On the weekends I would go into town, to get away from the bedlam of my barracks.

I would sit in the USO, drink coffee, and read.

People donated books to the USO.

One book I remember reading was Philip Wylie's Generation of Vipers.

Wylie was a diatribe writer.

Another diatribe writer I read, later, was Hunter S. Thompson. Generation of Swine.

Walker Percy said I wrote diatribe.

Dear Jack: Thanks for Screed. It's good diatribe. The reason I know is that diatribe makes me feel better. And I felt better reading it. Walker Percy

I would foray out from the USO to shop for clothes in secondhand stores. Ragbins.

I bought a tweed deerstalker hat and matching cape.

I was 6' 4" tall.

I looked like a mad stork in that outfit, stalking.

I looked like Basil Rathbone playing Sherlock Holmes.

I looked like the cover of a Beetles album. Before the Beetles dealt the second, mortal blow to jazz and bluegrass.

Elvis, and then the Beetles. No offense, pal, but I was making my own magical mystery tour. And it wasn't to Shea Stadium.

Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band.

Joey Pants in Second Best, ranting about envy. In his self-published screeds.

His sheets. I would be a sheet writer when I grew up. Shee-it!

What a loser. Prefers John Coltrane to the Beatles.

Think of R. Crumb collecting ragtime records in junk shops like I was visiting.

The Cheap Suit Serenaders.

I got snubbed at the love-in, R. Crumb says.

I looked like R. Crumb, with my thick glasses, my gawky frame.

The Academy of the Overrated.

"Yes, but the banality is contained within implied quotation marks, which means the banality is ironic. It's an in-joke. If you catch it."

It's banal, man.

What's jejune?

The m-m-month after M-M-May.