Oh yes. Our alarm system can only be armed and disarmed by someone who has been assigned a six-digit code. The manager gets one, and he's allowed two others in the store. I have only Jack (the drunk with brain damage) and myself with codes at the moment.

Last night I borrowed an employee from Bergenfield (home of Buddy Randell and the Knickerbockers, for those of you keeping score) and instructed Jack to come in at 9:00 and close up. So, at 9, (right after I faxed you) Jack comes in, unlocks the back door, stumbles outside to throw out the garbage, stumbles back in, LEAVES THE BACK DOOR WIDE OPEN, and sets the alarm. Hello.

I get a phone call from the "borrowed" employee, John, who's dialing me frantically from the pizza joint next door. The police "want to talk to me." So I had to go back again.

Jack blames Roger, the owner of the pizza place, for "dissrrrractin'" him and making him forget to lock the door. Or close it. Or breathe or respire or photosynthesize or whatever the f*** he does.

This morning, I have to go in, to pick up the bank deposit bags (the bank won't let anyone but me do it) and I drop off the bags at the store, shut off the alarm, and wait for Jack. 10:05, no Jack. For once in my life I say "screw it", and leave. I get home not knowing if he ever got there, so I call. He answers. I hang up. The phone rings immediately upon my hanging up--and it's Steve Katz. So there's my frame of mind when you called.

In other matters, watch for the UPS guy with a little packet for you. I loaded up a cassette with the best (or worst) of those PSAs I told you about. The voter registration ones were released on an LP and a 45, in September of 1972, just as I was starting college. I'm sure you will agree after hearing them that you come off much better than, say, Jim Dandy does. In fact, given the time frame--I must say you sound remarkably lucid, sane, and level-headed for a guy who's one month away from throwing his meal ticket in the toilet. The voter spots are, as a group, much better than the anti-drug ones which are from 1974 and 75. Harry Chapin in particular is just a f***ing idiot. But you'll hear it. I'm sure a lot of the people you'll hear are acquaintances of yours, and you can jam these tapes down their miserable proto-yuppie throats and laugh (the way I'm doing to you right now.)

It's a shame they didn't call ME to do one of these. I know exactly what I would have said, considering the time frame:

"Hi, this is Mike Fornatale. You don't know me, but in a parallel universe my exact double isn't making any of the mistakes I'm making right now, and is going to be wealthy and powerful in a year or two. So, listen: I'm here to take an unusual stand and tell you to please just go ahead and slam down all the heroin you want. Have one for yourself and then have one for me too. 'Cause here's the way I figure it: eventually they find you slumped in the corner of your apartment in a bed of cobwebs and a pool of your own drool, with a needle sticking out of your arm, covered by a virtual cloud of green flies which nicely offset your blue skin. And if this happens to ENOUGH of you, then eventually maybe--just MAYBE-- I might be able to find a F***ING PARKING SPACE once in a while. Thanks for listening."

One more thing: trivia question. You can't use it now, you'll have to save it for eight or ten years till everybody forgets it:

Name the only platinum LP by a band with TWO members who didn't die with the same liver they were born with.