Visit Pittsburgh's Clemente Museum today!

(693 words)

I now know Roberto Clemente’s social security number. It is 194 30 6624.

The knowledge isn’t tempting me to commit fraud. And of all the crimes I could commit, stealing the great Clemente’s identity for even one day would be one of the most heinous.

I’m so unworthy.

And, besides, I already have relevant numbers to more soulful fun than any ill-gotten loot could bestow. The numbers are: 3339 Penn Ave., Pittsburgh; 412 621-1268; info@clementemuseum.com; clementemuseum.com.

It’s the address to one of the coolest places in Pittsburgh and one of the most secret. The museum’s been there 10 years and is thriving with near-zero local publicity or support.

That ought to change. It’s a true treasure.

Every Pirate fans should for $20 each book an appointment for the 90-minute guided tour of The Clemente Museum, the great museum about The Great One.

When a buddy said he’d scheduled an appointment-only tour for the museum I suspected it would be in some guy’s basement.

And I was right.

But, oh, what a basement.

The Clemente Museum is located in the once-dilapidated Engine House 25 that once serviced the Lawrenceville neighborhood. A fire pole is still present in the cavernous bays that once housed the horse-drawn fire trucks and is now the museum’s main gallery.

Confounding to me is the identity and occupation of this treasure’s driving force. He’s Duane Rieder and he’s a photographer. He’s painstakingly preserved and curated a wealth of Clemente and MLB memorabilia that draws sports luminaries from around the world.

For a writer, one who used to brusquely order lollygagging photographers around, the fact upends the natural order.

Reider lives and works in a studio above the museum.

I don’t know whether Rieder ever hobnobs with scruffy writers — Rick, our guide, was his affable surrogate — but I do know he does rub elbows with sports royalty. Bob Costas, Dan Marino, Alex Rodriguez, Albert Pujols, Ichiro Suzuki and countless MLB Hall of Famers are recent guests. Widow Vera Clemente and her family are supporters.

Eddie Vedder is such a fan he wore the “21” shirt he bought there on stage throughout Pearl Jam’s ’16 summer tour.

All come to learn about the man who by all rights will have his number 21 retired, an MLB tribute that now belongs exclusively to Jackie Robinson and 42.

The artifacts are lavishly displayed and include rare contracts, awards, tributes, candid photos and, yes, his social security card.

So, sure, it’s a great place for baseball fans. But why would I be so eager to take my wife or anyone whose interest in sports runs at milder temps?

The Clemente Museum is also one of the city’s best wine bars.

It’s “Arriba!” Made popular by legendary Pirate broadcaster Bob Prince, the Spanish word is an expression of emphatic approval Prince used when Clemente did something incredible.

Its tasting cellar, cigar room, and street-level bar are as unique and engaging as any in Southwestern Pennsylvania. It’s great for parties, receptions and fundraisers.

Many luminaries become members by ordering $12,000 kegs of their own wine.

Mario Lemieux (second only to Roberto in Pittsburgh sports legends) is a supporter, as are Penguins Pascal Dupuis, Kris Letang and Marc-Andre Fleury.

In fact, there’s more evidence of Canadian-born Penguin support of the Clemente Museum than there is of any by the current Pirate ownership.

I can’t state it as fact, but I believe I’m correct in saying Bob Nutting’s never been to the Clemente Museum.

I asked about this and Rick grudgingly said the Pirates have said MLB standards prevent promotion of the museum’s existence, as if spotlighting the life of Roberto Clemente would degrade, not elevate baseball.

If I knew the Spanish word for bull crap I’d be emphatically broadcasting it right now.

As I said, I have no intention of using Roberto’s social security number to steal his identity. It’s illegal and no good could come from it.

I’ll instead urge a man as resourceful and talented as Rieder to steal Bob Nutting’s.

It would give us Pirate fans plenty of reasons to shout, “Arriba!”

Related …

Roberto Clement, Mr. 3,000

Speaking in Virginia, hoping to hit a Clemente

Speaking in Virginia, hoping to hit a Clemente

(692 words)

Today I will attempt to duplicate the most rare play in baseball history. Many astute fans may mistakenly think by that I’m referring to the unassisted triple play.

The unassisted triple play — one defensive player records all three outs on one swing of the bat — is, indeed, rare. It’s happened only 15 times since 1909.

In fact, I witnessed one. I was there at Three Rivers Stadium on Sept. 20, 1992, when Mickey Morandini of the otherwise feckless Philadelphia Phillies achieved the feat against the Pittsburgh Pirates.

