Taking the Plunge ...

My last 4 years at Moses Anshell have been a blast, but even the best gigs have to come to an end. Where am I headed? Off to Leibowitz Solo, the Valley's newest marketing shop for businesses, non-profits and political candidates in search of their best story and a plan to spread that tale through marketing, public relations, social media and/or nifty ads.

The Phoenix New Times actually scooped my blog on the subject, but they were super nice to me, so I won't complain too loud.

I'm saving the "grand opening" for September 15th, but if you need some help now, we'll make it happen. Just shoot me an email at david@leibowitzsolo.com.

Requiem for the Real Icons

The pop star made it a half-century before his collapse, full of uppers, downers and every drug in between. In the days following his demise, I avoided the news, not because I disliked him – I felt only indifference to his music, his life, his passing – but because every word praising the icon with the sequined glove felt like a word I would never hear delivered in praise of someone else.

Put another way, our world contains a finite amount of newsprint and ink, airtime and attention. Every moment spent exalting one human being – and that’s all any icon ever is, just one man – is a moment society will never be able to spend on anyone else.

A week into the Michael Jackson death watch, when I felt bereft of news, I developed a new routine, one I hope to keep alive long after the special editions of People magazine have vanished from the newsstands.

I began to read the obituaries. Not the ones about the rich, the famous and the powerful, the so-called best and brightest among us. Instead, I read about the people who demanded no headlines except what their families paid the newspaper to run, folks I never met and never will meet. I read about the dead whose stories never got told, the ones who never set records for album sales, who never earned records of platinum and who never amassed police records of alleged molestations.

“The mass of men,” Henry David Thoreau once wrote, “lead lives of quiet desperation.”

Thoreau couldn’t have been more wrong. Of course, he also sat in solitude beside a pond for two years, so maybe his error in assessment should come as no surprise.

The irony from where I sit? Only that the icon, Jackson, was so much more desperate than so many I have read about in his wake. People like Dr. Ralph Fargotstein, who passed away in Scottsdale on July 22^nd at the age of 93.

All I know of the doctor is what I’ve read, a few hundred words that make me wish I had met him while he still drew breath. Fargotstein had a wife, Dottie, a woman he called missus for longer than Michael Jackson lived. He had five kids and multiple grandkids. He was a Navy man in World War II and in Korea, and he served as a pathologist in hospitals across America, including St. Luke’s, where he made the laboratory a model of science.

Fargotstein retired in 1988, but he hardly slowed down. The good doctor pursued passions like photography and playing the organ and even attended flight school. Those who knew him cited his morals, his ability to inspire and his amazing recipe for barbecue sauce.

Every word I read made me wonder about the lives he saved, made better, returned to health. And by every word I mean all 444 of them, or about what CNN expended on Michael Jackson every minute all July long.

Fargotstein’s obit was an epic compared to the paragraph devoted to the passing of Paige Ann (Porky) Bandy, who died at 64. Bandy battled two forms of cancer all year long, before passing not long before the Gloved One. Porky called Arizona home for 59 years, graduating from Benson High School and eventually making her way to the Valley. Among her callings: Cop dispatcher, waitress, tour director, mother of a daughter, and assistant teacher of Japanese flower arranging. Her true niche, though, was in numerology. It took her across the world, gave her the chance to do reading after reading for friends and clients, to spin out possible futures the way the 21^st century media spins out pasts.

To read about Porky, about her husband Carl and about her trip across Asia with her teacher, Lama Madi, was to want to congratulate her on a life well-lived. We could have talked numbers, or psychic gifts, or she could have told me about her two beloved grandchildren. The conversation, I am sure, would have been every bit as riveting as any tour of Neverland.

I could have listened to her for hours, in the same way as I could have listened to the violin playing of Ioana Dumitriu, 59, who died at 10 minutes before 4 in the morning on the 17^th of July. The grandmother’s death ended a violin career that began at age 7, in Communist Romania, and propelled the prodigy across the world to the Phoenix Symphony, where she played for nearly 30 years.

