Culture, San Francisco, Poetry, Music, Reviews, Short Stories and Life
I write at www.thepaltrysum.com
As the aftershocks hit Tokyo from the Big One, I put on REM and laughed to myself. OK, so it wasn’t a big brave belly laugh, more a freaked out high pitched giggle, but I grabbed the kids hands and danced the around the shaking living room and we laughed and danced and sung. Pig […]
MoreThere is a lot of empty housing in San Francisco – there is plenty of vacant stock, but rental prices are holding firm and have risen slightly, despite the exodus from the city. I understand that the buy to let scam has encouraged hugely inflated prices, and minimum rentals as dictated by mortgage companies at […]
MoreBy all accounts Townes Van Zandt was a difficult person when he was drinking, which was much of the damn time. The trouble with living a solitary life cut off from the rest of society, no friends close by, no roots or links is that the people you read and you listen to become your […]
MoreDear Son, On the day that you were born you made everything alright. I had temporarily managed to get away from your father. He had beaten me up so badly when I was a few months pregnant with you, and I decided to run with your sister and take the consequences. So we ran. I […]
MoreI survived torture which left permanent injuries on my body and soul. I survived attempts on my life by my husband over years. I survived years of rapes. I survived loss. I survived an abusive adoptive family. I survived five years of living on the road and in campsites and forests. I survived heroin. I […]
MoreOh baby, I’m sick of you! Lou’s boogie woogie roars out of the speakers, as he peddles sarcasm and laconic coolness, Baby, bye bye! It would have struck me as amusing if I could have found the strength or interest, instead I lifted my eyes off the floor and tried to fix my jittering eyeballs […]
MoreLast time I was in NYC I was younger. I was not a mother, I was not who I am now. My New York was CBGB’s and Battery Park scores. Jazz clubs and Greenwich Village bars. My New York had my one and only Jewish boyfriend – as much of a freak as me, and […]
MoreHunter S Thompson once said that he hoped he would be the only journo ever to do Gonzo. When he said this, Gonzo was barely defined – the usage predates the Muppet Gonzo, and was used first to describe a piece Hunter had written on the Kentucky Derby called The Kentucky Derby is Decadent and […]
MoreOh Danny Boy, the Pipe the Pipe is calling From the heart of Geary all the way to The Powell Station steps. Summer is knocking and all your friends Are crying, and those not dead Will be a-dying yet. I hear your name drift in through my window Some man is calling for you out […]
More