Frank Gutch Jr: Fun With 45s (Into the Depths of Hell), Jess Pillmore Breaks Her Silence, and Notes…..

That’s what one of my old girlfriends used to call hanging out at my place.  The Depths of Hell.  Of course, as far as I could tell, anyplace which did not exclusively play everything Los Angeles was hell to her.  Linda Ronstadt.  The Eagles.  Joni Mitchell.  Jackson Browne.  Gawd, but I always thought if there was a hell on Earth, it was Los Angeles.  Soft Rock hell.  Bland hell.  Mediocre hell.  Just plain hell.

Now, that doesn’t mean I didn’t hear some great music in L.A. and I even admit to tolerating some of the music from the artists listed.  What it does mean is that I could not get away from that music without heading into a wilderness area somewhere.  It was everywhere.  I mean, any song can be great before that millionth listen, but then I walk the downward staircase.  I start grabbing anything and everything that is not a hit just to preserve some sense of sanity and make it my own.  That’s right.  My own!  That’s why I always call the music I love my music.  That’s why I don’t partake in conversations about the new Stones album.  That’s why Katy Perry makes my eyes roll back in my head when the realization hits me that people actually think that her music is good.  To myself, it is adequate at best and so formula it makes… it makes… gasp… sputter… thud!  It makes me pass out.  Here is the quote from the critic, sports fans.  “..Adequate!”— Frank Gutch Jr., DBAWIS.  Let’s see if Katy’s PR people can make that work for her.

I have a yardstick for music and movies and all of the different types of entertainment.  If everyone likes it, it can’t be worth a shit.  Whether true or not, it saves me a lot of time and trouble.  I have had another yardstick since the sixties too.  If the music is good, it’s good regardless how many people don’t think so.  So I am writing this column for myself.  If you want to have your convictions about superstars and the hits of today reinforced, you can stop here.  Darrell Vickers (who writes a column for DBAWIS) has convinced me that if I don’t follow my own radar occasionally, I will lose my way.  He did that by posting album covers on Facebook of albums I had either forgotten about or never knew existed.  Albums by the likes of Burgess Meredith and Band of the Irish Guards (who evidently march with The Beatles) and will probably in the future uncover oddities like Chill Wills Sings Songs of the Prairie or Slim Pickens: Conducts the Hits of 1963 or Christmas with Andy Devine.  And don’t bother searching for those.  I made them up.  See?   That’s what these clowns who write for DBAWIS make me do.  As if I don’t have enough mental problems as it is.

So set yourself, those who have hung on this long.  I am going to take you on a bit of a trip into my past— a past so convoluted that I actually believe that the songs I am going to list were hits.  Humor me.  It’s the only way I can stay sane these days.

You might think I have a disdain for hits.  I assure you that I do not.  I like some of the hits.  Always have.  I just don’t see the reason behind listening to them ad nauseam, is all.  So since I was a kid and could afford the occasional 45 RPM record (better known as the “single” to those in the biz), I made up my own “charts.”  Here are just a few 45s which made the grade over the years:

Dewey Terry/Do On My Feet (What I Did in the Street) (Tumbleweed 1005) (1972)— For the historians, this is the same Dewey Terry who had a few hits in the fifties with the duo Don & Dewey (Big Boy Pete and Farmer John to name two).  He showed up in Colorado in the early seventies, invited by co-owner of Tumbleweed Records Bill Szymczyk to do an album.  Szymczyk had gained a bit of notoriety as a producer, having produced albums for B.B. King and James Gang as well as Michael Stanley and others.  Terry brought with him Harvey Mandel, Don “Sugarcane” Harris and a handful of other musicians to put out a surprisingly solid album of rock and soul.  Do On My Feet is of the rock/funk variety, way before its time, and has this eerie organ chord which holds steady throughout the verse but gives way on the chorus.  From the album Chief, a packaging coup (Aaron Schumaker, who was nominated for a Grammy for this album’s artwork, recreated an old Big Chief pencil tablet for the cover— Big Chiefs were the standard for elementary school writing tablets in the fifties).  The music on it rocks too.  For an excellent rundown of the label, click here.

