Ben Raskin

Category: Salt Lake City

  • The Beat Writer

    —

    by

    Ben Raskin
    in , ,

    Who would have thought it started with a love of musicals? A couple of years ago while tending bar at Keys On Main, a group of friends came in towards the end of the evening on a Thursday night. The room had died. The balance of the guests had left for the evening and I…

  • Leaving Las Vegas (Part Two)

    —

    by

    Ben Raskin
    in

    When my father was my age, I was 11-years old. He was the medical director at a clinic in Las Vegas, owned a mortgage and was married with four kids. He had been done with medical school for 13-years and was 17-years removed from when he first started college at the University of California, Berkeley.…

  • A Dirty Mother

    —

    by

    Ben Raskin
    in , ,

    He looked Pat O’Brien on a bender. Salt and pepper hair with a trim mustache, wire frames, suit and perfectly capped teeth. He carried himself with the confidence of an assistant high school principal and was unaccustomed to being told no. He sauntered up to the bar with his wife and asked me what goes…

  • Leaving Las Vegas (Part One)

    —

    by

    Ben Raskin
    in , ,

    We were somewhere around Spanish Fork leaving the edge of the desert when the drugs began to take hold. I had just taken a Claritin. My allergies were pounding between the late pollen from ragweed and the wild fires raging alongside I-15. We were speeding north towards Salt Lake with nothing but Las Vegas and…

  • Punch A Shark

    —

    by

    Ben Raskin
    in , ,

    Since the Utah Democrats have proven to be as tough as water balloons, I have surrendered any hope of having any interest in politics. Tip O’Neill said, “All politics are local,” and Utah’s locals are nuts. Not so much crazed but indifferent and boring. It’s like watching powder puff except without the hard hits. Utah…