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Norman put his arm around me and walked me down 14th Street. I babbled how I'd been out all night with another woman and now thought it was all over between me and Carol. Norman listened patiently and then said, "Well, it's like I wrote in The Naked and the Dead…""I never read that one," I confessed sheepishly."You will, you will," Norman reassured me. "In it, there's two guys in a foxhole in the South Pacific, and Joe has just gotten a Dear John letter from his girlfriend. He's pissing and moaning about it and the other guy says to him, "Come on Joe, in a month you'll be the King of the Manila whorehouses…""And Joe says, "Yeah, I know—but what about tonight?"It was pretty funny, and I knew exactly how Joe felt. Only Norman had the power to drag me out of my alcoholic self-obsessions. Even better, he then said the magic words, "Let's get that drink…"I was so happy I could've kissed him. We walked into a dark bar on the corner of 14th Street and Sixth Avenue, taking refuge from the evil sunlight. I took a seat on a stool while Norman stood talking to me. I ordered a beer, Norman had a scotch. He was wearing his trademark brown Safari shirt and a ski jacket; I was in my standard black leather jacket, black jeans, pointy Beatle boots, and the sunglasses I had stolen from the girl from the Mudd Club. But I didn't need them. The bar was dark and seedy enough, just the way I liked it.Norman listened patiently and then said, "Well, it's like I wrote in The Naked and the Dead..."
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I was reading A. E. Hotchner's Papa Hemingway on the drive to Cape Cod; I was deeply involved in Hemingway obsession that many young male writers of a certain age indulge in. As was my habit, instead of reading books by Hemingway, I was reading all the books about Hemingway, since I always preferred nonfiction to fiction. Still, Hemingway's Nick Adams stories, A Moveable Feast , and To Have and Have Not, were what originally hooked me. Hemingway wrote about beauty in such a profoundly simple way—you never felt like you were reading a Hallmark greeting card or anything like that. Ernie let you experience the beauty of simplicity.
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Impossible to make a mistake?Back in 1975, Legs McNeil co-founded Punk magazine, which is part of the reason you even know what that word means. He also wrote Please Kill Me, which basically makes him the Studs Terkel of punk rock. In addition to his work as a columnist for VICE, he continues to write for his personal blog, PleaseKillMe.com. You should also follow him on Twitter.Her ass was indeed a prize—with my hands on her, life came back to me again across all the glaciers of my fatigue… not 30 seconds had gone by before I slipped quietly into her… I felt like I could go on forever… I was alive in some deep water below sex, some tunnel of the dream where effort is divorced at last from price. She was exquisite. She was exquisitely sensitive… I had never moved so well. It was impossible to make a mistake…