Talk to Your Doctor Again

Talk to Your Doctor Again

I have been watching a new direct to consumer drug ad recently that reminds me of a spoof article I wrote a few years ago. The new ad is for a drug called upadacitinib which goes by the brand name Renvoq. The amazing thing is that the commercial actually includes a...
Grits Redux

Grits Redux

My mouth is watering already for the food I will relish at the Great 48 event this January in Bakersfield. Bakersfield is one of the few places in California where you can get good grits because the town is populated with so many descendants of Okie migrants who went...
Cave Music

Cave Music

Acoustic music has a special resonance in certain places. I remember one time hiking through the Armstrong Redwoods near my home in Sonoma County and hearing a flutist playing in the hollowed-out stump of an old redwood tree. You could tell he enjoyed the special...
Flood

Flood

Hurricane Helene dealt a devastating blow to the heartland of bluegrass and Appalachian mountain music last week. I grew up in the foothills of the Blue Ridge Mountains and I remember well the devastation Hurricane Camille caused in 1969 when it pounded the mountains...
The Letter

The Letter

Technology has made so many things obsolete during the years of our industrial revolution. The traditional letter may be one of the next things on the list of obsolescence: If only I could hear just one little word From Mother and Daddy, my heart would fill with cheer...
World Bluegrass Day

World Bluegrass Day

Every October first, people celebrate World Bluegrass Day. It happens this Tuesday but unfortunately you don’t get the day off. Often the date coincides with the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival here in northern California so you might want to take the day off...