There are a number of people without whom I could not have written this book, but I hope you don't hold that against them. They are all fine people, and they had no idea how it would turn out.

Japan has a low crime rate, unless you count the fact that approximately every fifteen minutes the entire Cabinet gets indicted for taking bribes.

I was a middle-of-the-road Democrat more than anything else. I know I voted for Carter. Watergate taught me how bad the Republicans were.

Speaking of food, English cuisine has received a lot of unfair criticism over the years, but the truth is that it can be a very pleasant surprise to the connoisseur of severely overcooked livestock organs served in lukewarm puddles of congealed grease. England manufactures most of the world's airline food, as well as all the food you ever ate in your junior-high-school cafeteria.

In more than 20 years of opening beers with guys, I have NEVER seen the Swedish Bikini Team show up. Almost always, the teams that show up in beer drinking situations consist of guys who have been playing league softball and smell like bus seats.

I played lead guitar in a band called The Federal Duck, which is the kind of name that was popular in the '60s as a result of controlled substances being in widespread use. Back then, there were no restrictions, in terms of talent, on who could make an album, so we made one, and it sounds like a group of people who have been given powerful but unfamiliar instruments as a therapy for a degenerative nerve disease.

All other nations are drinking Ray Charles beer and we are drinking Barry Manilow.