There are two Venices I know about and one of them is a hotel in Vegas. The other is an L.A. beach where pretty girls walk their dogs while wearing as little as possible and mutant slabs of tanned, posthuman beef sip iced steroid lattes and pump iron until their pecs are the size of Volkswagens.

When you're born in a burning house, you think the whole world is on fire. But it's not.

Besides, do you think you would have come if I’d just popped into your tattoo shop one night around closing and said, ‘Hello, I’m the Prince of Darkness. Think you could help me out with a little war next Tuesday, say, sixish?

If his drunkenness had legs, it would be Alexander the Great and conquer the known world. Then it would puke for a week into a solid gold toilet it stole from Zeus's guest room.

I've come a long way to get nowhere at all, I thought. And I've spent everything I have to get here.

The dead think they can get away with anything because you'll feel sorry for them. If you play cards with the dead, make sure you deal and don't let them buy you drinks. They'll slip you a formaldehyde roofie and pry the gold fillings out of your teeth.

Chasing a burning girl down a city street is a lot harder than it sounds. Civilians tend to stop and stare and this turns them into human bowling pins. Slow whiny bowling pins.