Waiting in the railway crossing shack with the gate keeper, hoping for a Boston & Maine diesel to come along. Now: Wishing I could feel the earth shake as a steam locomotive rolled past with a full load of freight, throttle wide open to make the grade.   Then: Watching my mom crank the… Read More

I don’t keep much. Yes, stuff clutters my life but not from way back. Family things went into diaspora after my father died. My mother wisely refused to become the widow Degelman in our little New England town. She sold the house and left for New York University to begin a new life. My personal… Read More

I wrote this piece in 2016 for the Retro prompt Altered States. I hope you enjoy this '60s tale of a little white pill. — CD Read More

I was too short to play basketball. I wasn’t that great at baseball, although I love the game. Our little high school couldn’t afford a football team. Then along came soccer. Soccer was affordable and — so they thought — less dangerous than football. Soccer was perfect for me. I swam in summer and skied… Read More

Back in the early days of the Internet, I wrote for a short-lived interactive startup in Santa Monica. I was a practicing jazz musician at the time, so of course I needed the money. Before the interactive outfit folded I happily researched and wrote a brief musical history of Mozart, a jazz jukebox, a classical… Read More