Free Beer/I’m In Love (Southwind/Buddah 323) (1975)—  Free Beer is the band which consistently outdid America, to my ears.  While America was tossing out pap like Horse With No Name (which more than likely would have received much less airplay without the comparisons to Neil Young) and Sister Golden Hair, Free Beer was writing and producing songs with oomph.  When they were smooth, they were uber-smooth.  When they rocked, they rocked.  The album they recorded for Southwind is packed with classic tunes including Brandy & Beer, Good Times, Sad Times, The Letdown and this classic, I’m In Love.  Mild, choogling beat and superb harmonies should have made these guys stars. (Listen here)  Instead, they were handed a contract with RCA for which they put out an album as gutless as any of the America albums.  Oh, how the mighty fall sometimes.  But you know what?  My thanks go out to Sandy Allen, Michael Packer and Caleb Potter for this one classic of an album anyway.  I mean, I don’t know anyone who isn’t ready for a little free beer sometimes.

The Detergents/I Can Never Eat Home Anymore (Kapp 735) (1966)—  After hitting it big with a parody of The Shangri-Las’ Leader of the Pack (Leader of the Laundromat), The Detergents took it one step further, with I Can Never Eat Home Anymore.  The Shangri-Las’ I Can Never Go Home Anymore was only the shadow of the success that was Leader, though it gained a modicum of airplay.  Had it been a huge success, though, it is doubtful that The Detergents‘ parody would have been able to capitalize due to a lawsuit filed on behalf of The Shangri-Las and their backers.  The bit of airplay they received was short-lived and mostly in the smaller markets.  Still, as a novelty tune, it rocks.  The constant reference to food and the kitchen is worthy of Weird Al Yankovic‘s work.  (Listen here)

Five Man Electrical Band/I’m a Stranger Here (Lion 149) (1973)—  These guys were green before they called it green and they have the 45 to back it up.  This little tune, written by one hell of a songwriter (Les Emmerson), could have heralded a different direction and tried.  Back then, there was a strong back-to-the-earth movement and if there is a song which could have been its anthem, it was I’m a Stranger Here.  Couched in alien-speak (the whole song is a look at the ongoing destruction of our planet through an alien’s eyes), it rocks the cause.  The lyrics alone are pure gold, starting with Earth’s “We’ve got the aeroplane/We’ve got the automobile/We’ve got the sky-scraping buildings made of glass and steel/We’ve got synthetic food that nearly tastes real/And a little white pill that makes you feel/A whole lot better when you get out of bed/You take one in the morning for the long days ahead/We’ve got everything everybody needs to survive/Surely the good life has arrived” to which the alien replies “I think your atmosphere is hurting my eyes/and your concrete mountains are blacking out the skies/Now I don’t say that you’re telling me lies/But why do I hear those children’s cries”.  Man, them’s lyrics and there are more.  Emmerson nailed this sucker and I get downright angry hearing it, knowing that we could have prevented so much of the destruction that conservatives point to so proudly as progress.  Shit!  Radio blew it.  They could have supported this track and supported the movement but they were too busy supporting the business.  Yeah.  That turned out all right, didn’t it?  Rant over.  Thing is, the music matched the lyrics.  This should have been a smash!  Thank the gods we had the pablum which was supported by radio.  At least it diverted our attention, eh?  I mean, it wasn’t like there were Signs.  Gosh, but sometimes I crack me up.  (You can hear it here)

Here’s something I’ll bet you didn’t know.  The flip side of Patience & Prudence‘s Tonight You Belong To Me was a track recorded by, oddly enough, Prudence.

April Wine/Oowatanite (Big Tree 16036) (1975)—  Can the cowbell, buckos, April Wine gave us buckets of fire bells on this pounding precursor to what the States would eagerly lap up years later.  Not the newer fire bells but the older ones— the ones you had to ring with a clanger!  They dared us to rock out!  They dared us to!  But radio was so busy pumping smoke up everyone’s skirts that we didn’t get a chance to.  Could this have been a hit?  We’ll never know, but it was in Canada.  What?  You think everything Stateside is all there is?  No wonder everyone hates us.  That’s okay though.  At least the absence of Oowatanite allowed us numerous more listens to Mandy and Sister Golden Hair.  No wonder I wanted to put a bullet in my brain every time I turned on the radio.  Tell me this doesn’t rock!

