This is not to say there are not Chicagoans. But I would suggest that they are a nomadic people, whose lost home exists only in their minds, and in the glowing crystal memory cells they all carry in the palms of their hands: a great idea of a second city, lit with life and love, reasonable drink prices at cool bars, and, of course, blocks and blocks of bright and devastating fire.

Unfortunately for humanity, I've gotten into the habit of providing my own closing music for shows by singing a song and playing the ukulele.

As a freelance writer, I'd be asked to become an expert for various magazines on any subject, whether food or wine or history or the life span of veterinarians. I was completely unschooled in any of these things.

People who run for president seriously and people who become president enter a bizarre secret society in which they have had an experience that none of us will ever have.

The nice thing about live performance is that I've never, ever been let down. Partly I'm lucky that my audience self-selects itself. Generally they know what they're in for, and generally we all just like each other and get along. But I always find one or two or a dozen really interesting people in the audience who make the show different. And that's one of the things I really like about performing.

Hosting a TV show is a full-time job in which success is defined by it never ending.

I made an impulse buy of a house in Maine to make my wife happy and now have gone back into debt and it's all started over for me.