Off the Wall at Callahan's
 
Contents 
 
Foreword 
Graffiti 
Puns (I) 
Puns (II) 
Songs 
Dramatis Personae
 

 
Books by Spider Robinson 
 
TELEMPATH 
CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON* 
STARDANCE (collaboration with Jeanne Robinson) 
ANTINOMY 
THE BEST OF ALL POSSIBLE WORLDS 
TIME TRAVELERS STRICTLY CASH* 
MINDKILLER 
MELANCHOLY ELEPHANTS 
NIGHT OF POWER 
CALLAHAN'S SECRET* 
CALLAHAN AND COMPANY (omnibus) 
TIME PRESSURE 
CALLAHAN'S LADY 
COPYRIGHT VIOLATION 
TRUE MINDS 
STARSEED (collaboration with Jeanne Robinson) 
KILL THE EDITOR 
LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE 
THE CALLAHAN TOUCH 
*FORTHCOMING FROM TOR BOOKS 
 

 
This is a work of fiction. All the characters and events portrayed in this book 
are fictitious, and any resemblance to real people or events is purely 
coincidental. 
OFF THE WALL AT CALLAHAN'S 
Copyright 1981, 1989, 1994 by Spider Robinson 
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions 
thereof, in any form. 
This book is printed on acid-free paper. 
A Tor Book 
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. 175 Fifth Avenue 
New York, N.Y. 10010 
Tor ® is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, Inc. 
Design by Lynn Newmark 
Interior illustrations by Phil Foglio Edited by James Frenkel 
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data 
Robinson, Spider. 
Off the wall at Callahan's / Spider Robinson. 
p. cm. 
"A Tom Doherty Associates Book." 
ISBN 0-312-85661-X 
1. Bars (Drinking establishments)—Fiction. I. Title. PS3568.03156038 1994 
813'.54—dc20 93-43229 CIP 
First edition: March 1994 
Printed in the United States of America 
0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1 
 
This one is for my friend and agent Eleanor Wood, sine qua honest work, with 
love, and thanks for the idea . . . 
and for Captain Lazarus Long, who established the precedent .. . 
and most of all, of course, for Jeanne, sine qua nihil . . . 
 
 
Foreword
 
Wall Flowers 
A) Begin reading here if you're not familiar with Callahan's Place [if you are, 
feel free to skip down to B)]: 
 
Callahan's Place, the now-vanished tavern in Suffolk County, New York, owned and 
operated by Michael Callahan (a.k.a. Justin of Harmony), was an unusual 
establishment in many respects. 
(Understatement of the millennium!) 
Among the many peculiarities of that merriest of oases: 
Aliens, cyborgs, transvestites, talking dogs, telekinetics, telepaths, 
clairvoyants, immortals, Intergalactic Traveling Salesmen, time travelers, 
vampires, victims of severe Tou rette's syndrome, and even editors, were all 
made welcome there, from time to time. 
Patrons were encouraged to smash their glass in the big fireplace after 
drinking—so long as they were willing to propose a toast first, naming the 
reason they felt like smashing a glass. Exercising this prerogative doubled the 
price of your drink . . . to a dollar. (Mike got a bulk rate on glasses.) 
Punning, and competition therein, was encouraged—nay, actively abetted—by 
Callahan, himself a hopeless and utterly shameless paronomasiac. 
Privacy was defended by force: any patron heard to ask snoopy questions of 
another patron was customarily blackjacked by Fast Eddie the piano player and 
dumped in the alley. 
But perhaps the most remarkable and most important thing about Callahan's Place 
was the converse of the last paragraph: any customer who displayed any desire to 
discuss his or her troubles received the instant and undivided attention of not 
merely the bartender but everyone in the room. 
Consequently, a plethora of interesting stories ended up getting told in 
Callahan's. All those presently known to me have been set down in the three 
volumes CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON, TIME TRAVELERS STRICTLY CASH, and 
CALLAHAN'S SECRET (all currently in print in Ace paperback), and collected in 
the omnibus CALLAHAN AND COMPANY (Phantasia Press hardcover; contact Alex 
Berman, Phantasia Press, 5536 Crispin Way, West Bloomfield, Michigan 48033, for 
details). 
Regrettably, the last of these stories, "The Mick of Time," involved the utter 
and final destruction of Callahan's Place, a few minutes before midnight on New 
Year's Eve, 1984/5 . . . 
 