Daddy Cool/Eagle Rock & Hi Honey Ho! (Reprise 1038 & Reprise 1064) (1972)—  (Gasp) (Jeez!!! Sigh!!!) (Oooooh!!!)  What’s that all about?  Those words were printed on the album jacket of Aussie band  Daddy Cool‘s Teenage Heaven album and if there were more apt words for that cover, no one ever told me.  There was a period when I thought Daddy Cool was the coolest band on the planet and it was mainly because of Eagle Rock and Hi Honey Ho!, two rocking tracks which looked toward the sixties and rocked like the seventies.  Their label in the States, Reprise, released those two singles from the Teenage Heaven album and waited for radio to pounce.  They’re still waiting.  The album was one of those thuds heard around the world.  I have a concussion from shaking my head back in those days because the brassy guitar and kitschy vocals had me convinced they had a good chance.  Again, radio flushed another great band down the drain, this time clockwise.  Sure, they were huge in Australia, but back in those days, if you didn’t hit it big in the States, you really didn’t hit it big!!  Daddy Cool sang it themselves on the album, Please Please America (Hear My Plea) screaming “I flew across to the USA/To play to the kids down in L.A,/ Please, please America hear my plea/A million bucks will do for me.”  Sure, it was couched in fifties doo-wop and was humorous as hell, but there is always a bit of truth in any humor, right?  Hell, they even set it straight toward the end when they talked it straight— “Now picture this.  All over the world are starving musicians.  Where are all the rich musicians?  Only in America.  I learned a fake American accent so I could sing authentic.  I made a few records.  Now how about some dough!  I want money!  MONEY!  That’s what I want!”  They would have had it, too, if I had had anything to say about it.  These guys were fantastic!  Tell you what.  Let’s do the Eagle Rock one more time!  Click here!  Man, could I use an Aussie Burger right now!

Marmalade/My Little One (London 20066) (1970)—  If there is one band which does not deserve the aura of a one-hit-wonder, it is Marmalade, though in truth they did only chart once in the States.  Reflections of My Life was, in fact, a huge success stateside and you might have thought that radio would have been glad to have had a followup, but no…..  Not that they didn’t have a chance.  Marmalade’s label, London, tossed singles out there but the fish just were not biting so the could-have-been classics like Radancer and My Little One and Is Your Life Your Own? and Rainbow fell through the cracks.  I wish I had driven that stake through the heart of radio back then, in retrospect.  Then again, Underground Radio was picking up the slack during Marmalade‘s run.  Unfortunately, the band was a bit too much Pop to qualify for underground status.  Good stuff, nonetheless.  Here it is.

Michael Dinner/The Great Pretender (Fantasy 732) (1974)—  This may have been one of those too-country-for-rock and too-rock-for-country songs you heard about so often in the sixties and seventies.  The Flying Burrito Brothers suffered that label as did Steve Young and a handful of other artists of the the period, radio refusing to jump on the music and staying with genre instead.  This is a great upbeat country-rocker with pedal steel to write home about and not just Linda Ronstadt’s backup band but Linda Ronstadt herself handling backup vocal chores.  (Listen here)  Dinner is a higher-octave Randy Travis and peppered his album with solid songs, but it did no good.  He now directs and produces for television.  Yeah, that Michael Dinner you see listed at the end of so many of your favorite comedies and dramas— that’s him.

Sweet Pain/Upside Down-Inside Out Woman & Berkeley Lady (United Artists 50761) (1970)—  Okay, it is unlikely that this one would have gotten airplay anywhere outside of underground radio and it is doubtful that anyone in underground would have played it, either, but it is in my head for a reason.  These guys had a style not quite conducive to the mainstream, maybe, their harmonies very prevalent and stretched beyond the norm, but I personally loved not just the harmonies but their driving sense of rhythm.  Those harmonies?  Unique as hell.  I have yet to hear any harmonies similar (though I have not heard everything and unfortunately will not).  At the time of this recording, they were six guys in search of some fans.  Here is a taste.

The band dissolved quickly, producer Frank Slay and guitarist/vocalist J.C. Phillips heading out to work with Sugarloaf.  David Riordan, though, the real voice behind the original band (along with Phillips), teamed up with the Bay Area’s Rob Moitoza on a project they named Sweet Pain Too.  Basically, they split sides— Side A belonging to Riordan and Side B to Moitoza.  They released a single from the album featuring them both (Makin’ Money) but the big money for me was behind the B-side, Hole In the World (20^th Century 2028) (1973).  Floating on a bed of electric piano and acoustic guitar, Riordan sang his heart out, broken as it was, for all of us who have loved and lost.  Lyrics like “Up on that ladder/They’ve been working all day/Patching me up where my strength gave away/With friends like that/How can you stay in mourning” took it to the limit as far as I was concerned.  I still am.  Concerned, that is.

