Now you might remember the professor on the television show Gilligan’s Island. A really smart guy. He powered the island, developed a coconut clock, installed a plumbing and water system. He just never got around to fixing the boat. Brian was effective in just the same way.

The story of how I threw up over John Lennon’s Beatle boots is worth telling.

I was born on the day the music died.

Don’t seem to matter much where you are, but folks are always saying you shoulda been here long, long ago, the scene has all dried up. Georgie Harrison said it about Haight–Ashbury, and Sid and Nancy said it about the Chelsea Hotel. The only place they could never really say that about was MacDougal Street in Greenwich Village. There was a crackle in the air that just let you know you were alive. As Bobby sang it, later there was music in the cafes and revolution wafting in the wind.

Elvis wasn’t always the over-weight and over-tasseled being you might have seen when he was way past his prime. Las Vegas always had a thing for the seedy and the needy.

On the Greek island of Hydra there are no cars. You have to travel by donkey or walk. If you go up the hill from the harbor and walk the ancient paved pathways you will enter a square of sorts and find a tavern called Douskos. If you sit there under the tree, pick up a battered guitar and sing sweetly to the cat, they will kick you out. They’ve had enough of that sort of thing already at Douskos. Stop there if you can. I did. I had to. Leonard and Joni wanted some private time.