THE DEAL:...continued from previous page...

...The editor had asked a woman who once had written about Pylon for The New York Rocker. She then made a call and asked Vanessa Briscoe - Pylon chanteuse, star -- if she knew someone who might be able to do it. I had been working with Vanessa before I moved away from Athens the year before. Vanessa mentioned that I was working at a newspaper. Calls were made, messages were left, and there we were with Madeleine the literary agent suggesting I write a proposal for a book "..about this Athens thing."

"Athens in the 1970s was cheap, hot, trashy and southern..." In a few days I had something like 15 pages typed on an IBM Selectric III.

It worked. Next thing I know, I have a contract in my hands. I take it to a lawyer guy who has since become a noted entertainment lawyer guy who would prefer probably that I never existed, thanks to the Matthew Sweet thing.

Be that as it may, I signed the contract, got some money in advance and hied myself down to Radio Shack to buy a Tandy computer. I had work to do. I had a book to write. I was on top of the world. My mission was simple:

Life was good. Now I just had to tell a big, long story about a bunch of folks, some of whom were rich and famous, many of whom were my friends, and a goodly number of which had, as they say, issues.

Slowly, with a lungful of innocence and fistful of guile, I entered the snakepit...