B) Begin reading here if you already know Callahan's. 
 
But although it is gone, gone for good, echoes of Callahan's Place linger on. 
For one thing, there is a related cycle of stories having to do with Mike 
Callahan's wife, Lady Sally McGee, and the fabulous bordello she once operated 
in Brooklyn, Lady Sally's House—a House of healthy repute, and like her 
husband's tavern, an equal-opportunity enjoyer. (Also, sadly, gone now.) Two 
bookfuls of these stories currently exist: CALLAHAN'S LADY, and LADY SLINGS THE 
BOOZE. (I did warn you about the puns . . .) 
For another, a book is now available called THE CALLAHAN TOUCH, concerning 
Mary's Place, the remarkable tavern opened elsewhere in Suffolk County by Jake 
Stonebender (folksinger, guitar-player, songwriter, and narrator of all the 
Callahan stories) after the obliteration of Callahan's Place. 
And of course, there is this book, which represents my own desperate attempt to 
feed the voracious maw of ongoing Callahan Mania. 
 
You see, another oddity of Callahan's saloon was that Mike Callahan kept no 
mirror behind his bar. The wall above the gallery of bottles—known as "The 
Wall," to distinguish it from the other three—was bare and featureless . . . 
save for decades of graffitti, inscribed there by Callahan himself. Any time he 
heard something that struck him spoken in his bar, it was Mike's custom to grab 
a Magic Marker and preserve it for posterity on The Wall. Many a newcomer found 
him- or herself so fascinated by this distillation of over forty years of good 
conversation that they ended up sitting there all night, reading and drinking 
and reading and drinking. (Most of Callahan's customs had more than one purpose 
. . . but all of them seemed to end up putting money in his pockets. Not a 
stupid man.) 
And one day I remembered that Wall, and saw a way to get out from under a 
nagging problem ... 
Look: transcribing Jake Stonebender's yarns about Callahan's Place into polished 
and compelling prose has been putting bread on my table and music in my 
headphones for just short of twenty years now. Nobody misses The Place more than 
me. Ever since "The Mick of Time," the last Callahan story, was published in 
Analog Science Fact/Science Fiction Magazine in 1985, I have been reduced to 
thinking up stories of my own, an onerous task. Trust me: if I knew any more 
Callahan stories, I'd find time to set them down on paper. If I could find a way 
to get more, I would; I have tapped every source, shaken every tree, pursued 
every avenue. 
Yet not a week has gone by—in seven years!—without at least a few plaintive 
letters from readers asking when I'm going to publish some more Callahan's Place 
stuff. People keep sidling up to me at conventions, on the streets, in public 
washrooms . . . imploring me to publish something else—anything else—with the 
word "Callahan" in the title. 
I do not like to disappoint readers; they are in too good a position to redress 
perceived slights. So I cudgeled my brains. (I do this so often that I have had 
my cranium fitted with a removable screw-top, to facilitate cudgeling.) Among 
other things, I relived in memory—over and over again—every moment I had ever 
personally spent in that caravanserai of compassion. And finally one day as I 
was idly forward-scanning through all the mental videotape, I happened to notice 
a flashbulb go off . . . 
I knew that many photographs had been taken in Callahan's Place—hell, two of my 
most treasured possessions are framed 8 x 10 glossies of myself at The Place 
(one jamming with Fast Eddie and Jake; the other standing at the bar with Mike 
Callahan's arm around me; both photos autographed by the participants). I knew 
at least half a dozen people likely to keep a scrapbook of such photos. In many 
of those pix, I reasoned, The Wall must be visible ... 
So I made a lot of phone calls, and I paid a lot of postage, and I made a lot of 
expensive trips to the East Coast ... 
. . . and then I sealed myself in my office with about a googolplex of snapshots 
of Callahan's Place, a magnifying glass, a Macintosh II typewriter, a stereo, a 
case of Old Bushmill's and two pounds of Celebes Kalossi coffee .. . 
. . . and after only a million years of pain and eyestrain, I had painstakingly 
reconstructed something like 50 percent of the wit and wisdom recorded by 
Michael Callahan and imprudently stored by him on a medium inadequate to 
withstand a nuclear fireball. You hold it in your hands. 
A large and aromatic bouquet of Wall flowers: flowers plucked from off The Wall 
at Callahan's Place . . .* (*True story: in 1973 I had the privilege and 
pleasure of meeting the late great Alfred Hester. Much could be written about 
that meeting, for Alfie in person was the original One-Man Chinese Firedrill—but 
what is relevant here is that at one point he asked me what I was working on, 
and I said I was putting together a collection of Callahan's bar stories but 
couldn't think of a good title. Eyes flashing, Alfie excused himself, went to 
the washroom and returned less than two minutes later with a neatly typed list 
of over two dozen terrific titles. Among them were CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON, 
TIME TRAVELERS STRICTLY CASH, CALLAHAN'S SECRET . . . and yes, by God, OFF THE 
WALL AT CALLAHAN'S. 
I am now a firm believer in time travel .. . Thanks yet again, Alfie, wherever 
you are!)
 
