I stand corrected. I remember hearing some ghoulish story that that was the song the radio stations were playing the morning her death was announced and must have mis-remembered it as that also being the week the song came out.

Yeah, and "I Fall to Pieces" hit the charts the same time she died. Insult to injury, I guess you could say.

I was just re-reading that interview a couple of days ago! "Crazy," "Night Life" and "Funny How Time Slips Away" were all written in one week when Willie was living in Houston. ("That was some week," Terry Gross observed. Indeed.)

Wasn't there one in the first Austin Powers movie having to do with his dick size?

Curly, I think you're right that he's a better short story writer. I do think, however, I may have inflated his gifts as a short story writer when I was younger (I could go check, I guess—I still have The Watch on my shelf.) I can't remember if he published another collection, but I have read several of his stories…

The Watch
Man, that collection of short stories blew me away in my early twenties. Some of them I probably read ten times or more. Everything else of Bass's after that I found absolutely cringe-worthy, and I wonder if he changed or I changed. I suspect The Watch wouldn't hold up well for me now, twenty years later.…

Twelve hours out of Mackinaw City stopped in a bar to have myself a brew
Met a girl and we had a few drinks and I told her what I'd decided to do

Yeah, it's a cultural touchstone and probably a fond memory for anybody who was an 80's adolescent (class of '85 here). The next two I don't remember much about, except that by #3, if memory serves, the alternate reality time-shifting stuff was way too complicated and impossible to keep up with and I just said fuck…

[Loretta is hiding in a bathroom stall, afraid to go onstage.]

Coal Miner's Daughter
It really is a fine movie, regardless of whether you like or don't like or think you don't like country music. It's directed by Michael Apted, for some reason, the guy who did the "Seven Up" series, and features Levon Helm as Lynn's dad. Tommy Lee Jones was in it when he was really good and…

Caleb Madison, the constructor of the current one, is a high school kid. He's made puzzles for the NYTimes also.

One man's Mede is another man's Persian.

My wife bought a jigsaw puzzle of one of his paintings. Ex-wife, I mean.

"Like a Rock" would have made more sense in Rushmore.

French Open
Yeah, he's great and all, but I predict Nadal will hand him his ass on a platter in a couple of weeks. (Get it? He looks like Roger Federer? The tennis player?)

You are right. There's really nothing to discuss that would change or amplify that. The freaking dog lays out the track ahead of himself AS HE'S RIDING THE TRAIN. This is funny, beautiful stuff.

Jesus, am I way off-base! Stephen ELLIOT, not Steve Almond. (Almond does contribute to the Rumpus, though. Shit. Crap. Sorry, guys.)

His online mag, therumpus.net, is sometimes entertaining (except for the insufferable Rick Moody contributions). I can't quite get a handle on what is supposed to hold it together, and it's kind of hard to navigate around it, but I was impressed by an essay Almond did about why he writes. There are dozens or…

MacManimal from Atlantis?

Thanks, ajm. Found whole speech except for that last devastating line you quote: