“You can check out anytime you like but you can never leave,” the Eagles said. Whenever I stay at a hotel, even for a night or two, I get a funny feeling just before I leave that I have forgotten something. I check all the drawers, even though I know Read More…
Perhaps the most groundbreaking role of my acting career came when I was 17. Having already performed the role of a jail-breaking piglet some years previously, when I succeeded in landing the role of Janice the giant talking chicken from New York City in a stage adaptation of “George’s Marvelous Read More…
There’s no place like home. There’s no place like home. There’s no place like… whatever, Dorothy. You’d better not wear those shoes to a Cal-Stanford game. But that smug Kansas kid had one thing right. Wherever you are, whatever you do, the pull of your home is inexorable. We carry Read More…
“They fuck you up, your mum and dad. / They may not mean to, but they do. / They fill you with the faults they had / And add some extra, just for you.” So says renowned English poet Philip Larkin in his poem “This Be The Verse.” When my Read More…
The optimist sees the donut. The pessimist sees the hole. The cynic asks why anyone would give out free donuts in the first place. The opportunist grabs the donut and runs. The pessimist always saw that coming. The optimist hopes it will all work out for the best. While everyone else eats Read More…
This Saturday is March 17, known worldwide as St. Patrick’s Day, or “the day when you can start drinking before noon and still retain some level of social acceptance” in Ireland. My liver is cowering in fear and I’m getting just a little bit homesick, especially now that it’s raining Read More…
I got 99 (champagne) problems and Monday’s political columnist Casey Given is one. It has only recently struck me that The Daily Californian’s only political columnist possesses an ideological mindset that is far from mainstream. Rhetoric major Casey is so eloquent that, up until recently, I found myself nodding in agreement Read More…
My mother is a doctor. On a few occasions in my life — in restaurants, on planes or on the side of the street — we have come across someone who has fallen, fainted or had some kind of accident. Concerned and curious people swarm around the injured person until Read More…
Sometimes, when I’m feeling rich and getting sick of cutting my own hair, I go to the hairdresser. In order to avoid the awkwardness that naturally results from the experience of a total stranger touching your head while you stare back at them from the mirror, I flick through the Read More…
Please sir, can I have some more?” Oliver Twist was just a small, blonde, English orphan with an empty metal bowl and a big dream. He ran out of gruel. He wanted more. So do I, and so, I postulate, do you. Allow me to explain. Is it Thursday already? Read More…