Yes, there was more written on The Wall than you'll find in this book—but I 
don't see what I can do about it unless and until more photographs surface. (If 
you have any, contact me c/o the publisher.) 
Yes, I admit that the epigrams, maxims, perorations and pithy thayingth 
contained herein do lose something from not being scrawled in Callahan's 
inimitable (thank God!) handwriting—but not one of those photos was clear and 
crisp enough to reproduce well in book format. 
Yes, some of these quotations, and all of the longer puns, have already appeared 
in variant form in diverse Callahan's or Lady Sally stories. For one thing—as in 
so many aspects of science fiction—there is precedent for this from Robert A. 
Heinlein: every word of his" book THE NOTEBOOKS OF LAZARUS LONG appears in his 
previous novel TIME ENOUGH FOR LOVE, yet both books perennially jockey for 
position on Berkley Books' list of All-Time Best-Selling Titles. For another 
thing, in recent years people have been quoting some of these maxims and puns to 
me, unaware that I hold copyright, so it's time to set the record straight. (One 
reader informs me that she has been sending out Christmas cards containing the 
Yule Gibbons pun for years now—presumably in an effort to shorten her 
Christmas-card list.) 
Besides, a great many of these quotes, and all the shorter atrocities, appear 
here for the first time. 
And I have included lagniappe. Along with sayings from The Wall, I have included 
the lyrics to several of the songs that Jake and Fast Eddie used to play on 
Fireside Fillmore Nights, the ones that got the most requests during my tenure 
there. While only one or two of these songs actually appeared on The Wall, all 
of them frequently echoed from it, and from the other three walls. Several of 
these are recorded here for the first time; I've transcribed most of them from 
tapes in my possession, and can certify the accuracy of the lyrics. 
And as if that weren't enough, I have taken special trouble to isolate the most 
potentially lethal quotes from off The Wall—the puns!—in separate, labeled 
sections of their own, for your sanitary protection. 
Wisdom, laughter, and song—here you have Callahan's Place in a nutshell ... 
 
I know: it's not the same as having more Callahan stories. But it's something, 
and the best I can presently offer you. Half of why one went to Callahan's Place 
was for the companionship, the camaraderie, the merriment and melancholy, and 
the stories that got told, and I wish I had more of that for you, I do. 
But the other half of why I used to go there was the consistently good 
conversation. Interesting things got said there a lot, because Callahan's custom 
of requiring a toast put his customers into the habit of distilling their 
(very!) varied experiences and insights into crystallized form. As the late, 
immortal Theodore Sturgeon used to say, "If it's really basic, it's simple." And 
you can't have too much of that kind of stuff. 
It is my fond hope that in consideration of all this, readers will take pity on 
me, cut me some slack, and not write me any more letters asking for more 
Callahan's Place stuff for a while. 
I promise, anything I hear, you'll hear. Okay? 
--SPIDER ROBINSON 
Vancouver, British Columbia 
29 November 1991 
 
C) Begin reading here if you're the kind of reader who always skips the 
Foreword. 
 

 
Callahan's Law: Shared pain is lessened; shared joy is increased.
 

 
Lady Sally's Law: Shared despair is squared; shared hope is cubed (or better: 
Raised to the power of infinity?).
 
