Welcome
Thanks for tuning into my latest Deep Dive. These essays are a labor of love. I never know where my next inspiration will come from or where it will lead me, I just try and go with it, letting the words flow from my brain, through my fingertips and onto the page. Sometimes these stories write themselves, other times it feels like pulling teeth. I’m glad you found your way here. Pull up a chair, sit back, relax and enjoy!
~ Louie
The Language of Waves
I’m sitting here at Doran Beach with my eyes closed, deep in meditation and listening to the waves in stereo. In the absence of sight, sound is all I have so the sounds of the waves become intensified. I’m hearing four distinctive sounds. First there’s a woosh as the...
A Haven For Birds
I’m watching the birds come and go, they flit and flutter from tree top to branch to feeder. The titmice peck contentedly at the seed feeders until they are supplanted by a larger species like the towhee or golden crowned sparrow. When the magnificent scrub jay with...
One Second
How long does a second last? As long as it takes for a hummingbird to beat its wings 70 times, as long as it takes for you to blink your eyes. The difference between winner and runner up in the Olympics is one second, it could also be the difference between life and...
The Best Job I Ever Had
On a typical day at Tower Records there was sex, there were drugs and there was most definitely rock and roll. Rock stars and movie stars were regular customers, members of the San Francisco Giants and 49ers could be spied browsing the racks. Famous bands would make...
The Marriage of Music and the Movies
Since the dawn of cinema, music and the movies have been integral to one another. Even before the advent of sound, films would be accompanied by live musicians in the theater. Back then a movie theater was a palace, the viewing of a film a shared experience in the...
A Date With Destiny
des-tin-y 1. the seemingly inevitable or necessary succession of events. It’s entirely possible that one of the most significant days of your life has come and gone without you noticing. It most likely appeared uneventful at the time but somewhere down the road...
Tangerines
Electric orbs of fruit dangle from our tangerine tree like earrings on the Buddha. Tangerines are holy fruit, each one is a sunrise or a sunset; the promise of a new day or gratitude for the day that has just passed. Is there a more delightful fruit than a tangerine?...
Bullfrog Pond, January, 2024
Heading out through the forest today, the journey is the trip. It’s a slow and deliberate stroll, I’m breathing, listening and seeing with eyes wide open. The air is redolent of winter, rains have given voice to the creek that flows below me as I walk upstream. The...
Some Final Thoughts On Christmas
It’s December 26, Christmas is finally over. All of the major holidays begin and end on their designated day. Thanksgiving, New Years, Halloween…etc they’re all one and done. Sure, there is a lead up to each of these days, but the actual celebrations last just the one...
A Miniature Miracle
I stood beneath our oak tree and looked up through its nearly bare branches, the sky was milk white and formless. There was just enough breeze to dislodge a few leaves, one or two or five at a time. Some floated straight down, landing on the lawn or me. Others flew...
The Sound Of Silence
I walk out onto our back deck this morning just before dawn. Brilliant Venus is visible high in the indigo sky. As Earth spins towards the sun a thin band of orange and pink begins to appear in the east. Monet brush strokes paint the sky in pastel hues. It’s quiet,...
Singing In The Rain
It’s a rain dance out there today, a veritable, seasonal soiree. Drip, drop, splish, splash, pitter, patter, an onomatopoetic smorgasbord of sounds. Cars whizz by on the freeway, their tires hiss like bacon on a hot griddle. Ducks are delighted. Frogs flip and flop...