YOU AND YOUR BEER AND HOW GREAT YOU ARE by Charles Bukowski

You and Your Beer by Charles Bukowski

YOU AND YOUR BEER AND HOW GREAT YOU ARE by Charles Bukowski Jack came through the door and found the pack of cigarettes on the mantle. Ann was on the couch reading a copy of Cosmopolitan. Jack lit up, sat down in a chair. It was ten minutes to midnight. “Charley told you not to smoke,”…

The Ransom of Red Chief by O. Henry

I was thinking the other day I don’t have near enough O. Henry. in fact, I don’t have any. Time to fix that. Why not start with one of his best stories, the Ransom of Red Chief. The story first appeared in the July 6, 1907 issue of The Saturday Evening Post. It has been…

Death Bed Jerry

Death Bed Jerry

But there was no stopping Brother Jerry when he set his mind to something. He could hear his people as they started singing down below. First, just the soft whisper of a tune; but then, as more people joined in, it was almost like a church choir. It was time for a song … I…

California Sober

With special guest star, Chemise Lacoste. Also, special guest appearances by Ted Handsome and Fletch…   My last acid trip: it wasn’t good. In fact, it was a total disaster. California sober, my ass. I had just come from the Grateful Dead concert and was having so much fun I wasn’t ready to come down yet.…

My Next Dream Vacation

My Next Dream Vacation

I’ve already begun planning my next dream vacation, and it’s all because of just one little-ole oatmeal raisin cookie. Let me explain. To begin with, there was nothing little about that cookie. It was a big cookie, a Big Fat oatmeal raisin cookie. As big as the moon! I didn’t even know I like oatmeal…

Dead Head Neighbor Jerry Garcia

Dead Head Neighbor

Who here hasn’t ever had to confront the loud neighbor? In my day, I was exactly that neighbor. Then I discovered the Grateful Dead. There goes the neighborhood…  “Hey,” said the man to his neighbor. “Just two songs. real quick. I promise.” “Sure,” she said. No problem. Just two songs” At 4am she was pounding…

2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

2BR02B by Kurt Vonnegut Jr. was originally published in the digest magazine If: Worlds of Science Fiction in January 1962. Everything was perfectly swell. There were no prisons, no slums, no insane asylums, no cripples, no poverty, no wars. All diseases were conquered. So was old age. Death, barring accidents, was an adventure for volunteers. The…

Can I Come In?

by Sentimentally Philly… About every twenty years or so I find myself cruising by the little three-bedroom house where I grew up. The idea is that all those wonderful memories will come rushing through like some time machine, transporting me to the glory days of my youth. It never quite pans out that way though,…

HARRISON BERGERON by Kurt Vonnegut, Jr.

THE YEAR WAS 2081, and everybody was finally equal. They weren’t only equal before God and the law. They were equal every which way. Nobody was smarter than anybody else. Nobody was better looking than anybody else. Nobody was stronger or quicker than anybody else. All this equality was due to the 211th, 212th, and…