September 10, 2007

The Greatest Man

An excerpt from my forthcoming memoir:

Paul turned to me and said, "You play guitar?" and I was like, "Yeah," and he was like, "Cool," and there I was playing on stage with my hero. Sir Paul McCartney was singing "Hey Jude," close enough for me to hug him or punch him, or do what I did, which was dumbly strum along, with President Clinton smiling from the wings. (Of course, that pun was totally intended.) Ten minutes later, my novel was finished, cancer didn't exist anymore, and your favorite hot actress was texting me emoticons. The hand of God had clapped, and I liked it, better than even your mom, whom I loved.

Sadly, I knew, the moment was fleeting, and the bitter wind of destiny would blow me on my course, a path beset with hungry wolves and other scary metaphors -- and long and winding run-on sentences, probably ungrammatical. I thought of my youth, and I thought of my sled, and "Rosebed" fell from my lips like a loogie.

Being the Greatest Man was a curse...