Writing is not necessarily something to be ashamed of. But do it in private, and 
wash your hands afterward.
—Woodrow W. Smith
 
A person should live forever, or die trying.
—Mike Callahan
 
Most joints, the barkeep listens to your troubles . . . but we happen to love 
this one so much that we all share his load.
—Jake Stonebender
 
We raise hopes, here . . . until they're old enough to fend for themselves.
—Mike
 
The church is near
But the road is icy.
The tavern is far
But I will walk carefully.
—Ukrainian proverb,
quoted by Charlie Daniels
 
Funny men are better lovers. They know about pain.
—Josie Bauer
 
The average human in the best of circumstances spends a hell of a lot of 
attention and energy on monitoring the body's thousand and one aches and pains 
and twinges and other sudden, small alarms. At least as much energy and time 
goes into constantly combing the environment for immediate dangers or enemies. 
And as much again is spent on worry about impending or chronic problems, the 
struggle to stay afloat, the need to be loved, and the underlying awareness of 
mortality.
No wonder we're all so grumpy so much of the time . . .
—Joe Quigley
 
One man's meat is another man's person.
—Lady Sally McGee
 
If you can't have fun here, it's your own damn fault.
—Mike
 
There's nothing in the human heart or mind, no place no matter how twisted or 
secret, that can't be endured—if you have someone to share it with.
—Jake
 
"This game's over, man! You gotta move your Boss or Rocky's gonna lay a 
subpoenie on him; then his Torpedo is gonna smoke your Old Lady, and all your 
Heavies'll be doin' time—except for maybe your Mouthpiece, but Rocky's Sheriff 
got him put in the corner—you got nothin' left but Punks and Junkies: you're 
through, Jimmy."
—Angel Martin to Jim Rockford, commenting on a chess game, in the Rockford Files 
episode "Chicken Little Is a Little Chicken" by Stephen J. Cannell
 
For a predator, a wrong guess can be preferable to a slow one.
—Jake
 
Context is everything. Breast-feeding is beneficial for nearly all infants—but 
for an elderly cardiac patient, it can be fatal . . .
—Samuel Webster, M.D.
 
All-purpose toast: "To all the ones who weren't as lucky."
—Mike
 

 
"Rupture" occurs when you think you are in the middle of a conversation with 
someone ... and suddenly discover that you've merely been making noises at each 
other, that there is a previously unsuspected chasm between you.
—Chip Delany
 
Never wake up a cop by dropping a .45 on the pavement next to him.
—Joe
 
If you've got a hurt and I've got a hurt and we share them, some crazy 
how-or-other, we each end up with less than half a hurt apiece.
—Jake
 
Everybody's got roots in the past—but they's all got roots in the future, too.
—Fast Eddie Costigan
 
Joy is the product of the pain that has gone before it, and vice versa.
—Rachel
 

 
Joy always equals pain in the long run.
—Mike
 
Femaleness and maleness are halves of a spectrum, a curve on which you can graph 
humanity and get a hell of a lot of overlap in the middle. Some disparage these 
so-called in-betweeners, but the true freaks are the ones stuck way out on 
either end of the curve, their sexuality unalloyed by any of its complementary 
ingredient. These poor perverts often carve wide paths through the world, driven 
as they are by untempered engines, inspiring the awe due mighty forces out of 
control.
—Maureen (last name unknown)
 
Suicide isn't just a cop-out; it's a rip-off.
—Jake
 
AUTHOR'S NOTE: this quote was inscribed on The Wall a full decade before the 
debate over one's Right To Die got going. I've checked with Jake, and he 
confirms that the choice by a terminal patient to terminate his or her anguish 
does not, in his opinion, constitute "suicide."
 