Little Roger & the Goosebumps/Gilligan’s Island (Stairway) (Splash 901) (1978)—  I had just started a new job as singles buyer for Peaches Records in Seattle when this was released.  I took one look and didn’t even have to hear it before I ordered a hundred copies (a large amount for singles back then).  I think they sent me 35 or something like that.  That was our allotment.  It was selling like hotcakes.  Radio stations had just started playing it and it looked like it was going to blow out the door (Hey, it was a parody of Stairway to Heaven based upon Gilligan’s Island, for chrissake!) when good ol’ Jimmy Page steps in and pulls the plug.  Or did he?  I’ve heard the story a bunch of different ways, but the one told to me by the salesman at the distributor was that Page had called in his lawyers and had the record pulled off the market.  (Take this, Jimmy!)  No sense of humor, I guess.  Well, this puppy sure made me laugh.  We sold out of our 35 copies in a few days and there were no more to be had.  I personally wish they had pulled Led Zeppelin’s Stairway off the market.  I’d already heard it enough that it made me throw up in my mouth at first note.  But then that’s me and you’re you and this is my column.  Funny how it works out sometimes, isn’t it?

The Rubettes/I Can Do It (Polydor 15103) (1975)—  There aren’t many bands out there which can out-Raspberry the Raspberries, but The Rubettes do it here.  It’s a power-pop cruncher on adrenaline with stacked harmonies and um-diddley-wop’s at every turn and like the chorus says, “I can do it I can do it I can really move/From my head right down to my blue suede shoes/I can make you groove/I can do it I can do it I can really move.”  As pop-py as it is, I can imagine smoke snaking its way through the grill cloth as the guitar hammers the speaker cones.  Stacked vocal harmonies help it along but it’s the driving beat that holds it together.  The Rubettes are known for their adherence to Pop as a formula thanks to their association with Bickerton and Waddington, the UK’s Popmeisters, but they really kick it on this one.  This is the kind of stuff Greg Shaw loved to feed on, rest his pop-lovin’ soul.  I’m sure it was a hit in both of our heads.  Here it is.

Flash Cadillac & The Continental Kids/Hot Summer Girls (Private Stock 45,026) (1975)—  Not to be outdone by them crazy Brits The Rubettes, America’s own Flash Cadillac kicks it into high gear with this classic Beach Boys-fueled track.  Next to this, Kokomo sounds like a Michael Bolton cover.  Especially when the harmonies kick in.  Very beach-y and very Beach Boys with that added pinch of pepper at the end.  Surf, sand and lots o’ skin.  That’s what summer is all about, at least for these guys.  Should have been a hit if only for the summer.

Horslips/Sure the Boy Was Green (DJM 1036) (1977)—  You gotta love a bunch of Irish lads who ride the coattails of Jethro Tull to prosperity, even if they didn’t stay with it.  Sure the Boy Was Green is as Tull-ish as you can get, complete with Ian Anderson’s unique flute sound and Martin Barre’s freakish guitar.  Why would anyone want to hear a Tull-sound-alike band?  In the first place, this was a one-off.  These guys only sounded like Tull on this one track.  Besides, not only is it a good track, it filled that hole made by a band which preferred crap like Bungle In the Jungle as opposed to the great music recorded on Stand Up and Benefit.  To Horslip’s favor, they stayed with their own rock style and went on to put out the excellent The Man Who Built America two years later.  Still, this should have been the track that vaulted them to fame and fortune.  Great stuff.  Pressed on green vinyl, too.  Listen here.

Aces, Straights & Shuffles/2,000 Miles & Deep Sleep (ADA 000-001) (1975)—  When I scored this 45, I thought it sounded a lot like The Fabulous Thunderbirds.  It did have a copyright mark for Kim Wilson, but ADA Records had a Bellevue, Washington address.  No way, right?  Still, 2000 Miles had this cranking rockin’ blues thing going and the vocalist seemed close enough to Wilson and, hey, that harmonica wailed!  Turns out it was the same Kim Wilson and I have always thought that this could easily have been the precursor hit to what the T-birds had later.  This is great stuff.  Listen here.  And here is some excellent info regarding the band and particularly Bruce McCabe.  Click here.