With Curt Schilling pitching and Pirates Barry Bonds on first and Andy Van Slyke on second, Jeff King hit a liner right at Morandini, a native of nearby Kittanning, Pa.

He snagged the ball (King out), stepped on second (Van Slyke out) and tagged Bonds who with the hit and run on arrived from first simultaneously with Morandini.

To me, the most stunning aspect of the remarkable play was that it didn’t happen while I was in the men’s room taking a leak.

Cooperstown ought to have a wing dedicated to all historic plays that happened while I was in the men’s room.

Beer was a lot cheaper then and me and the boys used to drink lots of it. And if the situation on the field became too intense, I’d feel an inner tingling I sometimes confused with the need to pee.

Baseball excites me.

Beer, too.

I didn’t miss what today I’m trying to duplicate because I wasn’t in the men’s room then, either.

I missed it because I wasn’t on the planet.

It was July 25, 1956. That’s the day the sainted Roberto Clemente hit baseball history’s one and only inside-the-park, walk-off, grand slam home run.

He did it in Pittsburgh’s old Forbes Field.

The Pirates were losing to the Chicago Cubs 8-5 in the bottom of the ninth. The bases were loaded when Clemente scorched a first pitch fastball to the distant left field fence and turned on the jets.

One run scored. Two. Then three. Just like that, the game was tied.

Clemente blew through the third base coach’s urgent stop sign as Cub legend Ernie Banks took the relay. 

It was going to be close.

News reports said Clemente initially missed the plate, but reached back and slapped it with his hand for baseball’s only before or since inside-the-park, walk-off, grand slam home run.

In the stands, pandemonium ensued.

If I achieve the feat, mine will be even more remarkable because today I won’t be anywhere near a baseball diamond.

In three hours I’ll be at the podium in the stately John Marshall Ballrooms here in downtown Richmond, Virginia, speaking to nearly 100 members of the Virginia Meeting Professionals International.

I use the Clemente analogy because to me the stakes are high.

If I can hit what we’ll today call a Clemente, my speaker dance card ought to fill up. In the audience will be dozens of top meeting planners, all of whom are looking for entertaining and soulful speakers.

If I can impress them I foresee “Use All The Crayons!” speaking engagements through the next year.

Baseball metaphors are often employed to gauge a performance.

Sure, I could strike out today. But that’s doubtful. I’m confident of my presentation.

I could hit a solid double. Fans don’t boo doubles.

It’d be great if I hit a home run, too.

Just not great enough.

I want to hit an inside-the-part, walk-off, grand slam home run.

I want pandemonium.

Am I nervous?

A bit.

That’s fine. The great Clemente said powerful at-bat butterflies drove his engine.

But today I feel something more positively agitating than nerves.

Today I feel confident, impatient to succeed.

I’m feeling a growing swagger.

I believe by the end of today I will have taken a crucial step that will make all that’s come before — all the struggles, all the disappointments — seem irrelevant.

I tell you, my friends, today I’m feeling a strange sensation deep inside.

I just hope when it’s my time to talk I’m not rushing to the men’s room.

It wouldn’t be the first time I’ve confused my inner tinglings.

Related . . .

Roberto Clemente: Mr. 3,000

The true tale of how I became an iron-bladdered superhero

How real men like me (and Michael Keaton) shake hands

A great day for baseball; let’s play 2! Or 3! . . .

I play centerfield

Taking pregnant women out to the old ballgame

The prez, the killer & origins of "Amazing Grace"

(711 words)

I knew I had to research the history when I heard Sting say the composer of “Amazing Grace” was an English slave ship captain who’d written the song to atone for his mighty sins.

It wasn’t the first time Sting had lied to me. Remember, he was the guy who said he was breaking up The Police because he was sure exciting new creative opportunities for him and his fans lay in the future.

And he was half right about John Newton (1725-1807), who in 1779 published “Amazing Grace.”

Newton did indeed become an ardent abolitionist, but said he never connected the motivation for the hymn’s construction to anti-slavery sentiments. In fact, he linked his spiritual conversion — and the song’s inspiration — to a 1748 storm so severe he was convinced his life would end with the capsizing of his ship off the coast of County Donegal, Ireland.

If he did enjoy a transformative moment there amidst the roiling white caps, it wasn’t very deep. He remained a slave trader for six more years before he quit to begin theological studies.

