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Rat finished rolling his last pan of silverware, then looked around for the closing waitress. He couldn't stand working a straight shift, not with a hundred bucks in his pocket. He wanted to check out and go home. There'd been a time in his life when Rat would've stayed late. He would've done whatever his old boss asked him to do. Thing is, that old boss was in prison. And those times were long ago. "I'll be over in a moment, hon," the closing waitress called out from across the smoking secti...

To Bob Hope (Written At Age 9) Dear Bob, I have always been one of your biggest fans. I`m sure you get a lot of letters that start this way, but mine is different. I`m only starting my letter this way because I want to ask you a question. You see, my parents are having some difficulties with their marriage, and I thought maybe you could give them some good advice. I watched Road to Singapore the other day, and I couldn`t stop laughing. You and Bing Crosby have such fantastic chemistry up ther...

Have you ever dreamed of doing something creative? Do you want to write novels, illustrate comic books, teach at a university, or develop a situation comedy? If you do, I must inform you that you will not succeed. The people already laboring in these fields do not intend to abandon their sinecures. Unless you are well-connected or willing to engage in unspeakable methods of persuasion, your possibility of Old Regime admission is nil. As an adolescent, I possessed considerable imaginative ambi...

`Can you put a dollar value on my life?` you ask me, thereafter to wait with bated breath for my wry riposte. Hours pass. The silence is pregnant. Finally, the pregnant silence`s water breaks. `Let me see your W-2s,` I reply. `Also, where did you go to college? And where did your parents go to college?` Forgive my brazen entreaties, dear heart. Until our superiors devise a better system, this is how we determine the value of human life. You should not blame me for so adjudging. After all, we ...

I've given this Fall Out Boy (Fallout Boy?) song many spins on my iTunes player, each time marveling anew at the hooky hit's vacuity and vapidity. Today, however, I reconsidered my earlier harsh judgments. Perhaps I leapt to conclusions. Perhaps this song stood for something novel and bold. Perhaps, in its fearless championing of a sacred idea,"Sugar We're Going Down"could be distinguished from its 'verbiage cluster' kins-songs. Much to my chagrin, this hopeful hypothesis failed a strict line...