I’ve never liked numbers, probably because they remind me of how random my life has been. As an example, by the time I was thirty I had attended three different colleges and held thirty different jobs. By the time I was seventy I had been married five times, and coincidentally they all had the same first name…Plaintiff. 

As a morning radio announcer on Maui I was invited to occasional one-year-old birthday parties, and at one of those parties I delivered a particularly long-winded celebratory speech before asking, “So where is our birthday boy?!” Whereupon a toothless octogenarian walked up to me, gave me a hug, and accepted my gift of diapers. I was at the wrong party, and not the first time either…

In my twenty years in radio I wrote and produced over one thousand commercials, most of them bad. I remember the owner of the first Mexican restaurant on Maui coming to me with his concern, “I’m worried the locals might wrongly assume that our food is too spicy.” I assured the gentleman I would assuage that fear, and I did, with one fateful line, “Our food is not too hot!” They were out of business in a week, and my advertising agency, “McAvoy Layne and Associates” was right behind them. (We never had any associates.)

In my 1,000 cruises into Emerald Bay on the Tahoe Queen and the Dixie, there was one I would like to forget. I wasn’t actually onboard when it happened, but the crew could not wait to tell me all about it…

I used to keep a can of Frosty White Hair Spray up in the wheelhouse in case I had another engagement as Mark Twain when I disembarked. We used to marry people on those paddle-wheelers, usually on a Saturday, my day off. Well on this particularly windy Saturday the bride to be went up into the wheelhouse to make last minute adjustments and happened to spy, “Hair Spray” but failed to read the fine print, “Frosty White.” So she grabbed that fateful can, closed her eyes, and battened down the hatches.

Well, there were no mirrors up there in the wheelhouse, so having no idea what she had done, out she went. The crew told me they had to stuff napkins in their mouths to keep the laughter down, for the groom thought she turned into her mother up there in the wheelhouse. Furthermore, the crew took great delight in advising me, “And she’s looking for YOU!”

So you see why I don’t like numbers? In a thousand cruises into Emerald Bay, the one where the bride turned into her mother is the one I remember most, and I wasn’t even onboard when it happened. No, I’m done with numbers. Did I ever tell you about the time Loni Anderson came up to me on the poop deck and…oh but I see I’m running out of space…another time.

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

My best friend is a loudmouth bully who harassed me yesterday when I arrived late for Happy Hour, then he took off in a huff for the winter. His name is Huckleberry, and he was hatched here on the deck at Twain Haven in June of 2017. He has never left for the winter before, but then he is 80 in aviary years, and like most Steller Jays, myself included, is not a fan of the atmospheric river…

I’m confident that Huck’s record of most Happy Hours in a row, 2,900, will stand for some time here in the Tahoe Basin. But should he never return, and choose to spend the rest of his days in Sacramento, I will be crestfallen, for he has been my pal for eight years now, and I miss him.

In a brief history of Huckleberry, I could see that he was about to fledge with his sisters from my second deck away back in 2017, so I spread a sleeping bag out on the driveway below, and sure enough, Huck hit it, while his sisters took it on the chin. I remember how he looked up to me as if to say, “Wow! Thanks!” I tossed a Beer Nut down to him and we’ve been pals ever since… 

If I’m not paying attention when Huck arrives he will flop down onto the welcome mat and bang his beak on the sliding glassdoor, or jump onto the flagstaff and wave Old Glory to get my attention. (I have the video if you don’t believe me.)

When I step out onto the deck holding a freshly pealed and washed Beer Nut, Huck will wave his beak and fluff himself up, while I whistle his favorite song, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore.”

He knows my car, “Burt,” and once followed me down to the college and stationed himself above my picnic table, where he could retrieve welcome handouts. He even follows me into the forest when I trim my fingernails, again positioning himself up and behind me to dance his shadow on top of mine on the forest floor. It’s a sight to make a cow laugh if you want to know the truth…

I have all his baby pictures, from when he was naked as a jay, to feathery times after his mother went shopping for him and his sisters, to the video of their fledging. I won’t play that video today, for it brings a tear to my eye…

So what will I do if Huck does not return in the spring? Well, I shall drive to Sacramento, where I will station myself in that beautiful rose garden near the capital at Happy Hour and wait for Huckleberry to welcome me to Sacramento. How do I know he’s in Sacramento? Well, that’s where I’d go…

Stay tuned to these pages for the final chapters of Adventures of Huckleberry Jay… 

