New Recovering The Self...

My Recovering The Self piece is up for September. I hope you enjoy it.

This month it's about running your own race and you can find it by clicking this link.

24-Hour Bite Me…

Here’s a secret: I hate 24-Hour Fitness Center. Wait… that’s not a secret. I really HATE 24-Hour Fitness Center.

The locations near me always smell. The bathrooms are never clean – sometimes, they’re not even functioning. The machines are always crowded or broken. It’s a fucking dump. They always have Faux News on the TV screens, no matter how nicely you ask them to change the channel!

That’s why I stopped going a couple of years back, because they were just ludicrous. The idea that I would drive far away to exercise at a place I hated going to – it led me to jogging and cycling in the real world. And, you know what? I love that! I have never once looked back!

But Vicky has insisted that I keep my membership. “You never know,” she says, as year after year passes and month of dues after month of dues gets thrown away.

Today, I just got sick of it and decided to cancel my membership. Turns out, you can’t cancel online. You have to call a special number… then, you have to hold… forever… And you have to listen to this insipid hold message about how you’re being provided excellent service – even though you’re obviously not – repeated over and over and over again! I held for 15 minutes before someone picked up…

… and hung up on me!

Mother fuck!

So, I called back. Then, I held for 30 minutes before someone picked up and asked, “Why are you cancelling today?” To which I replied, “If I didn’t have a reason before the nightmare of being on hold, I have one now.”

I don’t want to sound bitter but I hate those fucking cocksuckers….

A Hex To Save Rynia - Book One of the Sons of Rynia Trilogy - available now for all e-readers!...

Hey folks,

It's e-book release time again! Today sees the release of A Hex To Save Rynia, which is the first book of the forthcoming Sons of Rynia trilogy.

A Hex Upon Rynia was just the beginning. The Sons of Rynia trilogy kicks off with Tsurtor’s return, dragons, a conspiracy against the king, and a war-ravaged planet. When Hex is imprisoned back on Earth, will there be A Hex To Save Rynia?


You can find A Hex To Save Rynia for the Kindle on Amazon.com right here!
You can also find A Hex To Save Rynia for all e-readers through Smashwords right here!

I hope you enjoy it and hope you honor me with your kind reviews.

My place has always been in the theater…

I’ve been waiting weeks to make this big announcement, as strings were pulled and tied and cut and strung behind the scenes: I have been offered and have accepted the position of Literary Manager at Hunger Artists Theatre in Fullerton.

This is a great opportunity. Not only will it result in more of my work being produced but it also brings me back to my home: the theater.

As many of you know, I started acting in theater over thirty years ago and have flirted with it back and forth since then. Now, I’m back to act to work and, most of all, to write.

You’ll be hearing much more about Hunger Artists on this blog moving forward as this will be my new home. And hope it will remain so for a very long time.

So goes the microwave…

Our microwave oven died this weekend.

Actually, it may have begun its slow descent prior to that. Its death way a slow one and, I like to think, painless. The first signs were when it took me 10 minutes to nuke a burrito. After Vicky tried three bags of microwave popcorn until she realized it might not have been the popcorn that was the problem, we knew our microwave oven was doomed.

That’s when reality set in.

Before, we’d say, “Let’s go get a new microwave oven. They’re only like a hundred bucks. Let’s go get one.”

But with me being unemployed again, that changed into, “Wait a minute. What are we going to do? We can’t just go get another microwave oven. Those things are like a hundred bucks. We can’t afford that!”

The next day, I got a flat on my bike and used my last inner tube to fix it. Now, I can’t go cycling until I get a new tube – unless I really want to risk getting a flat. This morning, I found out the muffler on my car is shot.

Meanwhile – and, please, let me remind you again – I’m unemployed. I can’t so much as get an interview at Costco! (But, you know, here’s hoping…) I know Vicky deserves better than this but I there’s not a whole lot I can do. I already apply to every job I can find. On top of that, I’m scrambling to get more books online for sale, to get a play produced, to get publishers to notice me – I can’t do anything more.

I’m what you might call a victim of this shitty economy. And it sucks.

I have no real point to this, by the way. In case you’re wondering for the great reveal that gives the surprise ending – like “ta da”, I got a job – I don’t have one. I’m just feeling pretty shitty and I thought I’d share…

Once Upon a Fart...

Have you ever considered that at any given moment you're probably breathing in someone else's fart?

Think about it. If you're in an elevator with someone who farts, you're bound to do it.

If you're in a room with several people and one of them farts, you're going to do it.

If you're in a building with a hundred people and ten of them fart, it's inevitable.

In a world full of billions of people, each of them farting in an enclosed atmosphere... well, you're pretty much stuck doing it.

How's it feel? Does it feel good?

... pervert...

OC-Centric opens soon!...