To imagine Ioana, this musician I’ve done nothing more than conjure from a few words, is to think of Beethoven’s last symphony, his Ninth, a piece Ioana loved, with its “Ode to Joy” and its thunderous, heart-propelling finale. It’s also to imagine the small details, the little facts that define a life: The taste of her baklava, beloved at symphony potlucks; the pitchy squawk of Noah, her African Grey parrot; and the pride she must have imbued in her three children and her husband, Dan, himself a symphony violist.

These obituaries are only stories, husks of words in comparison to the people who lived the lives they describe, but somehow they feel more real to me than the hype surrounding the vanquished pop star. We’ve spent a million words on him by now, created a gray noise that has swallowed so many lives better lived. Saying so seemed worth one story among the many, just like all these lives I’ve read about seem so worthy of one simple round of applause.

Good lord, aren't their enough demographics yet?

Ad Week reports today about a hot new demographic among women ages 25 to 32 -- the "nesties." How do they define this group?

NEW YORK The Knot Inc. has identified a demographic subset of women who are going through a series of intense, mega-life-changes in a compressed period of time -- and as a result are spending as much on consumer goods as they’ve ever spent in their lives.

The digital media company, best known for its core wedding-centric site TheKnot.com, recently conducted a study in conjunction with global research firm OTX. The result was the classification of this marketing-friendly group dubbed "Nesties" -- 25-to-32-year-old women who are getting engaged, planning weddings, shopping for houses and preparing to have kids -- essentially planning for the next 20 years of their lives during a tight three- to four-year window.

According to the elaborate report, which surveyed over 6,000 women this past February, the Nesties wield a whopping $283 billion in spending power. Yet, because of the heavy expenses incurred during many of their life-changing events, finances are top of mind. as Less than a quarter claim to "only think about finances when they absolutely have to," according to the report. Half of Nesties say they are overwhelmed by financial burdens, and close to 70 percent say they are cautious about spending on non-essentials.

Despite the recession, they are still spending on major purchases like houses, wedding dresses and cribs. “They are in the market at the same time for more things than maybe any other point in their lives,” said Knot CEO David Liu.

In other news, I've identified a demographic of men ages 25 to 45 that I call the Hasties. Their defining feature? They run away with great haste whenever theymeet Nesties. Not sure about their cumulative buying power yet, but I'm certain they drink a lot of beer and often can be see wearing t-shirts by Ed Hardy and Affliction.

Twisdom for May 30, 2009

• 13:01 How do people sit down and write a novel with no more planning than "this feeling I had?" An outline feels mandatory - and damn hard to do. #
• 13:03 Best part of Twitter? Random questions! RT Jenn_ex anyone know if you can get the old wonder woman tv series on dvd? #
• 14:50 How is this song 29 years old? That's insane. I miss Squeeze. ♫ blip.fm/~7c8pj #
• 14:53 "What a beautiful face I have found in this place." One of the best band names ever ... Neutral Milk Hotel. ♫ blip.fm/~7c8wr #
• 14:58 Thinking about the late Jay Bennett. Rest in peace. ♫ blip.fm/~7c97d #
• 15:04 Not a big Dylan fan, but this song finds its way right to my soul. ♫ blip.fm/~7c9il #
• 15:18 Beautiful Springsteen song and a central part of Jerry Maguire. ♫ blip.fm/~7cabs #
• 15:28 Tonight? Heading to Press, the coffeehouse at CityNorth to see my boys from @randomkarma and @champagnetap play. #
• 20:38 Just went to casino and played an hour of 23. It's like blackjack but way more expensive. #
• 22:13 Been all over the Valley tonight. As usual, ADOT sucks. Construction on 101 and 202 makes east west travel a nightmare. #
• 23:10 Time to study the inside of my eyelids. With help from Tylenol PM. #

Hope you're having a great weekend. Me, it's been a lot of fun.

The Space Between Head and Heart

My latest column for the Times. Could certainly use your insight. Shoot me an email at leiboaz@gmail.com, please.

Advice columns are a dime a dozen, you'll doubtless agree. And they're deadly boring, mostly because Dear So and So never gives the useful advice you'd offer if only someone paid you scads of cash to advise those in unrelenting agony over the unfairness of life.

For example, here's how Dear Abby would read if I'd been given the assignment.

