Most read stories

Kazooed

19821982 views88 comments77 favs

"I've been on eight blind dates in three days," she tells me. I can't quite work the math out, but somehow the combination of her wildly undulating eyebrows and harsh vocal tone manage to convince me."I can play the kazoo," I tell her. It's my one saving grace--the thing…

Lesson 38

19811981 views1414 comments33 favs

You have a house (plural, as in Spain)

The Tombwatcher's Tale

19811981 views22 comments11 fav

My name is Lu-chen Wyatt, and I have watched this tomb for seven years with undying loyalty. Tomorrow I am going away, and I wish to set down the story of my leaving and to say goodbye to Set-Yi, whose burial place has been my home for so long.

Novel excerpt: "Home Cure"

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He picked up the bottle of gin, looked at it. "Not a lot left," he said. "There's enough," she replied. She took the bottle and lifted it to her lips. "Are you ready?" she asked. "For what?" "You'll see."

I've Got a Secret

19811981 views1818 comments1212 favs

There's a man sitting in my room holding a jar of my ashes. That's what he claims.

Juggernauts

19811981 views1111 comments88 favs

They are always there. Stoic and steady.

Hobos: Paris vs. San Francisco

19811981 views77 comments22 favs

French pee runs stronger, less minty. In France the world' a pissoir.

Yakkety-Yak

19811981 views33 comments33 favs

Last night, the station played me a dream of sexual promiscuity that included -- but was not limited to -- imaginative acts involving....

You are beautiful just the way you are

19811981 views66 comments66 favs

There were avocados splayed across menus like 1950′s pinup girls–all thigh and curve. Avocados in California omelets. Avocados split and diced, sprayed with lime, slapped on bagels, served with tomato.

If I Was A Bum

19811981 views33 comments00 favs

If I was a bum I’d risk everything for a drink or a smoke I would beg and curse and steal if I was a bum If I was a bum I would cuss out the Pope I would not vote for anyone because I would know truly they’d be telling gross lies

The Violinist

19811981 views1313 comments1111 favs

Max leads the parade up the hill. He is sawing on his violin, wearing nothing but a raincoat.

I'm Dying! And I Didn't Make The Bed!

19811981 views1111 comments99 favs

Five years ago, on January 15, 2009, Flight 1549 took off for Charlotte, North Carolina and, 3 minutes later, made an emergency landing in the Hudson River, with no serious harm to anyone but the geese who caused the problem. (They were liquefied into something…

Traum

19801980 views1010 comments55 favs

Over our short, yet enduring relationship, I found that he was desperately trying to reconcile his ambitions with his situation. I left and he continued to be unhappy, trying to "fix" what he now realized had been broken all along. In the end, a span of a

The Urine Pearls

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“No, dad, I've never seen urine colored pearls.”

Purple IV

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Purple not rain! I guess Prince left. It is said that Prince owned the aquifer under Jordan, Minnesota, and that he sold it but to whom? And moved to Canada—

lament of Liu Ch'e . . . while elsewhere--

19801980 views77 comments66 favs

in her silk sleeves is silence sheathed.

Where Is Daddy?

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He checks the bedrooms first, then the hallway, followed by the living room and the bathrooms. When he can't find you he takes to calling out, daddy, I'm sure the neighbors hear.

True Vocation

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After lunch it's vocal coaching: shrieking, screaming, crying Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!-Oh-my-God!, panting and face fanning. Next it's ‘situational training', where we pretend to be audience members on real talk shows and practice everything we've learned th

The Little Dog from Outer Space

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I looked at her, shook my head and tried to smile. She smiled back, beaming a radiance that pushed away the chill.

A Broken Ankle, Canasta, and a Weirdly Sexy Jesus Sighting

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nothing can stop a group of genteel Southern women from a card game, and divine intervention makes one's participation in such an event quite worthwhile

The Tree

19801980 views1212 comments88 favs

No fuckin' way, Maude. Excuse me, but you know I can't stand that bag of wind. No way.

Migratory Mistakes

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Unadorned tragedies pinpoint the worst angles of the road; simple crosses or bouquets line boulders painted with car crash smoke or skid marks that tiptoe to the edge of cliffs and then, apparently, leap.

Monster Truck

19801980 views33 comments33 favs

In another lifetime the loft had been a shoe factory and I joked how in the dark of night I could hear the ghosts of lost soles speaking in tongues. There was the rolling of eyes, and when I repeated the joke to my therapist, who was actually sitting acr

Dick Be Gone

19801980 views33 comments22 favs

One thing about being a musician—more specifically a drummer—struggling against the cost of living—more specifically the cost of living in the Bay Area—is that I will do just about anything to earn money.

Golgotha

19801980 views22 comments00 favs

They were starting to get winded. The boy, his father and his little brother were hiking up a hill, cutting a diagonal path through hay-colored grass towards an outcrop of craggy boulders below the hill's summit.

The Sky-What Limit?

19801980 views00 comments00 favs

Lighter-than-air flight was back. The skies of the coast were alight with colorful balloons, dirigibles, and zeppelins tethered to their docking towers along the beach, the huge aircraft bobbing in the breeze up and down the coast for miles,…

Three Network News Ledes on the Death of Jimmy Buffet

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“He spent four lonely days in a brown L.A. haze, and now Jimmy Buffet is dead.” —Brian Williams, NBC Nightly News “Jimmy Buffet—beloved parrot-head singer-songwriter—has given up his search for that lost shaker of salt. He…

A Chaos Theory

19791979 views00 comments00 favs

—with spinster goddesses in the middle of things / circling looms.

The Paris American

19791979 views44 comments22 favs

He returned to America on the Fourth of July. Twisting in his cramped window seat miles above the Atlantic, he buckled up before the descent. “You can handle this,” he muttered. Hungover, still reeling from the dreamy head-turning experience of…

Stumptown Mary

19791979 views22 comments11 fav

so one time the Holy Ghost come down to Stumptown