Come we now here to a part of a book that is never, ever read. Well, that’s not completely true. If the author is an ignoramus politician (but I repeat myself) with a high public profile, we reporters will root around in the acknowledgments seeking the clue to who actually wrote the thing: “And this book would truly not have been made possible at all if it weren’t for my dear, close friend and patient confidante who was always there for me, May Sue Sadhack.”
But otherwise a writer can dump anything whatsoever in these paragraphs and it will never be noticed. Some reptiles have two dicks. This is the kind of thing you find out when you unleash your inner thirteen-year-old and Google “Lizard Penis.” It’s right there on Wikipedia.
A hemipenis (plural hemipenes) is one of a pair of intromittent organs of male squamates (snakes, lizards and worm lizards). Hemipenes are usually held inverted, within the body, and are everted for reproduction via erectile tissue, much like that in the human penis. Only one is used at a time, and evidence indicates males alternate use between copulations as a behavioral means of increasing sperm transfer when the interval between copulations is relatively brief.
Now that I have your attention (“intromittent organs … alternate use between copulations … when the interval is brief”), there are some people whom I should acknowledge. Limited space and, more to the point, limited capacity for recall will make the list brief. Too brief for my conscience but, no doubt, too long for the reader.
The late Doug Kenny gave me my first assignment at National Lampoon. (It stunk.) Matty Simmons hired me at that magazine. (I sucked.) Jann Wenner spent fifteen years giving me the best job in the world, roaming ditto for Rolling Stone. (I wasn’t as much trouble as Hunter S. Thompson, but who ever was?) The late and much-missed Michael Kelly gave me the next best job in the world at the Atlantic Monthly. And now it is John Avalon’s turn at the Daily Beast. Gentlemen, you are and were delightful, fine, and patient people.
The late (I see a pattern and I swear it has to do with my age and not my driving people to their graves) David E. Davis Jr. taught me to be an automotive journalist at Car and Driver and Automobile. More important to us both, he taught me to be a reasonably decent shot in the hunting field.
To the editors and publishers of the American Spectator, World Affairs, and, most of all, the Weekly Standard I owe … I owe to you even more than I owe to you already in advances, kill fees, and fishy expense account submissions.
My debt is larger still to Don Epstein and everyone at my lecture agency, Greater Talent Network.
And my most profound thanks go to my friend Morgan Entrekin who has edited and published every one of my books—for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health.
To all of you and many, many others:
Beefsteak when you’re hungry,
Whiskey when you’re dry,
All the intromittent organs you ever need.
And heaven when you die.