Category Archives: California

NORTH NORTH HOLLYWOOD by Peter Nolan Smith Chapter One

Six women crowded the honeymoon suite of the Coastal Motel north of Ventura. The buxom ‘groom’ patiently lay on the bed for her ‘bride’, while the brutish camerawoman glanced at the director and tapped her watch. “Lena, are you ready yet?” A bead of sweat trickled down the wiry director’s spine, as she knocked on […]

WHEELS OF FIRE by Peter Nolan Smith

In the late summer of 1971 my Paul Deseret and I hitchhiked from Boston to San Francisco. Several of our college friends were living in the Haight. They were girls. I had had sex with one of them and sleeping with Marilyn again was enough of a reason to cross a continent, especially since neither […]

AMONG THE REDWOODS by Peter Nolan Smith

The noon sun shimmered off Monterey harbor. The moored sailing boats bobbed with the light breeze and hundreds of pleasure craft wavered on the wake of a departing fishing boat. A middle-aged man took a photo of his wife before a large trawler tied up to a forlorn dock, while I walked toward Cannery Row. […]

DOWN THE COAST By Peter Nolan Smith

Skyline Drive crested a hill and the bright California sun crowned the hundreds of identical houses snaking up the streets of Daly City with a golden nimbus. Smoke from sizzling meat floated above countless backyards, as suburban families celebrated Memorial Day with holiday barbecues. I longed for a seared hamburger and a beer, but tramped […]

Under The HOLLYWOOD Sign – Poem – By Peter Nolan Smith

Desert scrub weaved between gleaming mansions Above Sunset Boulevard To the new wilderness where coyotes hunted pets Jake lived under the HOLLYWOOD sign The letters OD filled his bedroom window. Thar loved lying in bed with Jake His skin was so soft for a man Almost as soft as Thar’s If only Thar could be […]