I grew up in Long Beach, California. My mother and siblings still live there. Several nieces, too. I haven’t lived in the city since 2009, and have not spent a lot of time in it since 1976, but it remains my hometown, and I have the Long Beach State baseball cap to prove it. Which […]

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When considering the industries and local businesses that mostly disappeared, ahead of the 21st century, I tend to focus on newspapers. That’s what I did for a living: Newspapering. Papers were important to readers, back in an era when not everyone was online, and they made a lot of money for their owners. Also, journalists […]

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The Los Angeles Angels play at Angel Stadium of Anaheim. Doesn’t mean they really want to. Also doesn’t mean they will be moving somewhere else anytime soon. Why are we talking about this? Because the mayor of Long Beach says the seaside city is in talks with the Angels about the club relocating to a […]

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I graduated from Long Beach State. There. I said it. Not everyone is keen to let the world know they attended Long Beach State. It is a real school, for sure, with more than 31,000 undergrads. But it is not known for academic excellence. It is ranked 26th among “regional universities West” by U.S. News. […]

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And another mascot bites the dust. The Forty-Niner mascot sometimes known as Prospector Pete was 86’d yesterday by the president of the California university most commonly known as Long Beach State. Activists from the school’s faculty and student body had agitated for the ousting of the Forty-Niner mascot on the grounds of genocide perpetrated on […]

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Long Beach Poly has one of Southern California’s top prep football programs. The school has won 19 regional championships at the top level of competition and has sent more than 60 players to the NFL and hundreds to college football. But this year Long Beach Poly does not have enough kids out for football to […]

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I’ve never really had winter clothes. Because I always lived in places that either were temperate or Just Plain Hot. Long Beach, then the Inland Empire, then Abu Dhabi. But here in Europe, in France, we can go weeks (!) without a single minute in the 60-degree (Fahrenheit) range in December, January, February. Granted, it’s […]

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So says the sports media department at my alma mater, which currently is ranked No. 11 in the nation by the NCAA. That’s a pretty prominent spot for a program which often struggles to separate itself from the NCAA masses. In any sport. By the calculations of the PR guys there, Long Beach State baseball […]

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Let’s get right to it. A recent example from the irreverent/spiky/pissed-off/influential wine blog of my childhood friend Ron Washam: There are too many f***ing wineries. Why do we need so many wineries? Really. All of you who are planning to start a winery some day, or your own label, DON’T! You’re not that good at […]

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For the past seven years, I dreaded the winter solstice. Now, however, I am happy to see it, considering what it represents.

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