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I had some time to kill this morning while waiting for my Ford, “Burt,” to be serviced by the capable team at Campagni Ford in Carson City. So I stood outside and surveyed the rolling foothills that surround our state capital. As a 38-year impressionist of Mark Twain I have felt the amplified charge that comes with visiting various haunts that gave our mutual friend his start. I always get chicken skin when I stand where he once stood -Territorial Enterprise, Walley’s Hot Springs, Fox Brewery, our Nevada legislature, and the Ormsby House, which looked better then than it does now…

But today, while gazing out upon those soft brown foothills, silent as they are and were back then, Twain’s words came to me from his timeless book, Roughing It: “We climbed into the foothills and looked back on Carson City nestled in that flat sandy desert, and surrounded by such prodigious mountains that they seemed to expand your soul, until you felt yourself spreading into a colossus, and in that instant, you were seized with a burning desire to stretch forth your hand, put Carson in your pocket, and walk off with it.”

Whereupon something out of body happened. I was besieged by an intense recollection of having gazed upon those Carson foothills before, 1864 perhaps, before Sam Clemens decamped for San Francisco to be unemployed. Instead of pooh-poohing such a fanciful notion, I opened up the moonroof of my mind and welcomed that sensation inside…

A captivating and beguiling awareness slaked my soul, and I stood stock-still until I heard my name on the intercom: “Mr. Twain, ah, Layne, ‘Burt’ is serviced and ready to roll. Please see Adam at checkout.”

Had I not heard that voice calling, I might be standing there still, traversing those leather foothills back to 1864, when those brown hills were a launchpad for the Lincoln of our literature. 

In that all-encompassing moment, I cited Samuel Clemens to myself: “I have never seen an atom of proof to support the fact that there is a future life, and yet I am strongly inclined to expect one.”

Yes, not only do I now suspect that I am living an afterlife, but like Sam, I am strongly inclined to expect another. My brief love affair today with those raw foothills was not my first rendezvous, but a reiteration of an earlier encounter so strong as to harbor itself deep into the heart of this 2025 Nevadan…

I have felt a couple taps on the shoulder from Samuel in my close encounters with him, so today’s excursion back through the ages comes as no real surprise, but rather as a confirmation that there is more to the transmigration of souls to be discovered. So, yes, I’m excited to entertain more of these enticing sensations as I stroll jaunty-jolly through this most interesting expedition that we call human life…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

I know I shouldn’t write about things I know nothing about, but this has never been a deterrent to me in the past, so I’m hankering to write about Vivaldi, yes, that Vivaldi. So, recently inspired by Donna Axton’s Holiday Concert with the North Tahoe Community Choir, featuring Antonio Vivaldi’s Magnificat, I am writing on musical adrenalin alone. Yes, I am still high from the concert of a few nights ago…

I suppose all good music does that to us, though in this case, Vivaldi hit a vibrant chord that set me aglow. I felt a strong urge to attend a second performance scheduled for the next day, sing alongside Ariel Ramiriz, Ania Helwing, Mary Collins, and belt out the Magnificat in four-part harmony. 

I actually did start to sing along in that first concert, and in my best contralto too, until a cold hand cupped my neck from behind, and I couldn’t breathe.

I always thought Vivaldi was a cream cheese that you pull a string to open, but then the string never works and you have to lick your fingers to get to the cheese. But I did a little research. I went to the refrigerator, fished around, and discovered my cream cheese was not Vivaldi Cheese at all, but “Laughing Cow.”

My Latin, weak as it is, fetched me up onto the rocks until I found a translation into Italian, and from that into English. Herein is the translation that reeled me in and made me a fan of Vivaldi… “Now she smiles, the lovely Mary, and heaven grows bright with a radiant glow. Her voice is a song, her eyes like the stars that shine above Bethlehem.” 

Well, If that don’t fetch’em, I don’t know Bethlehem…

I’ve come a long way since fourth grade, when Miss. Blumberger introduced us to opera by playing a recording of “Madama Butterfly.” And I remember all too well, her announcing to our paralyzed class that, “Just because McAvoy does not appreciate this particular form of art, does not necessarily mean, ‘It stinks!’” 

Anyways, should I see Donna Axton around here in the village, I shall buy her the adult beverage of her choice and maybe a Ginger Man cookie to say thanks for a most memorable evening of Vivaldi. 

By the way, Miss Donna threw in Joy to the World, White Christmas and Silent Night at no extra charge. If she isn’t one of them Vivaldi angels from Bethlehem herself, well, I don’t know my Vivaldi, and I think I do…

In closing, instead of leaving the last word to Mark Twain as I am wont to do, I shall leave the last word to Vivaldi: 

“Move on! Move on! Little donkey move on!”

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

Flirting with death releases pheromones that make you feel more alive than before. Or as Winston Churchill put it, “Nothing in life is so exhilarating as to be shot at without result.”

