I’ve always thought of the world of alternative lifestyles as a mixed bag. And why wouldn’t I, since it runs the gamut from pragmatic to lunatic. Me, I’m a guy who checks things out, reserves judgment, and then picks and chooses. But some things I’ll dismiss from the get-go, ...

As much as I like to shmooze, Compass Printing is NOT the place I do it. Don’t get me wrong. It’s not that I don’t like the people there — I do. But there are two good reasons why it’s a No Shmooze Zone. First, they’re always busy. Breanna, their point person, is fun to chat ...

It was that time of the year again. Or more exactly, that time of the HALF year — time for my six-month checkup at the office of Terrible Tony Tramontano. In case you don’t know, Terrible Tony is the head hustler at his cardiology practice at our hospital. At least he’s the head ...

I’m sure there are lots of people my age who are perfectly in tune with the 21st century. But I’m not one of them. It’s the new technologies that done laid me to waste, advancing light years in mere decades and leaving me in the dust. Luckily, I don’t need most of it, so I don’t ...

Last week I wrote about the difficulty of telling Clair Bovee a joke. To be more precise, it’s easy to tell her a joke — it’s just almost impossible to make her laugh. Not that she lacks a sense of humor — she has a great one. But therein lies the difficulty, because she only laughs ...

My Sundays are as ritualized as a medieval monk’s. Of course, my rituals are radically different from theirs. I don’t pray, meditate or painstakingly copy manuscripts. Nor do I sing Gregorian chants, tend to a grape arbor or trim my tonsure. And best of all, I don’t subsist on black ...