He had a simple dream: He wanted to become a star, and not one of those tv stars because those die, those die all the time, and before dying they usually become terrible shadows of their former selves, vile creatures who exploit their own former glory...

Some fiftysomething woman with a small dog in her arms was waiting for him, backstage. Security hadn't succeeded in restraining her. Strange.

The goose on the roof isn’t aware it is doing anything odd...

A San Francisco cab driver named Jake, a friend of a friend, was my date for the party. I didn't really like him, but I needed someone to bring. In the 70s free love was the norm, but it was hard to have sex with a guy I wasn't really attracted to. …

The Plaza had a chess-board floor, green wood booths, and the lights stayed up. I might be combining a memory of Fitzie's in Binghamton. The Plaza felt like a preppy soda fountain with beer.

If I seemed disappointed after our conversation, then, for the record, that was never the case.

We’re not like a lot of your fly-by-night disease-based charities. Every pence we raise goes directly to St. Bartholomew’s, where 90% of it ends up in the pockets of doctors so they can buy expensive horses.

It was two days to town. His horse could only go one.

The knees remind you: you are old,/ and broken, and unlikely to improve

My father bouncing his leg to slow rock music with me on one knee, telling me I should keep a special place in my heart for my teeth, to remember where I lose them, on the playground like he did when he was my age, fighting a friend named Bobby-Joe. Or else I could lose…

A tanka poem about Jolly Old Nick being black as hell.

whose spit is this?

But now she was no longer the little girl.

I've got an appointment to see my shrink next Wednesday. She's pretty sharp. Not bad looking, either.

Divine guidance. That's why Dad used a blowtorch to set the jug on fire, its contents the “Devil's elixir.”