SelfindulgentRants: Happy New Year

Here I am again. I hope all of you a very Happy New Year.

--30--

Reading matter

Just finished Running the Table: The Legend of Kid Delicious, the Last Great American Pool Hustler about Danny Basavich, a shy, overweight, adolescent from New Jersey who rose to become one of the best pool players in the country. It's a tale filled with Runyonesque characters, told by L. Jon Wertheim, a Sports Illustrated writer.

Before that, I read Rick Bragg’s biography of his grandfather. Ava’s Man is a wonderful, richly textured piece of writing. Charlie Bundrum is a hardworking man driven by his love for his family. Life kept hitting him with sucker punches and he kept getting up and hitting back. He couldn't imagine doing anything less.

It's the second of his family trilogy. The first, All over but the Shoutin’, was about his Mother. I'm saving the third, The Prince of Frogtown (about his father), to read on my birthday.

Buddy, can you spare a smile?

Please help the Jester & Pharley Phund.

I know all of us have had a tough time this year. Please consider a donation to The Jester & Pharley Phund. When you send a copy of the wonderfully written and lushly illustrated The Jester Has Lost His Jingle as a gift to a friend, you'll also be giving a free copy to a child who needs a smile in a school, hospital, shelter, community center; wherever he's needed.

(I LOVE these people and I stand behind them. This is the cleanest charity I've ever seen.) Please spread the word by giving a copy of The Jester Has Lost His Jingle to your favorite kid, even if he or she is a grown-up!

SelfindulgentRants

01 January 2009

Happy New Year

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