Talkative Man Talks

During the course of writing a weekly newspaper column for the El Paso Times for 20 years, I invented several characters-Talkative Man, The Whip, the Mayor of Trance Town, among them-whose conversations and interactions provided a useful vehicle for carrying certain ideas forward. I took this approach in the belief that satirical, verbal exchanges between colorful characters in whimsical settings-such as, the Loose Marbles School District-can expose the cracks in human nature and political systems with greater economy and alacrity than regular prose. In the vignettes included in this collection, a removal of the disguise of nonsense and flamboyancy offers a window through which the real world comes into view, replete with contradictions, corruptions, and celebrations.