Well, I'm 35 today...

...which means I can now run for President. But I will not, because I don't want to splinter the vote. My wife, mom and dad are all staunch liberals, and I wouldn't want to have four more years of Bush on my conscience. (Unlike certain consumer advocates we might name.)



Last night, Kate and I went to see a Beatles cover band at the Wells St. Art Festival, and I was struck by how I might be personally considered a Harry Potter cover band. But after seeing how much people enjoyed "American English," I decided that is a wonderful fate to have.



More fallout from The Sun article. My Uncle David writes, "The following was an actual conversation in my office:

'Look, my nephew is a famous author! This newspaper headline proves it!'

'Yeah, yeah. We're sick of hearing about your brilliant millionaire nephew.'

'No, he's not a millionaire, he just sold a million dollars worth of books.'

'Right. So he's a goddam millionaire, and we hate the sonofabitch.'

'No, you don't understand. When one of his books gets sold, he just gets a tiny percentage of the proceeds. The rest goes to his publisher, his agent, his fan club, his sex "therapist" and his first two wives. He's doing okay, mind you, but he'll have to hope that J.K. Rowling keeps churning out spoofable Harry Potter books well into the next five decades if he wants to get rich.'

'And what if she passes away next week?'

'Poverty, madness, death.'"



Funny man, David. He's an artist and the editor of St. Louis' edition of Where Magazine. He was a great encourager of mine when I was younger--I had a lot of them--which makes me an encourager, too.



By the way, Bob Herbert has a nice column today about one of my favorites, Ray Charles.