DEAR ABBY: I'm a 56-year-old man with a lifelong dilemma – I was born on Christmas Day. Yep, December 25th. For my whole life, year after year, my birthday has always been second banana, and, worse yet, I get cheated on gifts because my friends and family double up. Recently, I've decided to move my annual celebration to June 25th, which is my half birthday. My wife and nine kids say I'm being petty. What do you think? Sign me … TIRED OF SHARING A BIRTHDAY WITH JESUS

DEAR TIRED: Shut up. No one likes a whiner.

Admittedly, my column wouldn’t be renowned for its compassion and fellow feeling, but it would be entertaining as all get out. And it would solve one of the big problems with advice columns: They're boring as hell. The trouble is, my approach wouldn't solve the other problem I have with advice columns: The fact that their perspective is so narrow. Personally, I don’t want my problems solved by one middle-aged lady from Illinois. Nor do I want to go on TV and have my issues dealt with by an old white guy with a porn mustache and a voice that sounds like Huckleberry Hound.

Me, I believe there's wisdom in the multitudes, in having the minds of many solving the problems of one. You know, like those meetings you get sucked into at work, where 11 people sit around the big table crunching on Baked Lays and swilling Diet Cokes for an hour, "brainstorming" as a group until "the team" comes up with a workable solution?

Okay, you're right. Bad example. Those meetings inevitably suck. But I believe the principle of many helping one is sound and capable of giving birth to a new kind of advice column, a screed where (drum roll, please) …

You solve my problems!

Lucky for you people my whole life can be whittled down to precisely one problem, one pesky dilemma that has stood between me and happiness for a solid four decades now. And because I believe this problem is shared the world over, I'm willing to put it out there in all its glory, to see if you readers can solve it where the likes of Abby and Ann and Dr. Phil would surely fail.

Get your thinking caps on, because here goes.

DEAR READERS: I'm a 44-year-old man who's caught between two warring entities. On one side, there's my mind, my personal mental hard drive, storage system for facts and lessons and logic. It's home to everything I know. Standing opposed? That would be my heart, domicile of my emotions, home to joy and fear, love and guilt, and everything else I feel from one minute to the next.

They never seem to agree, these two. Doesn’t matter if I'm talking about staying on a diet, asking a woman out on a date, balancing the need to save money with the desire to shop, or getting out of bed to go to work on a Monday morning. My life very much resembles a perpetual standoff between mental Israel vs. emotional Palestine. My brain has a plan, a path to the right thing to do, meanwhile my heart has a set of feelings and wants that don't seem to subscribe to the mind's logic.

The question: How do you bring the two into balance? How do you get them to agree? Sign me, ONE CONFLICTED SOUL AMONG MANY.

Like I said, I know I'm not alone in this feeling, since I witness the same battle in others on an almost hourly basis. The examples are endless: The dieter who knows carrot cake is wrong, but cannot ward off the craving for a mouthful of frosting. The husband who knows that a stolen kiss – or worse – is cheating, but who gives in to the adrenalin of a momentary thrill. The drunk, the gambler, the addict, who knows down to the marrow that they're destroying their life, that they need help, that one more time is one more time too many, and yet fails to beat back their emotional demons, those feelings that say "yes" even when they know that "no" is the only acceptable answer.

Why do I see this conflict as essential, as the one battle that every thinking human being fights day after day?

Mostly because of how I define achieving maturity in a grown adult: It's owning the ability to consistently do what's necessary and what's right, even when that course of action is the last thing on Earth one feels like doing.

Not sure where you stand on having that ability, but me, I'd give myself a hard-earned B-minus. Hence, the need to put the question the masses. Besides believing in continually trying to grow up, I also believe in the wisdom of the many, the power of well-meaning folks around you to provide some insight you'd never glean on your own.

So have at it. Send me an answer at leiboaz@gmail.com. Doesn't matter what it is, only that you truly believe in it. I promise to print the best answers ASAP – and to do my best to take the best advice. Peace.

Pretty @#^%$#@ing Cool ...

I've been darn lucky to win a bunch of journalism awards over the past 15 years and last week I got one more, from the Arizona Press Club. Frankly, I got excited about this one, because these days writing columns is more a hobby and less a job. I don't do it for the money, but more to have the feeling of people reading it.

