You can find the essay I wrote about fatherhood for Oprah’s magazine below. It was published in the July 2008 issue.
A .pdf of the essay is available here, (right click to save.)
Or you can read it here.
I’m a writer living in San Francisco.
My first novel, GOING TO SEE THE ELEPHANT, will be published by Bantam Dell, a division of Random House in late 2008.
To find out more details about the book, including official publication date, how to request me for a reading, and how to get a signed copy, sign up for my quarterly email update by clicking here.
To read more about my background, click on the “About Me” tab above.
To read other essays or articles check out the “Featured Stories” on the right hand column or the archives.
You can reach me at: rodesmail@gmail.com
On this early holiday morning, even the Golden Gate Bridge is swept clean of traffic. I’m meeting the jeweler at his house at 5:30 a.m. to participate in an annual ritual: abalone diving on Thanksgiving day.
The jeweler, Jay Cresalia, is a fifth-generation San Franciscan and an avid abalone diver, having chased Haliotis rufescens for the past 36 years. The term “chasing abalone” is somewhat tongue-in-cheek, as this shellfish is not known for speed.
continue reading…
This article, “When Whirl was King,” was written for Forbes ASAP in the fall of 2000 as the wings were starting to peel off the digital revolution. At one point during the Bubble Years, a venture capitalist was heard to say that the invention of the Internet was more important than the discovery of fire. continue reading…
This New Yorker piece fell into my lap one night as I walked home, near dusk. Paul and Larry, just two more characters, like Beckett’s Pozzo and Lucky, trying to make sense of it all and unintentionally giving the rest of us a memorable metaphor: “The Rules are Hanging.” continue reading…
For several years I watched this character in downtown San Francisco. He seemed so out of place in the midst of such modern goings on, and yet there was something timeless about him too. I wasn’t alone in appreciating him. The response to the piece was overwhelming. The editor of the San Francisco Chronicle Magazine said it was one of their most popular pieces.
continue reading…
Fear. Isolation. Loneliness. Ah, the writer’s life.
A group of freelancers in San Francisco believe they’ve found a way to help remedy writer’s block, share advice, get feedback on a first draft and keep from driving their families crazy. They call it The Grotto. continue reading…
THE instructions were cryptic, and whispered, which made them impossible to ignore: ”Little to the left, righto, righto . . . ,” followed by, ”Cast again.”
That was what our guide, Craig Aspinall, was telling us from his vantage on the bank of the Kaipo River in New Zealand as my wife, Lindy, and I stood midstream and cast to a trout as big as a piece of firewood. The fish was active and not yet ‘’suspicious,” as Craig would say of spooked fish.
The water was so clear that you could see it sucking stonefly nymphs off the bottom with the easy grace of a natural athlete. After several casts, I laid the fly in the right place and three runs, two jumps and one whoop later, we had landed and released our first New Zealand brown trout.
continue reading…
The billboards blinked. It was that time of evening, speeding down Highway 101, when the signs on the side of the road whipped past like a flip book: “You shall receive…24/7…Initial Public Offering…Until You Burst…Totally Free… Now.” Hyper thinking. The car accelerated. continue reading…
I first heard about Web logs, or blogs as they are now known, in 2000 from the political writer Andrew Sullivan. “I’m going to start my own Web site,” he told me. I remember the enthusiasm in his voice. I also remember thinking a little smugly that wasn’t it a little late? Personal Web sites were like, so 1997.
continue reading…
By now many San Franciscans have taken in the praise bestowed on our mayor by the New Yorker magazine. In an article titled “Going Places,” Mayor Gavin Newsom was treated to the very rarest of East Coast media honors: a national in-depth profile by a magazine known for its peerless writing. And it was genuinely positive to boot. continue reading…
For many Americans, the above question is not a late-night punch line, but a theological reality. It is so because President Bush has aligned himself, directly and indirectly, with the premise that he has been chosen by God to lead America. continue reading…
Once upon a time, a long time ago, a young man was cooking dinner for his lady friend when the doorbell rang. The young man, me, was much besotted by his lady friend, which was why he was making her his favorite dish: Chicken Alfredo by Campbell’s. His lady friend peeked out the window to see who was there. continue reading…