His was an interesting life. A wild and disruptive youth, Newton was forced against his will into Royal naval service, a common fate of lower class miscreants. Once at sea, he developed an unusual flare for writing poems so profane they were said to “exceed the limits of verbal debauchery.”

That the subject of the ribald poems were often his superiors led to near-lethal discipline.

Thus, the man who wrote the world’s most famous church song started out as the guy most likely to compose “Barnacle Bill the Sailor.”

It is estimated “Amazing Grace” is performed 10 million times each year.

As of Friday, you can make that 10,000,001.

That a song written by an old slave trader would one day become a Negro spiritual sung by America’s first black president at a healing service over the massacre in a historic black church carried out by a white supremacist intent on starting a race war is a veritable bouquet of historical irony.

Here’s more:

The mother of the man Obama was eulogizing, The Rev. Clementa Pinckney, named him after Roberto Clemente because she so admired the selfless values that led to the Pirate great’s tragic death.

All the news this week made it seem like Christmas for every liberal if only every liberal believed in things like Christ.

And Bristol Palin’s pregnant!

If I were a conservative, I’d be worried the dreadful trajectory can only mean Bristol will this week announce Rick Santorum’s the father. 

I’ve watched Obama singing “Amazing Grace” several times by now. It’s his presidency’s most indelible moment (so far), and the one that’ll be played over and over in the lobby of his presidential museum.

I keep watching it, not for the actual song, but for the — for me — riveting 26 seconds of mostly dead air that precedes the singing.

He’d been rolling right along pretty good.

Then he seems to choke up and come to a halt. Is he about to crack up? He says, “Amazing grace,” once, pauses, and then again a second time. He stares down at the podium for 14 more seconds.

Then he begins to sing.

What was going through his head during those interminably awkward seconds?

Was he thinking about redemption? Forgiveness? Or was he thinking, man, this is going to embarrass the hell out of Sasha and Malia.

No daughter likes hearing her father sing in public. I speak from experience.

I wonder if Dylan Roof saw any of the remarkable news. I hope so.

I’ll never understand how one man who disagrees with the things millions and millions of others believe thinks he can change even one mind by killing maybe a dozen or so of us.

And again I’m reminded how I’ve never seen a single white supremacist who makes me, a fellow white, feel the least bit supreme.

If sufficiently motivated, Roof will now have ample time to think about his acts and express a profound remorse exemplified by the song Newton wrote after a tumultuous life of sin and redemption.

Of course, Roof need not turn to song.

I’ll be just as impressed if his humble hymn is just six words long.

“I’m so sorry. Please forgive me.”

Related …

The enduring power of our radioactive word that begins with ’n'

Obama hater spoils my breakfast then my windshield

Farewell, Sarah, America’s flirt

Reduce gun violence; enforce 2nd Amendment

A gay news extravaganza

I say nice things about Republicans

Some tough talk for our Republican friends

My celebrity friend & four brushes with fame

(1,477 words)

I’m not famous, but I know one famous man. He’s Arnold Palmer, a good guy to know, especially if you’re a blogger looking to add a little sizzle to a line up that sometimes includes mundane topics like socks and potato chips.

I know someone else you’ve never heard of. He’s not world famous, but he is famous to many famous people so today I want to tell you a little about Rudy.

We’ve been friends for 20 years. He’s the only guy I know who says if he hits the lottery he’s moving to Pittsburgh. That doesn’t make him weird.

It makes him tasteful.

He grew up in Puerto Rico and, naturally, became a fan of the great Pittsburgh Pirate, Roberto Clemente. He became obsessed with Clemente and the American city where the great Roberto played baseball.

That was about the same time another team from Pittsburgh started becoming world famous.

It was the Pittsburgh Steelers, teams famous for great players like Jack Lambert, Joe Greene, Franco Harris and a cast of future Hall of Famers.

Rudy eventually moved to New York City and earned a commercial driver’s license.

We met through my old college roommate John, now a long-time New Yorker who is famous among my small circle of blog readers as the friend my Mom mistakenly thinks is gay and who once sat idly by while I nearly choked to death.

John and Rudy are two of the most rabid Steeler fans I’ve ever known. They’re the kind of fans who become furious in any season the Steelers don’t finish as undefeated Super Bowl champions.

Talking football with them always makes my head hurt.

But, naturally, the two were destined to meet. They became friends at a Manhattan bar that was proud to host Steeler fans on game days.

