Speed Bumps on the Yellow Brick Road

Speed Bumps on the Yellow Brick Road is a zany novel by a professional humorist, author and stand-up comic, in the spirit of Catch 22, A Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy and MASH. The novel's playful splaying of the English language is inspired by Vladimir Nabokov. It's the improbable tale of a homeless man who dresses well, operating at the top of local society, but sleeping in a homeless camp with his "family" of four very different, very interesting homeless companions every night: a wise old man, a bipolar genius with a penchant for ingenious pranks, a female-to-male transgender man in transition and a resourceful down-and-out drunk. It's a tale full of growth along an ever-twisting path and (need we mention?) a tale of fairy tale romance. His articles and humor have appeared in The Wall Street Journal, Reader's Digest, Good Housekeeping, Saturday Evening Post, Los Angeles Times and dozens of other national and regional publications. Among his non-fiction books is Don Benito Wilson: From Mountain Man to Mayor, the story of early Los Angeles. In his peripatetic life he marched with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., was a US exchange student to the USSR during the U-2 spy aftermath and was arrested briefly by the KGB. He was a Naval officer in the Tonkin Gulf during the Incident that triggered the full US involvement in Vietnam. He retired as a Naval Reserve Captain. He was a reserve LAPD cop, working gang suppression in Watts and undercover vice in Hollywood. He's been paid as a caddie, "paper boy," "bus boy," bowling alley pin setter, Chicago cabbie, Nevada casino worker, advertising copywriter, public speaker and PR executive. He was cast in a rock 'n roll movie and appeared in 2 productions of the NY Metropolitan Opera. He was one of fewer than 100 people in history to stand at both poles. He has served on the boards of 27 non-profits, as president of 9 of those, and was a founding director of a bank. This is his first novel.