I’ve only had that feeling once in my life, but it proved true to form…

I got into a gunfight with a gentleman from North Vietnam, and he was as bad a shot as I was, thank goodness. We jumped around behind some trees while firing handguns at each other like a couple kids in a schoolyard, without result. I might have done better to throw rocks at him than shoot aimlessly with my .45 caliber…

Mercifully we both ran out of ammunition about the same time, and in place of opting for hand-to-hand combat, we looked each other over, shrugged our shoulders, and walked away. I have never felt so alive, and I’ll bet my Golden Gloves that my gentleman friend from the north felt the same way. In fact, he might be relating a similar story to his grandkids today…

“Oh, away back in ’66 I got into a skirmish with a Marine who was just as bad a shot as was I. We ducked behind the few trees between us, while firing our sidearms as we saw fit. But neither of us could hit a tent from the inside. When we both ran out of ammunition, we looked bemused at each other, shrugged our shoulders and walked away.”

Sometimes running out of ammo is an acceptable resolution to a conflict. I walked on air for the rest of the day following that flirtation with death, and felt more alive for the encounter…

I sometimes wonder what that gentleman from North Vietnam is doing today. I would love to call him up and ask, “Hey, do you remember shooting at a Marine while jumping around behind a few scruffy trees away back in ‘66? Because if you do, I want to fly over there and buy you the adult beverage of your choice.”

I don’t imagine I’ll ever have that glorious opportunity, but it would put years onto my already ancient life if I did. Hell, I don’t even know where we were, Hill 881, the Rockpile, the Razorback? I just don’t know…

We left some good men behind us, good men on both sides. And I guess God was on both sides too now that I think about it…

These days I’m feeling an intriguing sense of euphoria, and wondering if I might be flirting with death on a more natural plane, being older than Mathusalem’s horse and all. It’s a delicate feeling that I hope does not come with a prescient and immediate call to another shore. I’m not going to think about it, but will accept it as simply a signal of gratitude for living a long life following a gunfight at the Vietnam OK Corral between Two Guys Who Could Not Shoot Straight…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

Welcome to “The Wonderful Era of Artificial Intelligence.” If you’re like me, wanting to keep AI at arm’s length because we love eye contact and body language, well, to put it in New York City parlance, “Fuhgeddaboudit.” 

You and I are not unlike Mark Twain, watching the Paige Compositor drive him into bankruptcy. Just when we think we are living in the information age, along comes a polymorphic chip to make us look dumb as clams, and not clams at high tide, but clams at low tide. “Look how small my scull has become!”

I can remember how smart I felt when I became the last person in the room to get my head around iambic pentameter. Now with AI I can rewrite the Constitution in iambic pentameter, and have it sung to me in Barbra Streisand’s voice.

And too, I’m sure you’ve heard about the sorrowful crime where a bad AI actor appealed to a grandmother for a little money for charity, and did it over the phone in the voice of her granddaughter. Yes, that grandmother is feeling mighty sick today, and not wanting much to do with AI.

The Encyclopedia Britannica was a noble advancement, and the internet was another evolution in our intellectual development, but our transition from the internet era to the AI era is going to amount to a monumental sea change for all of us humans and humanoids. In fact, we are at a species-level inflection point, where it’s goodbye binary – hello poly, and human artistry can take a rest. 

This transition can be most helpful in solving problems like climate change but can also be devastating if hijacked by bad dudes, and there are more than a few smart dudes out there wrapped in identity tribes and bound by shared grievances who are capable of weaponizing AI in its most fearful forms. 

And too, soon enough, AI will be able to train itself at lightning speed, and when AI learns how to see, well, we had all better start looking for a place to hide, and even that will be a daunting challenge… 

AI can help us bind healthy interdependencies and help us to see our world as the small planet it is, in desperate need of constant care and stewardship. This 21^st century is fast becoming an age in which we must collaborate universally in order to preserve our social fabric, and perhaps, preserve our very survival.    

If AI enables us to see ourselves as one, that will justify its existence to be sure. But we should start tapping the brakes today to avoid unleashing a flood of catastrophic AI tsunamis tomorrow. I have faith in the talented technicians advancing artificial general intelligence, or A.G.I., the machine that can do anything the human brain can do. but as we say in Nevada, “Cut the cards.” 

We will survive AI when (if) we learn to sing along rather than sing alone. So let us continue to remind each other that the clock we are watching while harnessing AI’s autonomous capabilities, is ticking…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

When I was a seventh grader, I was sure about one thing, that in college I would be quarterbacking UCLA. As it happened, I would be diving at Oregon, but that seventh grader had the conference right. So what can an aspiring seventh grader be certain about today? Could it be what Mark Twain alluded to? “Now and then we had a hope that if we lived and were good, God would permit us to be pirates.”

