In the spring I went to see some petroglyphs. Rock art. It was about a three hour drive, up into the mountains, out into the high desert. Like a lot of the most beautiful things you can see in California, it was a three hour drive through a bunch of

Note: I finally got a new computer. That means I can get back to the newsletter in earnest, and also that I’m more broke than normal. Paid subscriptions or donations (my PayPal is kaleb.c.horton at gmail) are especially appreciated right now. And if you live in the

There’s a new Bob Dylan movie coming out this Christmas, and you couldn’t pay me to see it unless you’re a magazine editor who can pay me to see it. Even if it were executed perfectly, the whole idea is pointless. First because Walk Hard, the greatest

Bob Newhart is dead, and that’s all right. There’s no cause to mourn: he was an incredibly famous, wealthy man, and lived a long good life. He was almost a hundred. He had a huge house in Los Angeles. He spent almost his entire comedy career being universally

Author’s Note: This is the first newsletter where I’m reposting a piece I wrote that’s no longer hosted on the internet. My archive is pretty solid because I always figured this would happen eventually. In the future, I’ll probably be paywalling archival stuff unless it’s

The internet is bad now. We all know this and it’s not news. It’s not dead, but as a tool and a presence in culture, its glory days are firmly gone and they’re not coming back. Never mind the why because that’s out of our control

So I did the math on this. Sat down, got out the legal pad, crunched the numbers. I have been to In-N-Out one billion times. I’ve spent so much of my life there that I have to earnestly say it’s part of my identity as a Californian. Which

Howdy all. I’m back. Took some time off to figure out a new contract gig I’m hoping to land. Wrote a scene as Homer Simpson but it wasn’t for The Simpsons. Maybe I’ll get to talk about it sometime. Also took a day off writing because

By the skin of his teeth, my youngest brother had finally graduated high school. I was in my dad’s garage, going through all my brothers’ old homework. After some thirty years, it was time to ritually destroy most of it. Leave it all behind and render it to memory,

My little brother hasn’t been sleeping. I know this because I’m staying with my folks up north in advance of his high school graduation and most nights I’ll notice light from the crack under his door at 4 a.m. and hear him noodling on his guitar.

Howdy. I’m Kaleb Horton, a writer from Bakersfield. Not the metro part, which exists, but the dusty part at the edge of the desert where tumbleweeds roll by so often they aren’t cute and dust devils stab the horizon and people ride to corner stores on horseback. My