In less than two weeks, OC-Centric (Orange County’s newest new play festival) opens at Chapman University. OC-Centric will feature my play, Myth of the Cubicle, along with several other fine works.
Be sure to buy your tickets soon! OC-Centric runs from 8/19 - 8/28!
The Myth of the Cubicle by Ken La Salle – In an absurd office of drones and burnouts, a young employee sees beyond the veil of illusion and tries to awaken his fellow wage slaves.

Greatest hits of Summer 2011…

Here I am, back from my month-long siesta!

I suppose I should start at the beginning with the biggest hits of the last month, those being when my car was hit and the subsequent hit to my head.

It’s not a long story. I was heading to the store one afternoon when I had to make a left-hand turn at an intersection, heading northbound to eastbound. I stopped at the red light and, when the light turned green, pulled into the intersection to start my turn. There was a UPS driver on the other side of the intersection and I was waiting to see if he was driving straight through or if he would turn left as well. Just then, out of the corner of my left eye, I saw a car blaze through the intersection coming westbound, past the other cars stopped at the light. I only had time to think, “He’s going to hit,” when the car slammed into the front of my Honda Civic at no less than 45 mph, taking off the front of my car before it slid to a stop with a broken front axle.

The impact slammed my head against the door frame and, for a second, I wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. A bystander named Cameron helped me out of my car and walked me to the curb. I wasn’t bleeding or broken but I was shaking badly. I could barely lie on the concrete before the shaking became uncontrollable. Still, I had the presence of mind to call Vicky and tell her, “I’ve been in an accident and I don’t think I’ll be driving away from it. Can you come get me?”

This is where things got funny, though not funny “ha ha”. The ambulance arrived after witnesses called 911 and checked the passengers of the other car, two old people in a Mercedes. After determining the old people were okay, the ambulance left. As the drivers boarded their car, I was so shocked they didn’t bother to ask if I was okay, I joked, “Thanks for stopping by!”

The police arrived to take statements and, again, rather than ask if I was okay – I was beginning to feel very nauseated at this point – one asked if I could move my car, which now lay in pieces in the middle of the intersection. Surprisingly, it was drivable, if barely. I moved it to the curb. The female cop taking the statements got statements from the two witnesses to the effect that the Mercedes ran the red light. I said the Mercedes ran the red light. With it being three to one against the other driver, you’d think…

Nope, the female cop came back and asked me, “Why were you running the red light?”

“I wasn’t,” I told her, giving my statement again.

She went back to the old people in the Mercedes and, when she returned to me, insisted, “Well, it’s clear you ran the red light.” And I insisted again that I hadn’t, reminding her that the two witnesses supported my side of the story. At this point, she gave up and just sneered at me.

The Mercedes and my Honda were both towed away and Vicky took me home, insisting that I should have gone to the hospital. At this point, I was hurting quite a bit and nauseated so I agreed that Vicky could ask my doctor what was best at this point. My doctor said I should go to the hospital.

Off we went. At St. Joseph, I was feeling increasingly disoriented to the point where they had to put me into a wheelchair and (according to Vicky’s account) I pretty much lost it. I became completely disoriented, which prompted the hospital to check me in pretty fast. Back to the ER, I was wheeled and over the course of several hours was given CT scans and X-Rays and lots and lots of meds. I left there with prescriptions for more meds and the knowledge that I had suffered a concussion and soft tissue damage. (My doctor would later refer to this as “thousands of microscopic tears in your muscles”.)

The long and the short of it was that I wasn’t going to be getting up for a few days and, when I did, it was a couple of weeks before I was moving at anything approaching normal. After a bit, Vicky and I went to get the police report because, dammit, I wanted to sue the bastards who had hit me. I’m not usually prone to lawsuits; I’ve only done it once in my life. But when I found out how obviously the passengers in the Mercedes had lied, saying it was my fault, all I could think was that I wanted to see them punished.

The other driver was not cited for anything. Apparently, cops can only cite if they witness the infraction – no matter how many witnesses support the claim. When did this start? Sounds pretty fucked up to me. So, basically, you can kill a guy and never get arrested if a cop doesn’t see it??? I’m calling bullshit! But that’s what the cops said to us. So, fine. But I wanted to take these bastards to court and get some satisfaction!

And this is where things got funnier… and no, no “ha ha”… I couldn’t find a single lawyer who would pursue taking the driver to court because he was a liar or for pain and suffering, which I had plenty of! No, the best I could find was a lawyer who would sue for medical expenses, a few thousand dollars. So, basically, these guys have lied and are going to get away with it. It really pisses me off!

Anyway, fortunately for me, I had no permanent injuries that I know about. I’m jogging again and, once enough time passes for me to be sure I… no, wait… for Vicky to be sure I’m over the concussion, I can cycle again. So, at least, there’s that.

I can promise you, though, that if I had gone through a red light or if I had lied – two things I do not do – I would have had my license taken away. I would have been put in jail. I would have had my sorry ass sued.

There really is no justice sometimes.