Anyway, a bunch of folks have asked me which column won. Here it is, from the December 2008 Scottsdale Times:

Every so often, you witness one of life's transcendent moments, a sublime sliver of eternity. False pretenses fall away and the true essence of Man reveals itself for all to see. For yours truly, this happened a few days ago at my local Bank of America ATM.

The scene? Early on a Saturday, inside Fry's grocery. A long line of sad-faced bank customers stand by to transact their meager financial business. A man in saggy sweatpants steps to the automated teller. He inserts his card, fingers the touchscreen. And then, madness erupts:

"#^&@*%+#$@!" screams Mr. Sweats. And again: "Un-%$^%#^@-ing believable. $%^#@#!&^. ##%$^*^#. I can’t believe the (anatomical reference deleted) on these people."

I'll spare you the finer points of this diatribe, Dear Reader, except to say that there apparently had been a hold placed on a deposited check and some disappointment regarding our hero's available checking balance. That's really not important, though, because here our story takes a surprising turn.

"Watch your mouth," urged a 20-something Good Samaritan standing in line. "There are women around."

To say that Mr. Sweats took umbrage at this warning would be putting it too mildly – by about half. "Yeah?" he said. "Well, $#$@@$% 'em. And %#&^# you too. ^$^%&#$ all of you."

The gents' debate continued like this for some time, and it was riveting stuff, with threats of mayhem that would have made the Al Qaeda network proud. But the highlight of it all, the reason for this column, came courtesy of a white-haired lady spectator, a "call Central Casting and have em' send down a grandma" sort of woman, 75 years old at least, with a purse the size of the Blarney Stone slung over her arm.

Says Granny: "Why don't you both shut the $%%#^ up?"

There was laughter and even a smattering of light applause. Me, I would have high-fived the lady, but (a) I was worried I'd break her arm, and (b) I was caught in the throes of an epiphany.

Profanity really gets a bum rap in this country. That was my startling realization. For all the talk of swearing degrading the English language, of curse words being the last refuge of the unimaginative, sometimes a well-timed @#^%$#@ is exactly what's necessary.

Minus the foul language, Granny's line simply wouldn't have been funny. Nor can I imagine checking the Dow these days without having a full of arsenal of swear words at my disposal. I'll defer to no less an authority than Mark Twain here:

"Under certain circumstances," Twain is credited with saying, "profanity provides a relief denied even to prayer."

Hey, who am I to disagree with the author of Huck Finn? Plus, as anyone who's ever watched Shaquille O'Neal shoot foul shots or the Arizona Cardinals blow a fourth quarter lead will attest, sometimes Shakespearean prose simply doesn't do a tragedy justice.

Speaking of sports, I can't believe – in a world where cable TV and satellite radio are rapidly becoming king – that no network has unveiled an R-rated play-by-play broadcast hardcore fans could pay extra to enjoy. Think about it: The Suns are playing the Spurs in the playoffs and Tim Duncan drains an improbable three-pointer to kill our hopes of a championship.

On one network, you have Al McCoy holding forth: "Heartbreak hotel, Suns fans. That's a tough loss for your Phoenix Suns."

On the other channel, you have a guy saying what Al is surely thinking anyway: "Are you, ##$%^^@ing kidding me? What kind of #$#%$^ is that? Sweet sassy molassey, that's the most $^@!$%& ridiculous shot I've seen in my #@$%^& life. God, I $%$^&* hate the Spurs."

That's what it sounds like at my house, I promise you.

Besides language more accurately reflecting the real world, swearing has another potential upside – uniting us at work. I kid you not. A 2007 British study published in the Leadership and Organization Development Journal claims as much. According to Professor Yehuda Baruch, profanity not only cuts down on job-related anxiety, it also knits together colleagues.

"For some people, the use of profanity is a way to create collegiality," Baruch told ABC News. "For others, it's a way to relieve stress. …This is a message to managers. When people feel better, the group feels better. It's a win-win situation."

What else is there for me to say except to utter a hearty "@#!&*^ yeah?"

