My latest novel, “Seamless Sky,” published by JMS Books in January, will be serialized by the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals next week and in WAG magazine, their sister publication, in September.

A not so distant mirror of challenging times

July 30, 2020

Challenging times call for creative measures – and so it is that newspapers, purveyors of factual truth, have joined forces with fiction writers, purveyors of psychological truth, in the hope of expanding their readership and providing that readership with an escape from the grim news of the day.

On Sunday, July 12, The New York Times devoted its entire magazine to fiction. And the Boston Globe recently serialized Ben Mezrich’s “The Mechanic,” a novella, the Globe said, “with a strong Boston accent.”

I’m delighted that Dee DelBello — publisher of the Westchester and Fairfield County Business Journals and of WAG magazine, which I edit — has decided to serialize my latest novel, “Seamless Sky,” published in January by JMS Books, in the business journals next week and in WAG in September.

Is one man’s Playboy another’s Picasso?

February 23, 2016

You wouldn’t think that literature had much in common with pornography but indulge me, will you?

Recently, the California porn industry objected to a proposal for stiffer – probably not the best choice of words here – regulations.

“I see what I do as my art,” actress Lily Cade told the California Occupational Safety and Health Standards Board. “And in the past, throughout history, art has been persecuted.”

Such self-deluded statements give me a chuckle. Art is about psychological truth no matter how realistic or unrealistic it is. Whereas the hyper-realistic pornography suggests that if you could be this super-sexed person – or have this super-sexed person – you’d be happy. And how true is that? ...

On nature and human nature: American Pharoah and San Bernardino

December 3, 2015

Is it right to talk about Sports Illustrated’s controversial nomination of American Pharoah for Sportsman of the Year at a time when there are so many lost souls and unanswered questions amid the mass shooting of a facility for the disabled in San Bernardino, Calif.?

I think it’s relevant. We are divided from nature, of which we are apart, in part because we are divided in our own human nature.

There are two types of people who misunderstand nature. The first doesn’t care about it and ranges from those who toss the ice cream pop wrapper out the car window onto the highway to those who abuse animals. ...

The Supremes’ greatest hits – gay marriage, affordable health care

June 26, 2015

We live in interesting times. Yesterday the Supreme Court upheld the Affordable Care Act, 6-3. Chief John Roberts, you’re my new hero. This is actually the second time you’ve saved Obamacare, so I’m playing Britney Spears “Oops!...I Did It Again” just for you.

But then… you lose points for voting against gay marriage (5-4 in favor though, yeah!) and then there was that whole Aztec reference – a slippery slope, don’t you think? The Aztecs believed in ripping out the beating hearts of the conquered and the sacrificed and donning their eviscerated skins. I wouldn’t go there. ...

Awesomely athletic August

August 7, 2014

Summertime and the livin’ is supposed to be easy. (Thank you, Ira Gerswhin.) But for athletes and sports fans, there is no rest for the weary.

First, Phelpte (as in the Michael Phelps-Ryan Lochte rivalry) is back in action at the USA Swimming national long-course championships in Irvine, Calif., which will determine next year’s team for the world championships. They were slated to face-off four times, including Wednesday night’s 100-meter freestyle event.

The story lines go something like this: Phelps was bored in retirement and is glad to be back. Lochte – who turned 30 Aug. 3, Happy Birthday, Ryan! – moved to Charlotte, N.C., where he’s acquired a new coach and a new maturity, which should be music to fans’ ears. We’ll see how his newfound maturity and Phelps’ newfound hunger for swimming pan out.

Tonight, Colin Kaepernick leads the San Francisco 49ers into M&T Bank Stadium to meet the Baltimore Ravens for a nationally televised game that’s a rematch of Super Bowl XLVII. I am so there (i.e., in front of the tube) for this.

I wish I could be there (as in Cleveland) Friday for the start of the Gay Games (through Aug. 16), which always take place the same year as the Winter Olympics. But at least “Water Music,” my new novel about four gay athletes and how their professional rivalries color their personal relationships, will be there...