The following is a work of fiction.

Not Nick Nolte's Diary, Malibu, California
November 30, 2004

Paramount

Well Diary, the late Thanksgiving dinner plans looks pretty good on paper. Scotty G. and Carol will be there. Neil, John, Jeff and his wife are solid. I still have a couple of empty seats to fill. But "plans on paper" is nothing more than vaguely alliterative human speech, as Freddy Francis used to say. Manolo just gave me his pitch for the menu. Sounds seductive. I was at Paramount this morning for the first time in a while and I felt like Shelby Foote at a Japanese bus tour of the major southern battlefields. After escaping the mountain, I went over to that new record store to pick up Bill Shatner's latest. It turns out the place is called Amoeba, Diary. It's about the size of the Superdome and if you're looking for decent jazz, it has just as many saints.