Besides, swearing can also be very profitable. Witness the case of Dawn Herb, a mother of four who hails from Scranton, Pa. Last October, Herb, 33, began cursing a blue streak at an overflowing toilet in her home. Little did Herb know that her neighbor, an off-duty Scranton cop by the name of Patrick Gilman, could hear her through the open bathroom window. A verbal cursefest ensued – not unlike my ATM debacle – except this one ended up with Herb arrested for disorderly conduct.

For a while, she was facing 90 days in jail and a $300 fine. Then the ACLU got involved, a judge found Herb not guilty and threats of a lawsuit for false arrest began to fly. The net result? Last month, the city of Scranton settled and paid Herb $19,000 for her trouble.
Is that crazy? Absolutely. ##%^ crazy. But in the final analysis I have to agree with one of Herb's attorneys, an ACLU staff lawyer named Valerie Burch.

"What may be profanity to some is poetry to others," she said via press release. "Both are constitutionally protected expression and the police can't charge people for either."

Charge people? Heck, nowadays they actually pay people to curse.

The judge's take on the above? “Leibowitz does what only great humorists do: takes one small incident and builds an entire story around it, complete with a laugh-out-loud line involving a granny who fights fire with fire. Excellent!”

Vacation Twisdom, May 4, 2009 (Special Florida Edition)

Notes from the beach and other South Florida locales ...

• 06:26 Is it sad that I wake up and immediately grab my iPhone for an email/social media inventory ... while on vacation? #
• 06:41 Look at it this way: There's only one Monday morning each week. And it'll be over soon. #
• 07:32 If an awesome meal generates "food porn," then this beachside cafe breakfast is a "food snuff film." Ocean's gorgeous though. #
• 07:45 The Atlantic Ocean says it loves Monday morning. yfrog.com/08qrcj #
• 08:18 The need for perfection can be perfect hell. #
• 11:16 Haircut on vacation. Good idea. Meeting lonely Haitian barber named Edwidge. Swell. Looking like I'm in the midst of chemo. Priceless. #
• 13:35 After nearly 48 hours in Florida, I give up. Catching pm flight home tomorrow. Saw parents, pals. That's enough for me. #
• 19:00 Love the crowd shots in Boston. Lots of fat, grimacing Celts fans. #
• 21:31 Craig Sager. Master of the Reportorial Obvious and the Sartorial Hideous. #

Peace out, folks.

dl

Twisdom for Wednesday, April 29th (Special Swine Flu Edition!)

Sorry if this seems a bit random. I may have swine flu. Or I just a ate a chef's salad with extra ham that disagreed with me.

• 06:54 Sometimes it feels like we've measured creativity into impossibility. #
• 07:41 I really need to work on this "having a life" thing I keep hearing about. Woke at 5 with storyboard ideas in my head. Now at my desk. #
• 08:49 Wearing glasses to work for the first time in years. Contacts make eyes ache. Benefits? I can see co-workers! And they seem good looking. #
• 10:09 Maybe Twitter is just hype? Nielsen study shows 60 percent of users don't come back after 1 month. bit.ly/3pcfXT #
• 12:14 Love that Phoenix was named one of America's Top 20 "fun cities." Why do I feel like we're 19th, right behind Toledo? #
• 12:22 Funny about the "most fun" list. San Jose, CA is #6. And Oakland -- Oakland -- is #11. Santa Ana, CA? #17. Talk about fun! #
• 18:26 Sleepy at 625 pm? Either I'm super lame or swine flu-ish. #
• 19:04 I hate when my fortune cookie isn't a fortune but an order. Tell my future, dammit. #
• 20:02 I used to excel at creating space from people who made me uncomfortable. Now I try too hard to be nice. A little conflict goes a long way. #
• 20:13 If AMC stands for "Amerian Movie Classics," why is "Road House" on?

Twisdom for Monday, April 27th

Another day, another batch of Twitter ramblings ...

