Robert Duncan

Half-Ass (28)

You can tell normalcy is making a comeback when the talk of the town turns to coyotes.

Robert DuncanDecember 15, 2016coyote, grief, travel, Amsterdam, small town, Northern California, Fairfax California, restaurant

Joy to the World (27)

Joy to the world?

Home and Away (26)

It may be where the heart is, but it’s also where history, judgment, anxiety, lawyers and distant cousins of the decedent are.

Robert DuncanNovember 29, 2016holidays, holidays hate, anti-Christmas, anti-Thanksgiving, family, Fairfax California

Blows (25)

He’s Dave Bergman. And you — to your eternal chagrin — are not. Simple as that.

Robert DuncanNovember 24, 2016trumpet, hepcat, gerontology, jazz, Fairfax California, restaurant, memory loss

Jimmy Hoffa Found! (24)

I talk a big game when it comes to lasagna. But, to tell the unbaked truth, I think I eat more of Sonia’s spaghetti these days.

Robert DuncanNovember 18, 2016lasagna, meatball, sausage, picky eater, sausage factory, Amsterdam, restaurant, Northern California, Bay Area

End of Empire (23)

First text this morning — early, Amsterdam time — came as I was fitfully dozing between acts of a CNN dream-play about the apocalypse.

Robert DuncanNovember 10, 20162016 election, Trump, isolationism, walls, empire, America, Bay Area, Amsterdam

Merl, Meet Merl: A Brief History of Happenstance in Holland (22)

Eventually, in Amsterdam, you get up from the blank wall.

Robert DuncanNovember 4, 2016Amsterdam, Grateful Dead, Jerry Garcia, Merl Saunders, names, hippies, coincidence, bars

Oudeschans-comma-39 (21)

We’ve been holed up here a week. Superannuated gangsters of something or other, gone to the mattresses.

Robert DuncanOctober 26, 2016Amsterdam, Sandy Pearlman, Blue Oyster Cult, grief

Astronomy (20)

Sonia made lasagna. And all night people who’d never been to Sorellas, didn’t know from the chef sister, saying: Man, that is delicious.

A Well-Respected Man about Town, Pt. II (19)

“’Cause he gets up in the morning, And he goes to work at nine.”

Robert DuncanOctober 13, 2016local politics, school board, campaign, growing up, Fairfax California, Bay Area

A Well-Respected Man about Town (18)

The stages of adulthood for a guy constitutionally unsuited to it begin, of course, with fraud.

Robert DuncanOctober 6, 2016growing up, local politics, school board, mortgage, credit card, Bay Area, Fairfax California

A Thing that Plays a Central or Essential Role in an Activity, Event, or Situation (17)

I once ran into Huey Lewis jogging. The guy who did “I Want a New Drug.”

My Wife, the Maniac (16)

“HOFFMAN JACKED ON PCP! CALL FAIRFAX PD! BE THERE AT 8.”

Robert DuncanSeptember 22, 2016texting, restaurant, marriage, friendship, family, Fairfax California, Bay Area, reservations

Knowledge of Nurgeon (15)

Sandy wants to know — again — if the salmon is wild.

Robert DuncanSeptember 15, 2016restaurant, wild salmon, sturgeon, Brooklyn, Blue Oyster Cult, Sandy Pearlman, Bay Area, Fairfax California

Lucky Thirteen. Or Fourteen. (14)

The sisters aren’t sure. And that uncertainty, along with their essential modesty, was reflected in the night’s celebration.

Robert DuncanSeptember 8, 2016anniversary, restaurant, sisters, Fairfax California, Bay Area, dive bar

The Bride (13)

“I got a rich guy carrying my stuff!”

Penny Lane the Barber Shaves Another Customer (12)

“In Penny Lane the barber shaves another customer”

Robert DuncanAugust 25, 2016Halloween, fatherhood, costume, work, Fairfax California, Bay Area

Extreme Unction (11)

When a man in San Francisco leapt from 22 stories and almost landed on me, I scrambled to the family table.

Robert DuncanAugust 18, 2016suicide, jumper, San Francisco, religion, consolation, lasagna, Fairfax California, Bay Area

Horses (10)

In the redwood shadows at the far end of Wood Lane in the small Northern California town residents call Mayberry on Acid stand a dozen horses.

The Front Room (9)

It’s not always Saturday night at Sorellas, you know. And that’s just the kind of crap that ticks him off.