Happy New Year!

In 30 minutes I will take off for work. I wish every night of the year could be as good as New Years Eve. It's like shooting fish in a barrel as they say. The essence of making money in a cab is to keep it full. Tonight mine will be full for 12 hours straight, and only if I take a break to eat or something like that, will it not be full.

I've written 2 chapters of the book now. I sent both of them to a friend in Canada named Laurie. She claims the first one is a good read. I submitted an excerpt from the second chapter to a first page contest at a web site called webook, www.webook.com. I'll let you all know how it turns out, I think I just flushed 10 bucks but who knows.... They say they guarantee that an agent will read it. Agents are out to make a buck. I was VERY careful to make it a good read, and Laurie has said that many of my adventures are good stories.

I chose the first New Years story, for those of you who haven't read that post, that would have been 3:15 am, 1/1/89. Imagine 12 guys in tuxedos rolling around in the snow fighting, in the middle of the street, in front of a serious dive of a bar. What's that Italian guy's name, Felini? I've always said driving New Years Eve in Party City is a lot like watching a Felini movie.

Anybody who wants to review what I'm at this point calling Chapter 2, if you leave me an email, I'll send you a copy. I ask the following in return. Give me an HONEST critical opinion. If you like it cool, but even if you do, please, please, please, help me make it something that will hook a publisher. If you think it's merde (thats french for shit, excuse my french, get it?), tell me it's merde, and if you're really kind tell me what's wrong with it.

When I was a kid, my mother used to tell me I should write books. I knew even then that she didn't like me, and it pretty much took her death last year to actually prove it beyond any doubt, but I knew it back then. If she told me I should write a book, to me it meant I would be terrible at it. But she was judging what was coming out of my mouth. She was listening to the story.

An actor who got a fairly long ride the other day was a real good audience, and liked some of my stories. He said it was all about the story. How true is that? Well, I was told in Comparative Literature that there are only 7 (if memory serves) fundamental stories. The most recent is the sidekick template, and all the sidekick stories are knockoffs of the same template.

That makes Car 54 Where Are You, and The Hobbit variants of the same story, right? What makes the story then, is how it's told. Life is strange, the world is strange, and maybe I do have chance. Maybe my mother was telling the truth, which she actually did on rare occasions. For the record my mother loved my brother, was indifferent about my sister, and seriously didn't care about me. Anybody wants to know, I'll share the reasoning behind all that. I've compared notes with my dad's older sister, and it's how it is (was, my mom and dad are both dead).

10 minutes to get dressed, let the dog out, feed the dog, and hit the road. Wish me luck. I'm excited. New Years Eve is a blast to drive a cab.