Yes, folks, friends & fans, work is proceeding like a runaway locomotive on the new Potside Companion II short-story anthology, "Responsible Jobs & Irresponsible Driving," which will include possibly/partially true tales about working in a drop forge and on a paper plate packaging line, serving as a hod carrier for two redneck, country-western-listening, block-layer brothers from Tennessee (by way of a pool hall they once owned in Paducah, KY), working as a dishwasher, then ad-hoc cook at the Boulderado Hotel in Boulder, CO., my days as a foreman at a hippie-commune (sort-of) leather clothing factory overlooking the then-slums of Oakland, CA, delivering phone books in all sorts of wonderful and sometimes scary neighborhoods in Chicago, fixing and selling cars, the "Uncle Max" who wasn't really my uncle, gave me my first-ever job and became the inspiration for the Big Ed Baumstein character in my novels, running around my folks' new neighborhood with no pants on as a wee toddler, serving as a second-string stunt driver when "THE BLUES BROTHERS" movie was shooting in Chicago and lots more. And lotsa car and motorcycle stuff, too.

But the point is that I'm far enough along to start grabbing passers-by by the sleeve & soliciting sponsorships. It's the usual deal: you fork over two-hundred-and-fifty bucks (hardly enough for a nice meal-for-two-with-wine at even slightly upscale restaurants these days) and, in return, you get your name (or the name of a certain, special someone you wish to surprise, amaze, honor, remember, tout, memorialize, endear yourself to or embarrass) listed in type big enough to actually read on the SPONSOR/ADVERTISER section in every single copy that will ever be printed. And we hope that's a bunch. You'll also get our undying gratitude, since this will allow me to go on writing and publishing my stuff without going flat-bust bankrupt. Don't get me started about the risks, costs, pitfalls and pratfalls of the publishing business. Trust me: you don't want to hear it...