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First Christmas on Canyon Creek Does your childhood have a place of magical meaning? For me, it was a mountain cabin my grandfather built near tiny Baxter in northern California. My dearest childhood memories trace to that cabin, and the creek that ran below it. Called Canyon...

The Whale It has been a year and the Hotel Laguna is still dead. There it sits like some rotting whale carcass. Stripped of anything of value and discarded as trash. The small scavengers nibble around the edges while the big carrion eaters ceaselessly circle, waiting for it to...

Magnificent Seven Plus One While everybody had their eyes on the northbound caravan getting closer to our southern border, a group of 13 immigrants landed a panga boat ashore at West Street Beach in South Laguna. In a cleverly executed rear guard action, seven of 13 illegal...

Read the Personals   CINDERELLA, IS THAT YOU?  I am a very lonely Prince Charming – owner of a designer women’s shoe salon. Older guy with hair and teeth searching for relationship with youngish woman –looks are not important (chemistry is). #IGotHotShoes   PROFESSOR – older...

Call Me Ishmael On the first page of “Moby Dick,” Herman Melville has Ishmael, the narrator of the tale, speak these words: “Whenever it is a damp, drizzly November in my soul…it was high time to get to sea.” He goes on to say, “Almost all men in their degree, sometime or other,...

The Granddaddy of Grifts In this week’s New York Times Magazine, journalist Nitsuh Abebe writes, “There are frauds and swindles and other crimes, and then there’s the ‘grift’ – a racket that, criminal or not, seems built to empty someone’s pocket. Grifters are the ones with flair...

A Day of Infamy Some dates are especially fraught with meaning—like today, Dec. 7. Forever linked to the attack on Pearl Harbor, President Franklin D. Roosevelt told Congress it would “live in infamy.”  Roosevelt’s prior speeches had been met by Democratic applause and Republican...

Laguna Beach has a Planning Commission, Design Review Board, and City Council that start out saying no to every new proposal while all too often ending up approving things they shouldn’t. There’s a citizenry that thinks Laguna should stay exactly the same and a herd of developers...

Good Times Coming The Pageant of the Masters has selected its 2019 theme. Stand still for it. Hold that pose. Ta da. Let’s hear it for “The Time Machine.” No. No. Stop clapping. Stay in character.  That’s better. No reaction. Ah, picture perfect. The Pageant of Masters director,...

Laguna Doing Its Part to Address Homelessness By Kelly Boyd, Outgoing Mayor of Laguna Beach On Nov. 5, federal district judge Andrew Guilford granted final approval of a settlement agreement between a class of disabled homeless individuals and the city of Laguna Beach, bringing...

Read the Personals NICE LITTLE BOAT – You can take her fishing and water skiing. Runs well. Neat, sweet, cheap. Come check her out; she’s in my pool. $3,000 or exchange for other seaworthy vessel. #DeBaitAble   BRANAHOUGAN Hilltop Hacienda – Big Holiday Sale – We have...

Show Us the Way How much do I like the Indy? I’ll tell you. I hired a neighbor kid to read the entire Indy into a cassette recorder. Now I can listen in my car about what’s going on around town while I’m driving hands-free around town. I feel like a detective following clues. The...

The Hot Blonde: Back by Popular Demand   Yeah, Petra waltzed in again to the Lumberyard, looking her usual smashing self: tight leather pants, 4-inch Christian Louboutin do-me pumps with red bottoms, a fur jacket she soon shed and a red sweater so thin you could almost see...

Orange is the New Blue If the definition of insanity is repeating the same thing over and over and expecting a different result, then I am certifiably nuts. For a year and a half I have awoken every morning, opened my news app, and looked for the three words “Mueller indicts...

Let There Be Lights When it comes to the many holidays celebrated in this country, my default disposition is often a combination of iconoclast and curmudgeon. With the coming of this holiday season, I had to struggle to keep these forces at bay. In late October I was walking down...