• 07:08 Monday. Yep Monday. That about sums it up from this corner of the twitterverse. #
• 08:20 E*Trade is super convenient ... until you're on the phone to Mumbai to speak to the Slumdog Thousandaire in customer non-service. #
• 11:12 Swine flu, a massive earthquake. All Mexico needs now is a plague of locusts and the apocalypse trifecta may be complete. #
• 11:13 T-minus 10 minutes until lunch at Cibo. Monday is shaping up nicely. #
• 11:20 I'm worried about a massive swine sickout, where they all call in sick feeling headachy and nauseous. That'd kill my chef's salad dinner. #
• 17:43 How cool would it be if Hugh Jackman became the Valley's first case of swine flu? The media explosion heard 'round Arizona! #
• 19:41 The Dos Equis "Most Interesting Man in the World" ads are quickly getting way less interesting. #
• 19:49 What the hell is on Marv Albert's head? I haven't seen a rug that lousy since my college apartment. #
• 19:56 If there's one cool name in all sports, it's Pacquiao. I just like saying it. #
• 19:59 Love HBO's "24/7" boxing docs. And while I like Ricky Hatton, I'd love for Pacquiao to pummel Hatton's moron trainer, Floyd Mayweather Sr. #

Feel free to follow me at http://twitter.com/leiboaz

Twisdom for Sunday, April 26, 2009

So what went through my addled mind, you ask? Here you go:

• 08:26 "If one does not know to which port one is sailing, no wind is favorable." Seneca nails it, almost 2000 years ago. #
• 08:27 Ready, fire, aim. Still working for me after 40-odd years. #
• 08:28 And now comes Day One of my new "All Pancakes Diet." Talk about a bestseller! #
• 08:58 Great NY Times read on looks and how and why we stereotype. www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/fashion/26looks.html?em #
• 12:12 Cannot shake the funk. What's your remedy for a truly black mood? #
• 17:42 The funk seems to be lifting. Some sunshine, some conversation and a heaping dose of worrying about someone besides me. That did the trick. #
• 21:34 Love the news. Swine flu, salmonella-afflicted alfalfa sprouts and a multiple shooting on a college campus. I'll check back next month. #

Peace, David

Twisdom for Saturday, April 25, 2009

I've been having a lot of fun with Twitter lately. When you're restricted to 140 characters and you feel compelled to be interesting, well, that's a real writing challenge. Here's a day's worth of tweets:

• 05:24 Once upon a time, I used to be awake at 5:20 on a Saturday morning and I'd think, "Need to go home soon." Now I'm just watching dawn come. #
• 09:12 The iTunes Genius feature is ... sheer genius. #
• 10:01 Love the song "Red Rabbits" by The Shins. Still, 500 listens later, I have zero clue what it's about. #
• 10:48 Like I was saying, "Red Rabbits" is awesome ... but what's it about? Lunch on me for the first good explication. ♫ blip.fm/~4yifx #
• 10:52 My hope is, Boy George shows up today to front @randomkarma. Random Karma Khameleon would rock the McDowell Mtn Music Fest! #mmmf #
• 12:26 Cannot shake the malaise today. Blah blah blah. #
• 12:43 Sometimes I wonder: Am I walking toward the future or backing away from the past? #
• 13:01 So this seal walks into a club ... Yep, I'm appearing here all week, folks. #
• 13:21 And then there's not Maude. Bea Arthur passes away at 86. www.etonline.com/news/2009/04/73212/ #
• 13:25 With the 31st pick in the NFL draft, the Arizona Cardinals take - Susan Boyle. "She's cheap and she can sing the anthem," says Bill Bidwill. #
• 13:33 This swine flu thing is really impacting me. All morning, I've wanted a ham sandwich and maybe a hot dog. #
• 14:12 It's a good day for me. Just broke my personal record for consecutive days alive! #
• 14:47 I'm a believer in doing the right thing. Now if I could just figure out what the right thing is. #
• 17:28 Back to back, I've heard Winger and Warrant. Ears officially in rebellion. #
• 20:22 I really enjoy watching Kobe play. Gives me a chance to wonder about the fragility of the human ACL. #
• 02:10 I'm totally ready to hit the town. My nap from 930 till 2am really did the trick. #
• 02:12 This is how $100-a-hand 3am blackjack starts, people. Quick ... Where's the Tylenol PM? #

If you're on Twitter, you can follow me at http://twitter.com/leiboaz

Peace.

Midlife in 1,000 Words or Less ...

