State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing On the evening of November 25 I stood in our condo complex driveway and stared like a Cro-Magnon Dimwit at the fire sweeping the […]
December Song (A Healthy Search for Sanctity)
State Street Scribe
Zanti Love Song
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I am a jug-eared jackanape of 7 years old. My close-cropped air force brat haircut reveals a misshapen head like a lopsided jelly bean. […]
Hot Pig in the City
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing When the invitation arrived we were excited by one of its particulars. The hosts, our dear old friends the Smiteepupps (names have been changed […]
Lit! Squire Foundation and SB Public Market Offer Proust-While-You-Wait
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Francis Ford Coppola—writer, director, producer, Brando-wrangler—is a raving fan of the short story. In 1997 (for instance) he launched the much-garlanded literary and art […]
Once Upon Our Time
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing It’s said that in all the vast panoply of living things on Earth, only the human animal is conscious of the fact that death […]
Hurt. Burn. Sting. Love. The Mystery of Forward Motion
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Oh the memories. Look at this grand old photo. Once upon a time! Me clutching a baseball glove! Under that sweet baseball cap there […]
John Ferriter’s Unlikely Detour Into Global Showbiz Domination
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Yeah, it’s a weird scene. A young Santa Barbara longhair in slightly timeworn blazer and freshly ironed slacks is being shown around an L.A. […]
St. Babs and St. Peter. A Match Made in Berlin
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing On 9 November, 1989, East Berlin’s longtime Communist party boss Günter Schabowski is giving a press conference and stammers out a note he’s been suddenly […]
All the Scary Horses
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing When I was about 15 my sister, Jill—a trophy-festooned equestrian—took me horseback riding. I was uneasy with the whole deal because I’ve always been […]
From the Earth to the Moon to Upper de la Vina: Joe Schneider Finds His Tranquility Base and Sticks the Landing
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Between bites of bagel, Joe Schneider—late of Schneider Autohaus—is patiently explaining why it’s so hard to land a spaceship on the moon. “One of […]
Hanna Puacz’s Last Invention
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing How to describe the indescribable? Lotusland is a horticultural fireworks display, a kaleidoscope with roots. Lotusland’s aesthetic embrace has the playfully mesmerizing palette of […]
Spring: What are the Chances?
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Spring has arrived. Our unfortunate fealty to the numbing Age of Reason precludes our playful use of the word “Miracle”, even as we dance […]
An Exhaust Manifold Adventure
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing What is Life? The two competing theories are at odds. Intelligent Design supposes we are the deliberate invention of a Supreme Creative Intelligence outside […]
Arjen’s Sense of Unbegryplik Wonder
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing She doesn’t tiptoe in. She runs into Arjen’s room, or walks briskly, anyway. It’s probably too breathless to write “She bursts into Arjen’s room!” Though the […]
Statue of Limitations
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I remember very little about winning my Academy Award®. The evening was a blur and I sometimes wonder if it really happened. I vaguely […]
Little and Big John’s Epiphany
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing The Universe giveth, and the Universe taketh away (to paraphrase), as has been seen. John Ridland, UCSB Professor Emeritus of English, can say a word […]
Santa Barbara. The Great War. Lawrie.
