Chris Z

Joined January 2021

74 stories

Bio

My opinion column garnered more reader responses than any other contributor in the paper's 40-year run. As a stand-up comic, I performed in 16 countries & 26 states. I've written 2 one-man shows, umpteen poems, songs, essays & chronologies.

Stories (74)

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A Windowless White Van
A Windowless White Van Prologue Decades ago, at some point in my preteens, I read a book exposing the machinations behind several age-old flimflams. One especially memorable grift was the “Speaker Scam,” which consisted of repackaging secondhand speakers in state-of-the-art speaker packaging and selling the hoax to hapless saps.
By Chris Z3 years ago in Criminal
Kaiser's Kisser
Kaiser’s Kisser Tim Kaiser was the quintessence of a schoolyard bully: overgrown, overweight, bitter about being ostracized by the very peers whose lives he daily made hell.
By Chris Z3 years ago in Education
Can't & Hunt
CAN’T & HUNT PROLOGUE I cut my pedagogical teeth substitute teaching in Downtown Fort Lauderdale. Downtown is not the palm tree-canopied playground where Eunice and Thurston Howell types dock their yachts; Downtown is the crime-ridden concrete jungle where Season One of “COPS” shot (Google it). I broke up a fight on my 1st day. Once, when a freak GI storm found me white knuckling porcelain inside a bathroom stall, I overheard two 8th graders planning to jump a 3rd after disembarking from the bus that day.
By Chris Z3 years ago in Education
Geriatric King Joffrey
Fair-Weather Fans of Democracy Weekend warrior with an office worker’s ass, His Ford Super Duty guzzles Middle Eastern gas.
By Chris Z3 years ago in The Swamp
The Wholly Trifecta
The Wholly Trifecta "Before Common Error" Born to an ingenue of singular virtue Prophesied in Micah Chapter 5, Book 2
By Chris Z3 years ago in Journal
Middle Age Strange Land
Clap along with this rap if you bought readers off the rack. If you snore yourself awake from your afternoon nap. Has your waist kept pace with your numerical age?
By Chris Z3 years ago in Poets
Gossamer Me
When did I stop wondering? When did I stop growing? When did fear of the unknown supplant the fear of unknowing?
By Chris Z3 years ago in Poets
"The Apples Don't Fall Far from the Tree"
The Apples Don’t Fall Far from the Tree 07.22.2014 If life gets better with age, I’m aging in retrograde. Eight years ago, I was a cast member on a hidden-camera prank show, making more money per day than I make per week present day. In the years since, I’ve gained weight with the immutability of Old Faithful’s eruptions, 40 pounds in all. My eyes have gone bad, my knees have gone worse. Last week, I ejaculated into a specimen jar in the hope of joining my local sperm bank’s stable of test-tube studs.
By Chris Z3 years ago in Families
Michael Caruso Was Different
Michael Caruso Was Different Mid-1980s West Fort Lauderdale was, by and large, a “God and Guns” jerkwater. My housing block ended where the Everglades began. Davie, a city not half an hour’s drive from my home, held Saturday morning streetside Klan coteries during daylight hours. At best, the biome was inconducive to intellectualism and/or independent thinking. At worst, it was downright inhospitable.
By Chris Z3 years ago in Confessions
Teenage Lament '94
Teenage Lament ‘94 The year was 1994. Most members of my clique, me included, were still months from turning 18. We were too young to imbibe spirits, and the pool hall we frequented disallowed minors after 9pm. Idle hands are the Devil’s workshop.
By Chris Z3 years ago in Confessions
Stars Misaligned
Stars Misaligned I remember it all where the accent should fall in your pretty name I still remember your birthday. That secondhand sofa where we laughed 'til we cried
By Chris Z4 years ago in Poets
I'm Here for Rick's Party
"I’m Here for Rick’s Party!" In ‘93, I was 17. I kept a near life-sized cardboard likeness of silver screen “legend” Jean Claude Van Damme in my hatchback’s backseat. First-time passengers would glimpse Jean Claude lurking in the rearview mirror and catch air from fright. It never got old.
By Chris Z4 years ago in Confessions

Chris Z

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A Windowless White Van

Kaiser's Kisser

Can't & Hunt

Geriatric King Joffrey

The Wholly Trifecta

Middle Age Strange Land

Gossamer Me

"The Apples Don't Fall Far from the Tree"

Michael Caruso Was Different

Teenage Lament '94

Stars Misaligned

I'm Here for Rick's Party

Stories (74)