Light Skin Atone

Well, I warned her. September 1992. I was in Munich for the only reason I ever went to Europe, the sonofabitchin’ Holocaust. My traveling companion Tina and I had just concluded two weeks in Poland, and now we were in the heart of Bavaria, where I was scheduled to give a talk. I was in our ...

Boston Common

Oh, What a Tangled Weave We Weld

Autumn 1986 I attended an exhibit at the California Institute of the Arts. I wasn’t there for the “art”; CalArts exhibits were (and are) for the pretentious hipster crowd, not for guys like me who love mocking the pretentious hipster crowd. But a former high school friend invited me, and I ...

Hidden Hand Job

You know who probably got more tail than anyone in history? The first dude who was able to predict a solar eclipse. Think about it. “Today I shall blot the sun from the sky! If you wish to escape eternal darkness, send me all your virgins to favor me with pleasure! And a few older, experienced ...

Special-Needs Nation

When I’m asked why I never had kids, my standard answer is, I’ve spent my life in mortal fear of being tethered to another human in a manner from which I can’t legally walk away if I choose. That’s an honest answer, but it’s not the complete one. The second part, which I always leave ...

Purge and Cleanse, No Loose Ends

It’s a tradition ’round these parts (and by “these parts” I mean my desktop, comfy chair, and rum bottle) to end December by cleaning house of interesting bits and pieces I didn’t get to use during the year. Normally, this housecleaning consists of unused back-and-forths with journalists ...

Duane Jones

I Woked With a Zombie

My Christmas gift to myself this year is a column about zombie movies. I’ve been wanting to do this one since October, when it was announced that Night of the Living Dead is getting a woke remake by something named Nikyatu Jusu, which I thought was a martial art but turns out it’s a scowling ...

Treading Water With Bimbos and Bilkers

This week, I present the parable of the bimbo Kansan. Bambi Bimbo leaves her Midwestern homestead to come to Hollywood. With her tight ass, toned tummy, pert breasts, and button nose, all her life she’s been told by her kin in Kickenschitt, Kansas, that she’s destined to be up thar on that ...

Overton Window to the Soul

One of the frustrations of writing a weekly column is that sometimes you wrap a piece, post it, and that very day the Special Olympians of public discourse provide fodder you wish you’d been able to include. I’d just finished writing about the lunacy of rightists who see in Kanye West a ...

Ron DeSantis

Right Wacks Off, Goes Blind

I don’t live by a lot of rules (“socks first, then shoes” is one I find helpful. You’re welcome). But here’s a rule I appreciate more as I get older: Stupid and crazy are traits best avoided. I can hear you saying, “Dave, that seems obvious.” But you’re wrong, oh imaginary reader. ...

Midterm for the Worse, Part III: Disjoin or Die

Last week I was watching Tammy Bruce on Fox, and...hey, is she still a lesbian? That used to be her thing, right? Whatever happened with that? Tammy Bruce’s lesbianism was like Bobcat Goldthwait’s screaming: It was never interesting, but it was at least distinguishing. So there’s Bruce, the ...