Bridey Murphy/The Time Has Come (Capitol 3975) (1974)—  Jeez, but the oddities are coming to me in droves tonight.  I have this old 45 by Bridey Murphy that I picked up some years ago and always wondered about.  I remember a friend in San Diego pinching his nose when I mentioned them but I didn’t care.  It is very mainstream and almost over-produced pop, but there was something I liked about it.  Turns out that the band featured Waddy Wachtel (says “produced by Waddy” right on the label, but that didn’t mean to me that Waddy was in the band) as well as Barry Cowsill, Bill Cowsill, Paul Cowsill and Bugs Pemberton.  After seeing the lineup listed, I understood.  If this had been recorded in the late-sixties, Bridey Murphy could have easily charted.  Listen here.

Ace/No Future In Your Eyes (Anchor 21001) (1975)—  The only people I ever knew who knew who Ace was were people in the music business.  They had a hit with How Long, but it wasn’t huge and I rarely found anyone who even knew about it.  The band featured one of the longest running and hardest working UK rockers, Paul Carrack, who over the years has played with a plethora of bands as well as supporting a solo career.  I first ran into him with Ace but imagine my delight a few years later when he surfaced as vocalist for favorites Squeeze.  As much as I love Squeeze, I think the best thing I have ever heard Carrack do was No Future In His Eyes with Ace, a soft rockin’ choogler with rhythm, vocals and harmonies which should have brought home the gold.

Cargoe/I Love You Anyway (Ardent 2903) (1972)—  Oh, the things I could tell you about Cargoe.  I revel in calling them the flipside of Big Star because they were the other band which could have vaulted  Ardent Records onto the national and maybe international scenet were caught in a soap opera of unimaginable proportions.  They had a chance, did Cargoe, but it seemed like everything was stacked against them as they released a song called Feel Alright twice and received airplay (and charted once) only to be knocked on their asses by the business aspects.  They put out an excellent album which was pretty much kicked to the curb by everyone in the distribution arm except Ardent themselves.  And they released a three-song “45”, a beautiful and haunting ballad which could have changed their fortunes but did not.  I Love You Anyway was a last ditch effort to save the band and I woulds tell you the story but it is long and, anyway, I already have (you can read it here), but suffice it to say that it was too little too late.  It broke my musical heart, but then I say that with mixed feelings.  It seems that when a band makes it, I move on, and I am grateful in a way that Cargoe did not make it.  I might not be writing about music right now if they had.  Cargoe was the subject of the first “history” piece I ever wrote.  They were my first real published review.

Big Star gained the respect they deserved some years later, but Cargoe never really did.  In spite of one excellent album.  In spite of critical acclaim.  In spite of a whole host of factors which no one can really explain.  Like why I Love You Anyway fell upon deaf ears.  It is flowing and harmonious and downright beautiful, and yet…  But don’t take my word for it.  Listen here.  Then maybe you’ll understand why my hits are in my head.

Jess Pillmore Re-Revealed…..Maybe you have never heard me mention Jess Pillmore but believe me, I do whenever I have the chance.  Jess was my first real dive into the Indies back in 2005 or so, her Reveal album in fact a revelation, so to speak.  She put that album together with the help of music genius Dan Phelps and it completely steamrolled me.  So much so that I interviewed both Jess and Phelps.  So much so that I picked Reveal Album of the Year.  So much so that I have followed both Jess and Phelps ever since.  Phelps is presently working with Oceanographic Records which I assume is his new label.  Brand new.  He hasn’t even taken the time to set up his Facebook page yet, but he hopefully soon will.  As of the end of November, he will on the road with Deep Sea Diver, plunking out a few bass lines.

Jess has been busy too.  She just recently pieced together a new album, I Am Because We Are, which she will have available for download for a short time (and a very short time, if I have things right) on Noisetrade (click here).  The price is negotiable— pay what you want— which means you can download it for free.  I encouraged you to do that while keeping in mind that a tip is always good karma.  Better yet, if you download it, listen and decide that you like it, send Jess a note and a few bucks.  It will mean the world to her.  And, no, I haven’t heard it yet, but I will be downloading the files for review.  I’ll post a link in a future column when the review is up.