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing At this writing a fire yet rages. Begun as a smoldering spark somewhere in the woods near St. Thomas Aquinas College in Santa Paula, […]
We Have Nothing to Fear but Teaching our Children to Drive
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing One sunny afternoon in the deeply-felt 1970s, I broadsided a light pickup truck driven by a school acquaintance named Bud. I was driving home […]
Clyde, Venetia, and Kelsi Travel to Planet X
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing “Sometimes in stars or the swift flight of seabirds I catch a moment of you. That’s why I walk all alone, searching for something […]
Unity Shoppe, Henry the VIII, and The Fine Art of Standing
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I take no pride in confessing that when I first heard of England’s King Henry VIII, I thought he was named after the Herman’s […]
Bruce Campbell Matures (and other horrors)
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Imagine the pantheon of classic film as a beautiful, vaulted cathedral. Its gently lit interior is neatly populated with marble statuary representing famous movie […]
A Death on Garden Street
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing When Olga Duncan disappeared from her Garden Street apartment, her newish husband Frank wasn’t terribly concerned at first. We were less prone to anxiousness […]
How to Make a Dutch Millionaire Weep
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I moved to Santa Barbara in 1986 with a band. There, I said it. That was long ago and far away. In the interim […]
Plato’s Gymnasium
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing [The management would like to introduce this week’s essay with a clarifying aside. The theme of the piece is “Jeff’s return to the gym […]
Caught by the Bus
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Some years ago our white Honda station wagon died. Well, not exactly. A mere 72 hours of curbside quiescence and she was expensively tagged […]
Hair Today
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Yeah, baby. You’ve probably seen me promenading about this American Riviera in my ill-advisedly tight black tee-shirt and ancient Chuck Taylors, strutting down State […]
My Name is Jeff, and I Use Unconscionably Oblique Verbiage
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing “Writer’s Conference”. This horror-term is enough to break the spirit. Whisper these two little words to the most intransigent prisoner in the joint and […]
Califorbearance and You
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing So I finally checked my privilege. What do you think happened? That’s right; they threw it onto the wrong plane and it ended up […]
Caroline, Yeah: A Concert Journal
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing 6:30p – Brian Wilson, our own acid-washed Beethoven and an older man now, is touring his misbegotten Pet Sounds album for the last time. […]
There’s A Bright Golden Haze on the Meadow
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing So I get a message from my pal Eddie. Our high school reunion is coming up in October. Did I get the e-mail announcement? […]
Where Were You in ‘82? An Oral History of Santa Barbara Clubland’s Age of Enlightenment
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Santa Barbara. The American Riviera. Selfie-by-the-Sea. Our natty little village goes by many names and has, over time, worn many guises, from Spanish colonial […]
War and Peace and Juliane
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing When Juliane Heyman and her parents and brother walked up into the Pyrenees Mountains one night, the object was not a moonlit picnic in […]
The Tail-Gunner’s Gift : John Holman’s Picaresque Odyssey Down Under
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing In the turbulent weeks before D-Day—the massive allied coastal invasion that heralded the beginning of the end of WWII—a Royal Air Force Stirling bomber […]
Alice Keck Park Memorial Garden – The Eden That Oil Built
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing In the very heart of our domed Xanadu-by-the-Sea, there exists a publicly beloved green idyll; a sun-dappled shire of exotic flora laced by twisty […]
Youth Culture Killed My dog
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing The interview was going better than I could have hoped. The 30-something kid had taken a shine to me—a real shine. “Well…” he said, […]
Santa Barbara Has The Dtease. And It Feels Pretty Darned Good.
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Something truly indescribable is happening in downtown Santa Barbara. That was the rumor, anyway. As any local knows, something indescribable erupting in downtown Santa […]
Armadillo Days
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing The Patty Duke theme says it best: “Meet Cathy, whose lived most everywhere, from Zanzibar to Berkeley Square. But Patty’s only seen the sights […]
The Future is Not What it Used to Be
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Right; 2017. Who do you think you’re kidding? Hey, I’m all for Time’s Inexorable Passage and the ghastly wearing away of my physical being […]
Yes, Virginia; there is a Santa Claus. He’s a Thin Greek Orphan
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Religious conviction is a tough game. Given the strangeness of what we are asked to believe (let alone give our lives to), it’s all […]
Hoop Dreams
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing (Terrific photo above is ©Fritz Olenberger) About a year and a month ago, I was driving my 13 year-old daughter and her longtime ballerina […]
The Death Of Cancer
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing In 2015, Kerry Witzeman decided to stop in at the doctor to see what the deal was with a nagging little urinary tract thingy […]
Homecoming Royalty
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing By the time we arrive in the late afternoon, honey-colored autumn sunlight is slanting into the Santa Barbara Courthouse’s grand arched breezeway, painting the […]
Felicia Sanders, Won’t You Please Come Home? A Love Song.