Some men hit midlife and buy a Corvette. Others splurge on a super expensive second wife, half the age and double the cup size of the first. Me, I drove over to Borders books.

Sure, that sounds like an anticlimax. But with the economy being so lousy, book shopping seemed like the best way to battle massive anxiety yet stay within my budget.

The occasion? Only my 44th birthday, an over-hyped, underwhelming personal landmark full of smirky "wow, you're olds," wiseass Facebook comments, and a burning desire to avoid a colonscopy, the gift my family doctor has been trying to give me for a couple years now.

Fighting back middle age was how I ended up in the Women's Health aisle, leafing though Suzanne Somers' latest epic, "Breakthrough: 8 Steps to Wellness: Life-Altering Secrets from Today’s Cutting-Edge Doctors." Shockingly, I actually made it four pages, right up to here – "We are under the greatest environmental assault in the history of mankind; we live in a world of unbelievable stress and pollution. Our bodies are no longer able to tolerate this assault and as a result people are sick." That's when I realized three things:

One, I didn't need to spend $25.95 to depress the hell out of myself. I was already there. Two, I liked Suzanne Somers a lot better as Chrissy, the dingy blonde on Three's Company, or even on those Thighmaster infomercials. And three, I really need to write a self-help book.

Seems like everyone's an advice whiz these days. The comedian Steve Harvey has a self-help book. So does talk show host Montel Williams, and Playboy centerfold Jenny McCarthy. Oprah has her mug on a bunch, and LL Cool J has a workout book and on and on.

Me, all I have a title so far. I'm going to call mine, What Are You A Freakin' Moron: Simple Stuff That Will Screw Up Your Life If You Forget It!

Catchy, huh? The best part is, the title has a colon. That's something I learned from Suzanne Somers – all self-help bestsellers have a colon in the middle of the title. I'm not sure why that is, but it seems to be a rule.

As for content, here's a confession for you: I pretty much have nothing so far. But that didn't seem to stop Spencer Johnson, the guy who wrote Who Moved My Cheese? I read that thing in like a half hour 10 years ago, while waiting for a dentist's appointment, and all I remember about Hem and Haw and Sniff and Scurry is that I've never felt so good about a root canal, either before or since.

I think a big part of my problem – besides still being confused by the world around me pretty much 24/7, even after 44 years alive – is my inability to take a simple thought and explain it at great length. That appears to be another self-help staple, but my 15 years of journalism seems to have beaten the long-windedness out of me. For example, my first chapter was going to be about how to lose weight, a subject I know all too well, having lost at least 2,000 pounds in my lifetime (while unfortunately also gaining back approximately 2,250).

What have I written so far?

"Eat less. Exercise more."

You see my problem, I'm sure. I mean, I could fill out the chapter with some recipes, but let's be honest: No one really follows those anyway after, what, like the first three days on the diet? So what's the point?

Then there's the chapter about success at work. In a lot of books, that's like a whole book by itself, which makes sense given how tricky the workplace is in the 21st century. Me, I haven't been able to come up with a second paragraph. I'm stuck after just three sentences:

"Do a good job and be nice to people. Because if you do a bad job but you're nice to people, it won’t matter that you're nice, because people will get sick of you. And because if you do a good job but you're a jackass, it won't matter that you did a good job, because people will get sick of you."

Kind of a cause and effect thing. Anyway, I'm sure the publishers will tell me that I need some way to make it more complicated, or it'll never sell. Sort of like relationships.

That's my other chapter that I'm working on right now – my take on women and how we men can get along with them better. Here's what I have at press time.

"Nothing."

That's the set-up sentence. Then there's the explainer sentence which follows: "Look at the word 'Nothing' in the sentence above. Stare hard at the letter 'o,' at the space within its circle. That tiny area contains all the vast knowledge I have accumulated about women after more than 16,000 days on this planet. It also holds all the knowledge about women that has been passed down to me by generations of Leibowitz men and by all humans who have ever owned a Y-chromosome. Never forget this. Never think you know anything. Never think you will know anything. If you keep this lack of knowledge squarely in mind, you will still fail miserably with women, but at least you won't be overconfident."

I know. The chapter needs work; all the chapters need work. But, 44 years in, at least I feel like I'm finally making some progress.