NOVELIST · Columnist · TV/Film Writer-Producer · RADIO HOST
18189703607
Radio Host · Columnist · TV/Film Writer-Producer · Event Emcee
The bad news is the American middle class is shrinking. The worse news is the average American’s middle is growing. At the same time incomes are going down, waistlines are going up.The Pew Research Center crunched Census Bureau numbers and found in 203 out of 229 metropolitan areas, including Los Angeles, the percentage of households qualifying as “middle class” fell since the turn of the millennium. In places like Midland, Texas, it’s actually good...
Read MoreI’m big with criminals.Occasionally I get letters from prison. Sometimes a letter will come from the county clink and sometimes I get mail from one of California’s popular state penitentiaries. So this might be a case of biting the hand that feeds me.Last week, Karol Mason, the Assistant U.S. Attorney General told The Washington Post that the Justice Department would no longer use the terms “felon” and “convict” when referring to felons...
Read MoreAttention Mexican flag-waving, cop-car rocking, bottle-throwing anti-Trump protesters; The Donald thanks you. Donald Trump’s horrible rise to the top of the GOP heap has been zipping along on two separate but co-equal tracks: a.) he’s clearly the front-runner to be the nominee of the Republican Party and b.) He’s guaranteed to lose in November. Not just lose, get slaughtered.Every poll in every demographic in all 50 states indicates Trump will be...
Read MoreThe Wife and I are not particularly neat people. While our personal hygiene is beyond reproach, we have a habit of stacking things in piles around the house and forgetting about them. Dry cleaning has been known to hang on doorknobs for days (weeks) at a time. Old copies of this newspaper tend to collect on my side of the bed, and The Wife hasn’t actually seen the surface of her desk since the first round of the 2014 NBA finals.Throw in two shedding cats and a warren of...
Read MoreI actually opened up the back of the TV cabinet and successfully installed The Wife’s new Amazon Fire TV device. What, you ask, is Amazon Fire TV? I have no idea. But that’s not the point. The point is I actually hooked up a digital device and it works! This is an unprecedented event in my home. For those of you under 35 this might seem like bragging about exhaling, but that’s my brontosaurus parked outside, so cut me some slack. Having grown up with rabbit...
Read MoreThe S.S. Trump, the once unsinkable juggernaut, is taking on water after a series of self-inflicted torpedoes that have made the most unlikely presidential front-runner a little less likely.If Donald Trump never gets to “make America great again”, the week ending the day after April Fool’s Day will be the one historians point to as his Waterloo.Once again the chattering class claims Trump has “gone too far.” I’m not so sure. He’s...
Read MoreShamu is now taboo.After fighting off PR blow after PR blow, including CNN’s relentless airings of a damning documentary, “Blackfish”, alleging all kinds of mistreatment and cruelty, SeaWorld Entertainment, Inc.’s CEO Joel Manby threw in the towel, announcing the famed marine park would end it’s captive breeding program and phase out all live Orca shows sending 29 killer whales to the unemployment line.SeaWorld surrendered. For the...
Read MoreDuring last week’s Democratic debate in Florida, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders engaged in a can-you-top-this contest to see who could win the most votes by further weakening our already phantom border security.Both candidates pledged to end deportations of “hard working immigrant families” while Mrs. Clinton made a particular point of ridiculing Republican front-runner Donald Trump’s proposed “big beautiful wall” on our southern border.
Read More“Swordfish!”Every Marx Brothers fan knows the password is always “Swordfish.” That was the magic word that got Groucho, Harpo, Chico and yes, even Zeppo, into a speakeasy in “Horse Feathers” way back in 1932.That password I can remember. If only I could remember any of the 8,000 passwords I need to navigate 2016’s digital universe. From my various e-mail accounts to corporate portals and Netflix queues, the world...
Read MoreI told myself I wasn’t going to look. But like a gruesome six-car pileup on the 405 when it finally came time for last week’s GOP debate in Houston, I peeked.At first it was just a quick glance. Then I stared, transfixed and horrified that one of those characters could actually be our next president. The herd has been thinned from the early days of the campaign when there were more candidates than voters. Undoubtedly the lineup will be trimmed again after 11...
Read MoreI heard them coming before I looked up, the distinctive thwap, thwap, thwap of rotor blades slicing through an unusually warm February sky. A conga line of helicopters heading west to east could mean only one of two things; either the Medfly has returned and we’re about to be sprayed with malathion or President Obama had another guest shot on “Ellen.” The Entertainer-in-Chief is a regular on America’s talk show circuit and, therefore, a frequent visitor to...
Read MoreIt’s official: Crime really does pay.Americans have bellyached forever about “those SOBs in Washington we pay to rob us blind!” Last week the Washington City Council flipped the script and approved a plan that will pay people not to commit crimes.Modeled on a 2010 Richmond, California, program, D.C.’s “Neighborhood Engagement Achieves Results Act” will, among other things, pay 50 individuals up to $9,000 a year to not rape, rob, murder...
Read MoreFrom Porter Ranch to Flint, from Ferguson, Missouri to the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences in Beverly Hills, America is in the midst of a gigantic national temper tantrum. To paraphrase Marlon Brando’s famous line from “The Wild One”: “What’re you mad about, America?” “Whaddya got?” The rage is palpable. We’re foaming at the mouth over just about everything; from micro-aggressions to trigger warnings, mass shootings to global warming, digital displacement to income inequity, White privilege to Black Lives Matter, anti-vaxxers, Truthers, Birthers, “Feel the Bern”, “Make America Great Again”, HITLER!
Read MoreI’ve never been the lucky type. I had exactly zero winning numbers in last week’s Powerball jackpot drawing. Instead of 8, 27, 34, 4, 19, 10 my ticket read L, O, S, E, R, !. And I’m okay with that. After a lifetime of calling tails only to have the coin come up heads, I harbor few allusions I’ll ever strike it rich on a 292 million to 1 shot. I haven’t been to Vegas in years. My March Madness brackets always bust. During last year’s Mets/Royals World Series I had $20 on Cleveland. However, after last week’s stock market plunge I’m seriously re-thinking my financial strategy. On Friday the markets dropped another
Read MoreThis Thanksgiving we have more to reflect upon than simple gratitude. We’re in the 14th consecutive year of war.After the epochal attacks on the 11th day of September 2001, the United States was forced to confront a painful truth: a portion of the Islamic world hates us. They don’t hate us like Dodgers fans hate Giants fans. They hate us in a foaming-at-the-mouth, maniacal, psychotic way. They hate us so much they aspire to murder and die while murdering.
Read More