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing In the 80s they revived The Twilight Zone for a little while. The new series wasn’t as stridently dread-inducing as Serling’s original, and the […]
Gaddafi’s Rise and My Libyan Little League Fall
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing The summer of 1967. Hoo boy. They called it the Summer of Love, because even then the Branding geniuses in the National Archives knew […]
Youngsters in Suits. Backward Baseball Caps. Tom Cruise Laughter. What’s Not to Like?
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Dave and I meet one evening at the Famous Fish Warehouse or whatever it’s called, a few blocks up from the beach. It’s one […]
Why and How: The Miracle of the Water
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing These questions haunt our age: Why do men with bushy Friedrich Nietzsche moustaches torment us by eating eat ice cream cones? By what strange […]
How I Learned Dutch
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I love to fly and it shows. The big screen and its cheery hieroglyph at the front of my section of seats shows the […]
Midnight Plane to Houston
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I haven’t always been this badass, powerfully attractive finger-snappin’ older gentleman riding the beach town vibe with mad panache. In 1973 I lived […]
Crappy Camper
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Day 1 – The Ascent As we head north to Big Sur from Santa Barbara along Historic Highway One, the famously serpentine route winds […]
Teleology, Cosmology, Tautology. Rinse and Repeat
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Why does the country seem to become more interestingly spiritual as you move from east to west? Out east you have Plymouth Rock and […]
Your American Summer Vacation and The Power of Feeling OK
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Dear visitors from across the Pond; here comes summer, and your opportunity to visit world famous California during its high season! Yes, everything you’ve […]
Breaking into the Vault of Heaven
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing The human race can just get over itself now. On the other hand we are the exalted inventors of the Lunar Lander and Franco […]
Kinky Politics. Up, with a Twist
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Kinky Friedman is recumbent on a floral couch in Karen Jones’ dimly lit, pleasantly cluttered living room on a Saturday night in Santa Ynez […]
A Lib Confesses
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I’m an NPR guy, okay? Yeah, I got beat up by the bike rack in 7th grade like most nascent liberals, earned my […]
The Lady Would Like You to Wet Your Pants
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Kimmie Dee; Stand-up comic. Impresario. There’s a lot going on. For one thing, she’s nonstop. One is tempted to call her a dynamo, […]
Trump and Circumstance: Making the Case
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing From sea to shining sea, the republic is taking a cold shower. And whether one partakes of said shower to snap […]
Rocks ‘R’ Us
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing The known universe, for all the cosmological head-scratching it engenders, is essentially a very large, mostly empty void in which rocks of various sizes […]
Roses are Red, Violets are Blue, St. Valentine Went Through the Ringer for You
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Love is in the air. What’s worse, civil authorities have warned that, thanks to prevailing winds, this free-floating toxic event is headed our […]
I’ve Fallen to Earth and I Can’t Get Up
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I turn in my seat to watch as they quietly enter the Arlington’s half-light in whispering twos, threes and fours, peering through the […]
Emmy Lou, Elvis, Frankie, Dino, Annette, and Eugene. Viva Terpsichore
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing There was a time when your teacher of classical dance and your teacher of classical piano were of a like taxonomy, so to speak. […]
an 80s spin cycle and the other road
Two roads diverged in a yellow wood…
Who is Sean Kenney, and Why Isn’t This Man Smiling?