John told Rudy he’d have to come to Pittsburgh to see a game at old Three Rivers Stadium. John knew a guy who was a long-time Steeler season ticket holder.

That’s how I became famous to Rudy.

It’s been for 20 years one of the best weekends of the year. Rudy, John and about five or six other guys storm the city. We stay at a hotel near the stadium and just really whoop it up.

Rudy asks how I’m doing.

I tell him I’m still friends with Arnold Palmer so I must be doing something right.

Then I ask how he’s doing. His answer often sounds something like this:

“Well, I had to drive Streisand to Philly last month and this week I have Reece Witherspoon and Stella McCartney. I was able to squeeze De Niro in between juggling Gwyneth and Chris Martin. That’s been dicey since they split and he started dating Jennifer Lawrence, but she’s cool so it’s all working out.”

Rudy is one of Manhattan’s top celebrity limo drivers.

I knew this when I was working for National Enquirer, but never wanted to impinge on our friendship by pumping him for juicy tidbits on any of his famous passengers. In the world of celebrity journalism, it was a rare instance of someone too ethical to tell colliding with someone too lazy to ask.

One of my favorite things to do is scroll through his phone directory and see my name wedged between Scarlett Johansson and Kate Upton, the only time “Chris Rodell” will ever be wedged between two celebrity babes and the image makes me tingle.

The great thing about Rudy is he’s not an obnoxious name dropper like, say, I am about Arnold Palmer. He’s utterly professional. I can see why people who are picky about what’s reported about them are so fond of Rudy.

So I’d feel sheepish about sharing any of the details he’s shared with me, save one: He says Mike Myers is one of the world’s greatest guys. They’ve become true friends and Myers and he often just hang out.

I find that very cool because I’m a big Mike Myers fan.

I’d like to think that one day Rudy will introduce us and we’ll all be great friends hanging out here in Latrobe. Or the Hamptons, if that’s more convenient.

See, unlike Rudy, I still get starry-eyed around celebrities. So here are some of my brushes with fame four famous and historically-significant Americans.

• Michael Jordan — This was at Mario Lemeiux Celebrity Golf Tournament in about 1999. I was doing stories for Maximum Golf magazine. Jordan  was at the peak of his fame and had ground rules that reporters weren’t allowed to speak to him. We were told he was not to be addressed or approached. I didn’t give a shit. I fell in line with a group of about five handlers who were running interference for him as he walked from the practice range to the first tee. I was holding a copy of the magazine and said, “Uh, Mr. Jordan?” As I spoke, two of the handlers turned to glare at me and shake their heads. They took their jobs very seriously. I continued: “This is a copy of the new Maximum Golf magazine. We predict in six months it’s going to be more popular than Playboy. We’d like to put your picture on the cover. We think it’ll make you famous.” Even the sourpusses cracked up. Jordan, chuckling, told me to contact his management. That was the end of that.

• Garth Brooks — Did you know my wife used to be the country music queen of Pittsburgh? It’s true. She wrote the “Country Connections” column for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review. I thought it would have been more successful if they’d have called it, “Fiddlin’ ‘round with Val.” But we used to see all the big country acts: Alan Jackson, Reba, George Strait and the great Garth Brooks, maybe music’s least likely superstar until Susan Boyle. Brooks was kicking off a string of concerts in Pittsburgh and Val got invited to a press conference and I got to tag along. It was packed. There were about 50 journalists there so you can guess how stuffy it was. Lots of pretentious questions about his impact, his sales, etc. I couldn’t abide the boredom. So I raised my hand. He nodded in my direction (Val, incidentally, was glaring at me the way Jordan’s handlers did). I said, “Given your popularity with your female fans, have you ever thought of doing a book like Madonna’s?” Madonna had just released her naughty book of nudie bondage shots. I caught Brooks in mid-sip. He nearly shot the water out his nostrils. He howled with laughter. Everyone did. Never underestimate the power of a stupid question asked with a straight face.

