Carpe diem appears to be dead (unless the new meaning is seize someone else’s day, as a vicarious experience, of course — not hands-on or anything that dangerous). I say this because recently I was sitting in a restaurant where a young woman and some friends were...

I’ve been using that “hook a brother up” line for the past couple of years, ever since I heard a witless dolt say to an apparent acquaintance, “Hook a brother up with a beer.” We were happy-houring in the fenced in confines of an insanely crowded outside bar at a...

Chapter 1 Tenth Installment   Now I Are One             Because here I am sitting across the desk of Mr. Mac McGlinn once again. "Do you know why you're here today?" Mac asks. "Because I want to work for your company selling yellow pages advertising," I assert in my...

Chapter 1 Ninth Installment   Down and Out, Part 2   Then he tosses me a cheap, blue pen. "Sell me this pen," he challenges. The sales puke had prepped me for this situation. He told me that interviewers will sometimes hand you an object from the room, like a...

Chapter 1 Eighth Installment   Down and Out, Part 1 Okay, so that's not exactly how I put it to Mac McGlinn, word for word, but it's the gist of what I said. "Is that a true story?" Mac asks. "Yes, it is." "Interesting," he says and jots down some notes. When he's...

Chapter 1 Seventh Installment   Let the Good Times Roll, Part 4 So we're schlepping across the rugby field on our way to the gun fight at the OD corral, six of us strong, me slightly in the rear, not wanting to miss Nash repeat the history he refuses to learn from....

Chapter 1 Sixth Installment   Let the Good Times Roll, Part 3 I didn't hear it at first. It took about two weeks and a confluence of coincidences to put me at the right place at the right time to hear that knocking on my door, and when it came, it was disguised as a...

Chapter 1 Fifth Installment   Let the Good Times Roll, Part 2 So we're sitting there to the sounds of silence, and I'm smiling at the top of his head, as instructed, and he starts humming a song. And then the hum begins to take shape and substance and he's singing,...

Chapter 1 Fourth Installment   Let the Good Times Roll, Part 1 Perspective being a funny thing, the sales puke has now, almost instantly, become much more hip and cool and infinitely more interesting as we explore this $14,000 and upwards to $30,000 thing. Like an...

Chapter 1 Third Installment   Baby We were Born to Run, Part 2   I had apparently sent a resume to an employment agency without realizing it. I doubt if I even knew exactly what an employment agency was back then, probably figuring it was some kind of government...