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing When Spock reports a distress call from Starbase 11, the easily distracted USS Enterprise takes another whimsical warp-speed detour from her 5-Year Mission […]
Soliloquy on the 11
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing The driver today is Nick. His wrinkled ‘At Your Service’ piece of paper, above the driver’s seat and to the right in an […]
The Pit and the Pendulum – Science Kid Elise Unruh was Born to Conduct: It was Just a Matter of Time
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing December (sometimes called “The Holidays”) is rife with strange rituals made familiar through repetition. A large pine tree in the living room here, […]
T-Bird of Happiness
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Oh, and here comes the holiday season like a runaway Edsel, excuse me. It’s always a little surreal how suddenly it shows up. Another […]
Phantom in our Paradise
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Paul Williams. You know him. Hai Karate aftershave, Lancer’s sparkling wine. His name and brand are adrift back there in the soft-focus, Foster Grant […]
The Taking of North Hall
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing At 6am on an otherwise dull Monday morning in 1968, a group of 12 black students strolled without ceremony into UCSB’s Computer Center in […]
Death and the Big Wow
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing >> There is no biological basis for our whole, endless, enhanced consciousness. It is rooted in a non-local space. – Dr. Pim van Lommel: […]
Bevrijdingsdag and You
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Here’s a lighthearted, summery question to get the season’s beach theme going; are we history’s pawns, or its masters? The occasion of my asking […]
A Writer’s Conference on The Barnaby Coast
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing On Father’s Day in 1996, my new son Sammy was a 9-month-old blob with a bright orange, vaguely reptilian tuft of hair atop his […]
Cloudburst on James Fowler Road
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Living in Santa Barbara, one receives a lot of visitors (he began unpromisingly). For years I’ve been a regular habitue of Santa Barbara Airport […]
My Dutch In-Laws and the Wonder of Machined Things
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing My mother-in-law is visiting from Holland, an unlikely country spread across an undersea declivity from which the water, over the centuries, has been ingeniously […]
Drone Strikes for the Lord
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Are we blessed creatures, or only a self-impressed residue of the Big Bang? Is life sacred? These questions tend to bring out the worst […]
How the Gipper Vanquished Communism, Punched Out Clark Kerr, Created Your Paralyzing Tuition, and Changed Higher Education from a Right to a Country Club
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing In the buzzing, vibrant center of the beautiful UCSB campus sits a squat concrete box. This is Kerr Hall. Simultaneously cube-like and angular (not […]
Growing Older in the Grace of Life’s Received Wisdom. Option Two: Skinny Jeans.
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I occupy a very particular demographic; balding 50-somethings who don’t know how awful they look in skinny jeans. We are many. It’s nearly an […]
Come on In, the Water’s Fine – There May be a Drought, but El Estero Never Runs Dry
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Santa Barbara, celebrated the world over as a vacation paradise, planted by the Gods of Commerce ‘twixt mountain and sea, is awash in […]
Trader Joe’s and the Death of Froot Loops
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I visited the Temple this past weekend. We needed milk. “Oh, we LOVE Trader Joe’s!” someone hissed with enthusiasm by the unsalted peanut butter. […]
Frightened of Barbara Stanwyck
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing I am reminded of all the strange cowboy television of my youth, of how approximately we recreate the past, and most acutely of my Barbara […]
Picking Superman’s Pocket
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing ‘The Elderly’ seem hesitant to embrace their brand. When you pat them consolingly on the cardigan and yell at them that it’s time for […]
Audrey, Mitchell, and the Pygmalion Effect
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Mitchell Kriegman had a big problem. He’d been summoned to the office of Jean Doumanian, newly anointed Executive Producer of Saturday Night Live, deep […]
Aloha in the Third Act
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing My mother’s name is Aloha. That’s just the beginning. She’s had an interestingly nomadic life; born into the Army and later married into the […]
A Saint Sleeps in the Forest: In Search of Barbara’s Body Guards
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing It will surprise some to learn that the Saint Barbara after whom our fair town is named is not Streisand, but a reportedly beautiful […]
Go North, Young Man! Felipe Hernandez and the Good Idea
State Street Scribe by Jeff Wing Three thousand miles away from California’s Santa Ynez Valley, the Manhattan Racquet & Tennis Club’s members comprise the tippity-top of the East Coast’s cork-sniffing […]