Paso Robles, you know it: that quaint, semi-rustic town you stop at for a bite and a glass of wine on your drives between LA and San Francisco. Well, in between drives, Paso Robles has grown up, and in the best of ways. These days, Paso is more of a first (though less expensive) cousin of Napa’s St. Helena—you’ll definitely want a second glass of wine. And you’ll want to stay a spell. The town retains its California Western feel, but now … [Read more...]
About Tom Bentley
I'm a published journalist and essayist (hundreds of articles), and the author of three novels, a short story collection, a how-to writing book and my latest, a memoir of my teenage shoplifting business. I have a finished draft of my truly lunatic 40 years of correspondence with the Jack Daniels' distillery that needs some stirring before it comes out.
I live in Watsonville, California and love to write. Except when I hate to write.
Hands-on Ecuadorian Artisans Are Hands-Down Amazing
Photo by Alice Bourget When I was around 10, I tagged along to my brother’s Boy Scout meeting, where one activity was making art projects. Given instruction, I sprayed a clothespin with glittery red paint and spelled my name out on the top bar with glued alphabet macaroni. That might be my highest artistic achievement, so perhaps I don’t have a credible basis to judge the quality of the crafts I’ve seen in Ecuador over the past month. But … [Read more...]
The Things You Carry, the Things You Leave Behind
When I was 16, I hitchhiked with my older brother from Los Angeles to Vancouver. Being lean and hungry types, we knew we needed fortification for the long journey. So it made perfect sense that we’d load our backpacks—already substantial, with their sturdy wood and metal frames—with canned foods of every type. Chili, fruit cocktail, soup. That one of the laden backpacks now weighed about as much as a sports car wasn’t that daunting until a day or … [Read more...]
MGM Springfield: The Fresh—and Fun—Face of History
Ahh, NOW I see why those Old Fashioneds were appearing on our table like multiplying rabbits. Those canny mixmasters at the MGM Springfield’s Commonwealth bar were thinking if I had a snootful, I’d likely order their $25,000 “Indian Sidecar” drink, which is made with a 1901 Croizet cognac. Oh, I guess I should mention: if you do buy the drink, it also comes with a new Indian motorcycle. Why a 1901 cognac and why an Indian bike to go along with … [Read more...]
Wining and Dining My Way Through the Mandalay Bay
Like many of the luxury resorts of Las Vegas, the Mandalay Bay has a wealth of ways to entertain and amuse its guests. Naturally there's an expansive casino, where rollers high and low can thrill to the spin of the wheel and the flip of the cards. There's the Shark Reef Aquarium, which has plenty of teeth (piranha tank, anyone?) to sink your sights into, plus stages plumb-filled with stars, like Nashville Unplugged, where stories mix with songs … [Read more...]
Cirque du Soleil’s “O” – A Wondrous Water World
I have to release the joke from the top: Cirque du Soleil’s “O” is a wholly immersive experience. Yes, “O,” (a phonetic rendering of the French eau for “water,”) is a water world: water is the flowing stage—often the literal stage—of the mesmerizing theatrics and flourishes of acrobats and dancers, trapeze artists and contortionists, clowns and lovers, all jumping into, out of, on top of and below the enormous pool, in which water is the most … [Read more...]
Good Beer, Good Cheer: 200 Years of Stuttgart’s Cannstatter Volksfest
It’s a fine feeling to be a stranger at a big party and feel fully welcome. It’s an even better feeling when everybody at the party seems like they are having the time of their lives. And if the party goes on for 17 days straight, well, I guess that’s 17 days of good feelings—though you might want to nap now and then. In Stuttgart, Germany, they’ve been having a whale of a party for a mere 200 years or so. I was just at the 199th year, and … [Read more...]
Design and Speed: Stuttgart’s Exquisite Mercedes and Porsche Museums
For a portion of the population, a car is just a utilitarian thing: go from Point A to Point B, hope you don’t run out of gas, and wash it every six months or so. But for some people, myself included, cars are an exuberant expression of ingenuity, excitement and progress. The automotive industry and its dynamic productions are colorful parts of the pageant of world history. And if you want to see some remarkably varied, thoughtful and outright … [Read more...]
Where’s the Steering Wheel? Driving Off the Map
Many years ago, I was a passenger in a ’57 Chevy driven by a maniacal friend. The steering wheel came off in his hands while he was making a turn—and he laughed. Though it seemed unlikely then (particularly because I thought survival was dubious), that wheelessness was a benchmark for unusual driving experiences to come, many of which produced the same sensation of bewilderment, shock and terror. Filter in the unsettling elements of … [Read more...]
MGM National Harbor—Local Flavors, International Appeal
It may sound like a crock of balderdash to start out a review of a luxury resort with a statement about how happy the employees seem. Or that the property has transformed an area by emphasizing local hiring and local artists. But cross my heart, the service people weren’t smiling at Maryland’s MGM National Harbor resort because they were Westworld robots. And the place has such regional roots that the very clay from the property … [Read more...]