• Jimmy Carter — One of my first assignments as a young reporter in Nashville was to cover a symposium featuring Presidents Carter and Gerald Ford. It was 1986. President Reagan was riding high. At the press conference following the talk,  they were taking turns answering questions. That’s when I raised my hand and mustered up the courage to ask Carter, whose turn it was to answer, a real toughie: “Where did your administration fail where President Reagan’s has succeeded and does he ever seek your advice?” It was a ballsy question for a kid to ask a former president. Clearly, Carter’s presidency had been a failure and everyone knew Reagan wouldn’t call Carter for advice if Nancy’d locked him out of the White House and he needed to know where Carter hid the spare keys. And Carter was eager to answer. But then out of the blue, Ford jumps in out of turn. He blusters: “I’ll let history be the judge if my administration was a failure or not, and I’m very close to the Reagan White House, why just the other day . . .” And he went on and on about how buddy-buddy he and the Gipper were. Carter, meanwhile, kept raising his hand to get a word in edgewise. But Ford’s excessive yapping ran out the clock. The session ended. I’ll never forget the friendly smile on Carter’s face as he shrugged and disappeared through the curtain. I’ve always wondered about what he’d have said if that big mouth Ford had shut up for even a second.

• Tone-Loc — I met the rapper at a ’99 New Orleans convention of TV producers where he was promoting a show. Tone had two big hits — “Wild Thing” and “Funky Cold Medina.” We talked for a minute and I can’t remember a word he said, but he was kind enough to give me an autographed business card. It read: “Call Tone anytime and get your Funky Cold Medina!”

Someday I’m going to find that card and I’m going to call Tone for my Funky Cold Medina.

It’s not exactly like getting invited to spend the weekend with Mike Myers at his Hamptons pad, but it’ll have to do.

Related . . .

My gay friend John

Long live the spork and me!

Me for Pittsburgh mayor!

Ringo tired of being a star

Fame & the night Bruce Willis & I ruled the red carpet

My night with Julia Roberts

Centerfield

(751 words)

Being a gentleman invested with proper humility, I rarely talk about it but I was once the centerfielder for the Pittsburgh Pirates.

It was back in 2001.

My professional baseball career lasted about 20 minutes.

I was in Florida doing this story about the demise of the carnival side shows. I encourage you to check it out. It’s a good example of how I write when someone pays me to do so. And it, of course, has me wondering why so few ever seem to ask much anymore.

The story involved spending about a week in Gibsonton, Florida, aka “Freaktown USA,” home to Lobster Boy, The World’s Tallest Man, The World’s Strangest Couple and enough other unusually formed humans to satisfy a year’s worth of Weekly World News front pages.

Gibsonton is on the Gulf Coast, not far from Bradenton, spring training home of the Pirates. It was March so I dashed just up the coast to catch some spring ball, as soul-refreshing an activity for winter-weary baseball lovers like me as there is.

Too bad the day I was there the Bucs weren’t.

They were on the road, which meant just a few guys for the grounds crew where there at McKechnie Field.

If you today have a difficult and stressful job, I’d encourage you to consider quitting it to go mow grass at some southern ball field.

His name was Ben and he couldn’t have been more pleasant. He was sitting on a mower out near the home bullpen. 

We talked for half an hour about the Bucs, our favorite players, memorable games we’d been to and how, guaranteed, that was the year the Bucs would finally produce a winning record.

Wrong. Last year marks 20 years and counting that they’ve been pathetic losers. Their record of losing seasons is on the verge of being old enough to walk into a bar and legally buy itself a drink. 

It’s a tribute to the game that guys like me and Ben still love Pirate baseball and yearn for the days when the Pirates again contend to the end.

He could sense it in me when I started to say goodbye.

“What’s your rush? Go ahead and take a walk out on the field. It’s a beautiful day. Enjoy yourself.”

What ensued were about 20 of the most compressed minutes of my entire life.

Because in those 20 minutes I hit 40 home runs, stole 40 bases and told about a 100 baseball Annies, sorry, girls, I’m a married man while me and the Pittsburgh Pirates were on our way to winning the World Series.

My favorite Pirate other than Roberto Clemente -- every fan’s favorite Pirate -- has always been centerfielder Andy Van Slyke. I swear I looked up in the stands and saw him cheering some of the catches I made in his old stomping grounds.

Understand, I didn’t do all this just in my mind. I raced all over that field. I ran the bases, mimed throwing pitches from the mound, zipped across the outfield and reveled in the blessing that I was a then 38-year-old man who never gives a shit what he looks like to strangers when he’s determined to have some fun.

Well, beat the drum, and hold the phone

The sun came out today!

We’re born again, there’s new grass on the field

And roundin’ third and headin’ for home

It’s a brown-eyed handsome man!

Anyone can understand the way I feel

So put me in coach! I’m ready to play today

Put me in coach! I’m read to play today

Look at me, I can be Centerfield.

