First of all, thanks as always for the notes, and it’s just hitting me that ELVAK from CLEPTON is my old friend Mark, and I’m so stupid with this thing that (I know, I know there’s a way to do this) I can’t just write back directly. On the good side, there’s a certain peace in being this stupid and accepting it.

Mark and I were comics at the Comic Strip, and were friends the day we met, and here’s a good drinking story to go with it.

My week off, by the way — or “on the wagon” as they used to say; never knew what that meant, but I’m willing to guess.

Maybe, like lots of things, it goes back to the Old West. For instance, the slang word “hootch” for liquor is a contraction of “Who hit John?” I don’t know that to be true to a certainty, but in “The Man Who Shot Liberty Valance,” a great John Ford movie (are there any that aren’t great?) John Wayne at one point reflects on the possibilities of some guys becoming a problem and says, “Depends on how much ‘Who-Hit-John’ they’ve had.”

So here’s my guess on “The Wagon”, as in getting on the wagon — or falling off.

It feels likely that there were only three possibilities for the end of an evening of saloon-drinking in the Old West: First, that you would shoot someone, or someone would shoot you; second, that you would stroll upstairs with one of the bar-girls…

And a quick word on that. Nevermind what you might catch. Nevermind the way most people probably smelled back then. I just can’t even imagine lying down or kneeling against or even TOUCHING the same bed that two hundred and forty miners and railroad workers had relaxed on in only the last twenty-four hours. If those sheets could talk — we’d all beg them not to. The turnover rate (so to speak) in those rooms must have rivalled McDonald’s.

So “On the wagon.” Just a guess now, but the third possibility when you were drunk as a skunk in those days was that a friend would take pity on you, carry you out and dump you in his wagon and drive you home. Assuming you had a home. Anyway, the only time you were safely away from the bar and not drinking was when you were… ON THE WAGON.

Of course, a quick turn or two might make you roll off. The impact might wake you up, at which point you might walk back into town and back into the saloon, in others words… OFF THE WAGON.

I could be completely wrong about this, but sometimes the things we make up can be better than what’s real.

So here’s the story with me and Mark. We were working at the Comic Strip that night, and that day we had something to do — I swear I don’t remember what. And somehow we got to talking about penny loafers, and how we hadn’t had any in years. We also decided that there was only one kind of penny loafer that would do: Bass Weejuns.

Well, the game was afoot. We started out (I have no idea why) at a Florsheim store near Herald Square. They did not have Bass Weejun penny loafers. They had penny loafers, but not Bass Weejuns. Now, remember, we didn’t call there first to see if they had Bass Weejuns, we just went down there. Do you know why? Take a second, you can guess. That’s right: BECAUSE WE WERE STUPID.

We were two young, stupid men without regular jobs who made enough here and there in comedy to have apartments and friends, and we decided to start walking uptown from there and go into every shoe store we saw until we found one that had Bass Weejun penny loafers. (Obviously, the word “loafer” here is not a coincidence.)

We didn’t call the first store, we didn’t call the second store, we didn’t call any of the fourteen stores it took. We just went from on to the other, no map, no guide, no assurance and, most importantly, NO BRAINS.

Oh, and one more thing. After the first store, we walked outside and said, “Hey, you know what let’s do? Every time we go to a store that doesn’t have them, we’ll go to a bar and have a beer. Then we’ll go to the next store.”

I don’t know whose idea that was, and it really doesn’t matter, does it? We went to a store, then a bar, then a store, then a bar. Unsuccessful at every store, but the bars were a sure thing. (Very few bars don’t have beer.)

Well, the only thing you need to know is that later on that night, around ten at night (and it was just a Tuesday), the show was on, the Comic Strip was humming, the waitresses were pretty, the customers were laughing… and two twenty-five-year-old pinheads were in the front, at the bar, just after having performed, having another beer, talking and laughing with the other comics.

Oh, yes, and both of us, Mark and I, might have been swaying a tiny bit, but you’d never know it, since our balance was so much better in our BRAND NEW, CORDOVAN, BASS WEEJUN PENNY LOAFERS.

God help us, but I think we actually switched to gin rickies, or some other preposterous concoction.

Ah, youth.

Don’t worry, Mark, stay in touch and someone will show me how to write back.

REMEMBER: IF YOU WERE LUCKY ENOUGH IN YOUTH TO DO SILLY THINGS THAT STRUCK YOU AT THE MOMENT… AND IF YOU WERE LUCKY ENOUGH TO GROW OUT OF THAT — SOMEWHAT — AND IF YOU’RE LUCKY ENOUGH TO BE ABLE TO LOOK BACK AND LAUGH AT IT… FOLKS, THE GAME’S OVER AND YOU’VE WON, AND…

HOLY SMOKE, A NEW PAIR OF PENNY LOAFERS SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD, DOESN’T IT?