Normally I don't take requests, but Dan just had twins so I'll indulge him. He asked me to make a list of all the famous people I have had interactions with. Normally I would prefer to be telling you some news here, like about how I went to an incredible movie theater that had a pipe organist rise through the stage before the film, or how it turned out the films were gay porn, or about how I can't stop thinking of the word brine, ever since Jordan mentioned it to me.

Of course, the really big news is that my stuff arrived yesterday, so suddenly I have gone from almost no possessions to far too many possessions. A funny thing about that is that I find I still use my one spoon and bowl, which I think is like when a prisoner finds his door unlocked after years of living there and still returns there to sleep. Or maybe I should spin it the other way and say I have realized how few possessions I really need and I am quite happy with my one bowl. But I was going to tell you about famous people. Well, one famous person I had dinner with is David Byrne, who I told the story of Saul and how he had gone to the Columbia Jungle and seen a shaman and the shaman gave him a potion which caused saul to writhe on the floor. There is more to that story, about how the shaman would suck on saul's chest, kind of like giving a hickey, and then vomit bile, which was the shaman sucking out the poison. David Byrne was very interested in this story.

But there are many other famous people I can list. I once chatted with Lou Reed, who threatened to hit me in the head with a very heavy ashtray. I guess musicians almost don't count, because I have talked to so many of them. Maybe to shorten the list I'll stick to the memorable moments, like when I spilled a drink on Anthony Hopkins at a party and he wanted to fight. I should have kicked his ass too, since I hear he's a rabid anti-semite. I had a faux pas with Laurie Anderson, when I joked about eating dog meat, since she is a big dog lover. I don't know if he counts as famous, but I have talked with Spaulding Gray a few times, the most notable of which he was talking while eating appetizers and he was kind of spraying me. And little bits of his chewed food and spittle were landing on my eyes and up my nose and in my mouth, which was freaking me out, because he was telling me, at the time, about how he thought he had AIDS and I was trying to remember if you could get that from spit.

And Moby is kind of famous now and we used to talk all the time. More than talk, he used to come up and spend the weekend and tell me crazy stories about a guy chopping off someone's head with a paper cutter blade in the building he lived in. I was also friends with Charles Mingus III, who is not really famous, but his father was. And even the Charles Mingus I was friends with was sort of well known as a visual artist. He would make elaborate sculptures of tiny skeletons and support them with electromagnets in little diaoramas. He was also at work on launching a gossamer sattellite, that would deploy like a sail in space and give everyone free cell phones. Nice guy. He told me many stories of how he and his dad were on the run from the FBI and he used to carry a sawed off shotgun under his coat. In case you haven't read it, I highly recommend Beneath the Underdog, a biography of Charles Mingus II.

Let's see. . .who else. I discussed fish sticks with Spike Lee in the supermarket, but he's barely famous and also a bit less of a friend to jews than I prefer. I once went to Peter Mathessen's house and briefly discussed insects with him. He's the author of the Snow Leopard, and only famous in literary circles. I was hit on by Alan Ginsberg at a party, who asked me what I did for sex, a line which I still think is a great pick up, even though it didn't work on me.

I once caused offense to Fred Shneider of the B52s by not knowing who he was when he was seated next to me at dinner. I asked him his name and he made a big show of making up the name Barney and was really obnoxious to me. But he's hardly a person I would recognize if he were to ring my doorbell. Stupid B52s. There was also a time I talked to Howard Stern and told him about Survivor, the TV show, a few months before the show came on. He seemed nice enough. I had a chat with Lionel Richie once for about an hour. He was very relaxed, and seemed like a person at peace with the world. Which maybe was because he was successful, but I have met succeessful people who were not happy. So I think he was just a cheery fellow with a placid disposition.