Baseball’s the only game that has and deserves it’s own anthem. This is the time of the year when I can’t get the John Fogerty song out of my head. It’s perfectly euphoric.

Our 12-year-old and I are spending many evenings watching baseball movies (“The Natural,” “Bad News Bears” and looking forward to sunny afternoons at the ballpark.

The older I get the less enamored I am with professional football and the more I am with baseball.

It’s never more acute than this week when the newspapers start once again showing pictures of pitchers and palm trees. Outside my window, it’s 50 shades of grey but with ice, mud and sludge instead of kinky sex, which I’d much prefer.

But inside my mind, everything is turning green. I know spring’s almost here because baseball’s back.

I can only hope that this year, finally, all the Pirates play for one full season as well as I did 12 years ago when I for 20 glorious minutes played centerfield.

Related . . .

Taking pregnant women out to the ol’ ballgame

Roberto Clemente, Mr. 3,000

Time for Bucs to bury Vince Lascheid

Oh, and one more thing, 2011 . . .

Thank you.

Thank you. Thank you. Thank you.

Thank you so much.

Thanks to each of you who’s taken the time to stop in and read my blog. It means the world to me.

Of the many things that struck me following the death of Christopher Hitchens, one that stands out was why he said he was so prolific.

“Writing,” he said, “is my recreation.”

I feel that way, too.

Blogging for me is essentially like bar time without the hangover. What I write about here is exactly the same as what me and my friends talk about in The Pond, the lively little tavern that’s just beneath my feet.

We talk about family, sports, politics, oddball news and those are the exact same topics that wind up as blog fodder.

I began blogging in May 2008 and didn’t tell a soul for six months. Then I told Ron. He’s been reading ever since and I often think when considering a topic, “Hmmm, would Ron approve?”

Happily, he usually does.

One gauge of the blog’s success: I now know of eight readers named Ron. If positive readership trends continue, by June there will be 20 Ron readers.

The last year, especially the last six months, have shown sharp readership spikes.

A 2011 recap:

The three most widely read, according to the highly unreliable stats page are this straight-faced travel story about the Kinzua Skywalk, which benefitted from a friendly endorsement on a state park website, this one about the recent discovery of another Earth-like planet ripe for exploitation and, of course, this one about exotic sexual practices from the South Pacific.

Some of my favorites have included this March 10 one about how I became a prosetitute (it lead to me coining an alternative word for blogging, “auth-whore”); this one about the phone message Miss America left me; and anything that lets me bash Pat Robertson always leaves me with warm feelings.

It’s been a very difficult year with my demented mother. I’ve heard from a number of readers and friends who commiserate. I try not to write about this too much, but every time I do I’m grateful for the reaction. This one about her Kleenex obsession seemed to ring a lot of bells. And this one about how I faux-outed my friend John got a good reaction.

I wrote about my socks, the death of jukeboxes, Roberto Clemente, and what I think about when I think about Dolly Parton.

I’m grateful to RedRoom.com, the only other site on which I simultaneously post. They promote the heck out of my stories with encouraging tweets and getting 2,000 hits a day is becoming common. And the great comments I get from so many friendly folks always gives me a lift.

I remain thrilled by the reaction to this Barbara M. Neill story in the Latrobe Bulletin. It led to scores of new readers here at home and has me hoping Barbara gets a dream job with “USA Today” in 2012 where her first assignment is to promote unheralded blogs with Amish in the title.

Since I decided five months ago to increase my output, my readership has doubled.

I ask you help continue this trend by in 2012 referring the blog to friends and sharing it on the social media whenever you find it worthy. That makes a huge difference.

All told, the blog enthusiasm and the increasing readership convinced me it’s time to put some of it all together in a themed book and release it on my own.

See, I’ve been pitching an idea to publishers for years and am always blown away by the reaction. Top editors and agents have raved about it and the writing. I know they are sincere because I’ve seen the other side of it with a handful of other proposals that are cruelly scorned.

This one they truly love. They say it’s funny, it’s touching, and they’d all leap to publish it if only . . .

“Yes?”

“If only your last name was Kardashian.”

The book is about crayons.

More on that soon.

Traditional publishers may not believe in me, but I know a man who does.

He’s one of the most highly sought-after and influential endorsers in marketing history: Arnold Palmer.

He’s read the book, thinks it’s great, and has agreed to provide the promotional foreward.

And he doesn’t even care that my name isn’t Kardashian.

I’m starting to think you don’t either and for that . . .

Thanks!

And Happy New Year!