That’s my kind of David, a tough kid, proud he didn’t chicken out, who knows he’s lucked out.

A Bruce Springsteen concert was about to start. Somebody threw a firecracker into the air. You could almost feel everyone shift from thinking firecracker to thinking gunshot. Suddenly there was a human tsunami rolling right at me with no choice but to flee.

It’s furnace-stoked and jungle-sticky in Milan, a touch delirious. Reality shimmers, like an oasis you can’t quite be sure is there. Things blur even in the car with the AC cranking. The wavy gravy of 100 + is lurking and looking for any excuse to creep in. It takes will power to drive alert.

Years later, as a teenager, I meted out a bizarre form of vigilante justice on the theater owners, whoever they were, for stealing my virtue.

I‘m glad the president cares about improving education in America. With a storm of windbags out there spouting whatever they want to believe is true, preparing kids to know how, not what, to think  has to be a priority. For bonkers thinking, look at the tea partiers. I thought spinning yarns peaked in W’s presidency, [...]