This album, judging by what Jess has said, is a collection of flotsam and jetsam which has made its way to the present.  Some are newer, some older, but all have survived the test of time.  Jess is presently putting together a musical theater production which will feature a handful of the songs on this album.  Keep that in mind while listening.

Notes…..  I happened upon Jessy Greene not too long ago through a connection with Sunday Lane and have been watching for something to come out of the studio.  This is not what I was expecting (click here), but I like it anyway.  I really dig her voice.  What was I expecting?  Something with less electronica and more piano or guitar, maybe.  Still, it has a nice feel and a hook…..  Canada’s Poor Young Things have just released a video worth watching— well, listening to.  I’m still not really sure what they are doing with all those masks, but hey, the music is solid.  I dig these guys.  Great mainstream rock.  Watch here…..  Seattle’s Green Pajamas are so far ahead of the rock curve, it’s downright scary.  Here is a video of The Spell from their Death By Misadventure album.  Not only is the music, at the very least, eclectic, the video fits it to a T.  Watch here…..  Speaking of the Pajamas, Pajama Eric Lichter‘s new Elks In Paris is out and right now the featured Album of the Month at Green Monkey Records.  (Click here)  I don’t know what to say except it was produced by The Posies‘ Ken Stringfellow and everything Stringfellow touches these days seems to turn to gold…..  Speaking of gold, Stringfellow himself has just released one hell of an album titled Danzig In the Moonlight, an album which jumped onto my Album of the Year possibilities list right off.  Stringfellow has always had a foot in the sixties but this time around he dives in with both feet, pulling out influences I don’t think he even thought he had.  There is a depth in them thar grooves.  Listen for yourself…..  Hell, as long as I’m talking Seattle, ol’ Tom Dyer has a new video promoting his new I Ain’t Blue Anymore album, as well.  He pulled himself out of his coffin just long enough to regale us all with a demented version of The Sonics‘ The Witch, which you can view here…..  From Ray Brandes‘ public access files, here is an interview with San Diego’s Tell-Tale Hearts recorded in 1986, warts and all.  God, but I love live TV.  See what I mean here…..  I am not a big hip-hop fan, truth be told, but when it’s done a certain way, it is impressive as hell.  While sitting on a barstool at the Bombs Away Cafe in Corvallis the other night, I ran into a dude who turned me on to a band which I am shocked to find in the mid-Willamette Valley, their music more suited for a big city where more can hear the.  They’re called Xenat-Ra and the closest I can come to pigeonholing their music is that they have the chutzpah and a bit of the sound of Philadelphia’s The Goats from years past (watch The Goats here).  Outstanding musicianship, tons of jazzy riffs and some very impressive (and percussive) vocals.  This kind of music can be described mainly in one word— intense.  You can listen to them here…..  I’ve been moving backwards lately, looking for that minimal and retro sound, and I have found it in two very impressive bands— Crushed Out and The Record Company.  The Record Company‘s EP is available as a free download or streaming.  I highly recommend it if you have a hankering for the bare bones rock and R&B sound (click here).  As for Crushed Out, I’m getting pumped for Saturday night’s show at Sam Bond’s Garage in Eugene.  You want to hear what I’ll be hearing?  Click here.  I love this stuff!…..  Word has it that Mean Creek has been knocking some heads on the East Coast.  After hearing them numerous times, I can see why.  Listen here…..  Guitarists, here is a time you wish a professional had been there to record a performance.  The Finger Lakes Guitar Quartet features four prominent and impressive acoustic guitarists and even without the super-professional sound, you can hear just how impressive they are (click here).  One of the guitarists, Joel Brown, is brother to one of my favorite singer/songwriters, Linn Brown, and I can see that music runs in her family.  Joel has a CD available at CDBaby, by the way.  You can check it out here…..  Let’s end this with another look at Ray Brandes‘ video Lucky Man.  Just because I can.  Here it is…..

Frank’s column appears every Wednesday

Contact us at dbawis@rogers.com

“Frank Gutch Jr. looks like Cary Grant, writes like Hemingway and smells like Pepe Le Pew. He has been thrown out of more hotels than Keith Moon, is only slightly less pompous than Garth Brooks and at one time got laid at least once a year (one year in a row). He has written for various publications, all of which have threatened to sue if mentioned in any of his columns, and takes pride in the fact that he has never been quoted. Read at your own peril.”