Had you told me when I was in seventh grade, that I would become a performance artist, portraying Mark Twain for a living, I would have asked, “What’s a performance artist?”

I suppose the first indication I had that art could change people’s lives for the better came on the Island of Maui, where I had taken a position as morning announcer at KTOH radio. (K for west of the Mississippi, TOH for Territory of Hawaii.) Along with playing music and interviewing guests, I delivered a five-minute newscast at the top of the hour from 6-10am. It was a dream job come true.

One beautiful Maui morning, something was pressing at home, and I had to leave the station early, so I recorded my ten o’clock newscast and stuck my thumb out for Spreckelsville, as my motorcycle was in the shop. 

A young surfer picked me up, and I had to smile at the fact that he was smoking a big fat Waikapu Whacko, and listening to KTOH on his Jeep radio. We shared some small talk, and then my prerecorded newscast started playing on his radio. I noticed that my young surfer friend was looking at his doobie, and maybe wondering if he might have purchased a bad batch, as my voice was coming at him from two different directions.

Somewhat amused at what I could see was happening, I thought I’d have some fun, and double down on this abnormality. I knew the last line of my newscast would be, “And the score of last night’s football game was Baldwin 21, Maui High 17.” So I started talking to my now attentive friend about last night’s football game, then chimed in with the same words on the radio, “And the score of last night’s football game was Baldwin 21, Maui High 17.”

My surfer friend took a long last look at his Waikapu Whacko, tucked it between his thumb and forefinger, and flicked it unceremoniously onto the road. I doubt that he ever smoked again, so I like to take credit for reforming a young Maui surfer in my first act as a performance artist. I wonder sometimes what that young surfer might be doing today.

I was afforded fifteen enjoyable years of radio before getting a tap on the shoulder from Samuel Langhorne Clemens, who gifted me a 37-year career as an impressionist of Mark Twain. What luck, and what a blessing. That seventh grader is smiling…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO

We know horses love their show jumping, and dogs love their Frisbees, but what about birds and sea otters? Well, anyone who has been to Twain Haven in the last eight years has met Huckleberry, my pet jay, who lands here on the top deck at 8am for breakfast, noon for lunch, and Happy Hour for a Beer Nut. I whistle his favorite tune, “Don’t Get Around Much Anymore,” which makes him laugh, and he waves his beak to the rhythm of the tune…

If I’m not paying attention, Huck will tap on the glass door, or jump up onto the flagstaff and wave Old Glory to get my attention. But his favorite trick takes place when I’m in the forest next door, trimming my fingernails, and casting my shadow on the forest floor, whereupon Huckleberry stations himself on a branch behind and above me, and dances his shadow atop mine. It’s enough to make a lama laugh…

But now what about sea otters? I read recently that they are stealing surfboards in Santa Cruz, not the first time either. We humans have given one of these furry surfboard robbers a number, “841” as she is a repeat offender. 841 will hang ten herself, but most of her sport is carried on at night we suspect, as she does not want to draw attention to her newfound hobby.

841, let’s call her Eglantine to give her some dignity, reminds me of a night I felt so alive while body surfing with my wife on our honeymoon at Brenneke Beach on the Island of Kauai, under a midnight Poipu full moon, when a family of dolphins joined us, almost touching us in sharing our dreamlike waves. It gives me chicken skin to think about it even today…

So we know that some animals are playful, and it behooves us to encourage such playfulness, and bring out the very best Snoopy that they all have to offer. 

And what about us playful humans? I have to believe that given the choice, all playful humans would choose to live in Nevada. Why Nevada? Well, for a number of good reasons. One, we don’t wear watches in Nevada. We eat when we’re hungry, and sleep when we’re tired. And we have Las Vegas: Mother Earth’s warmest erogenous zone, and we live by the betting line, “If the line should dip, take the dog.” Yes, money made Nevada and Nevada makes money. In Nevada parlance, “Good coaches win, great coaches cover.”

Above all, Nevada is a land of unique personalities, from eccentrics of the highest order,
who will jump a water fountain on a motorcycle, to entertainment’s elite, “Viva Las Vegas!” Yes, in Nevada, divorce is an industry, and gaming an institution. In Nevada we trust everyone, but cut the cards. 

In closing we have to love all those animals that are playful, particularly those two-legged animals that reside in the Great State of Nevada…

Audio: https://open.spotify.com/show/7Fhv4PrH1UuwlhbnTT23zO