There is so much yammer-yammer on the air and in print these days that nobody 
could keep up with it, much less remember it. I mean, look at Richard Nixon's 
"rehabilitation." There's always somebody who didn't get the word.
—Joe
 
The most important step in mapmaking is to throw out all the old maps you have 
in the glove compartment. Forget all the reports of earlier explorers. You can't 
discover America if you keep shying away from the edge of the world. And if you 
do find it, you'll waste years asking to be taken to Kublai Khan.
—Priscilla (last name unknown)
 
Cheering someone up is a little like breast-feeding, or good sex: mutually 
satisfactory.
—Jake
 
Pregnant women aren't sick.
—Doc Webster
 
Get it right, you're a star. Get it half-right, you're a gas giant.
—Joe
 

 
We've got a world in which physical miracles are commonplace—and nobody's happy. 
We've got what it takes to feed all the billions of us—and half of us are 
starving. You can show a dozen guys murdering each other on TV, but you can't 
ever show two people making love. A naked blade is reckoned less obscene than a 
naked woman. Isn't it about time we started trying to get a handle on love, from 
any and all directions?
—Jake
 
"Champagne is a barometer of happiness. There is a sort of morosity everywhere."
—Yves Bernard, chairman of Mat & Chandon, commenting on poor sales
 
Be a rapturist—the backward of a terrorist. Commit random acts of senseless 
kindness, whenever possible.
—Jake
 
A shrink's office from which laughter is not heard as often as tears ought to 
shut down.
—Jake
 
The delusion that one's sexual pattern is the Only Right Way To Be is probably 
the single most common sexual-psychosis syndrome of this era, and it is 
virtually almost always the victim's fault. You cannot acquire this delusion by 
observation of reality.
—Lady Sally
 
Never been to a shrink. What could be sillier than a priest who doesn't believe 
in the soul?
—Stephen Gaskin
 
Where I come from, anyone who says "Excuse me" is a human being.
—Joe
 
Sometimes I think I must have a Guardian Idiot. A little invisible spirit just 
behind my shoulder, looking out for me . . . only he's an imbecile.
—Jake
 
The only kind of payment that always guarantees a handsome return is paying 
attention.
—Lady Sally
 
Old age is not for sissies.
—Larry Van Cott
 
It's amazing how much mature wisdom resembles being too tired.
—Commodore Aaron Sheffield
 
It is usually better to not pull a gun than to screw it up.
—Mike
 
People who wear glasses are lucky; we have stars on rainy nights.
—Jake
 
If you can't cut the mustard, you can always lick the jar.
—Mary
 
Improving morale is simultaneously one of the noblest and most intelligently 
selfish things a person can do. Degrading morale is simultaneously one of the 
sleaziest and most stupidly, self-destructive things a person can do. Guess 
which pays better?
—Long-Drink McGonnigle
 
I must have missed something: if a guy has truly absolute power, then what could 
you possibly corrupt him with? Acton got it backward: what engenders corruption 
is paranoia, the perception of inadequate power. Absolute power renders you 
absolutely immune to corruption.
—Mike
 
I like fashion—and Porsches, and Rolexes—all that stuff! How nice of the morons 
and drones to wear uniforms, so one can avoid them ...
—Long-Drink
 

 
Popular myth to the contrary, drink is not really a good drug for pain. That is, 
it can numb physical pain, but will not blunt the edge of sorrow; it can help 
that latter only by making it easier for a man to curse or weep. But alcohol is 
great for happiness: it can actually intensify joy.
—Jake
 
Hip humor: cruelty pretending to be fun.
—Mike
 
In our society, big lush women and small slight men go through life wrapped 
around a softball-sized chunk of pain; it breaks some, and makes others 
magnificent.
—Jake
 
Still I persist in wondering whether folly must always be our nemesis.
—Edgar Pangborn
 
Tyranny has its place. Universal freedom would deny my right to restrict Jeffrey 
Dahmer's recreational and dietary habits.
—Doc Webster
 
Long-Drink McGonnigle's Tip for Masturbators: Sit on your hand first, until it 
goes numb. Then it'll feel like someone else's hand . . .
 
Over the years, I have come to learn that if you get a chance to turn anger into 
laughter, that will be a good thing to do.
—Jake
 
It claims to be fully automatic, but actually you have to push this little 
button here.
—Gentleman John Killian
 
The only real perversions are nymphomania, satyriasis and celibacy . . . but 
even they should be permitted for members of a free society. The only 
sex-related acts I would proscribe—for reasons of public health—are those 
involving former food or former people, and lying about the state of one's 
venereal health or contraceptive status.
—Lady Sally
 
Logic is a way of going wrong with confidence.
—Stinky Kettering
 
Certain kinds of shit are quite palatable, with a little necessity sprinkled on 
them.
—Joe
 
A truce between the sexes? Are you out of your goddam mind?
What else is there to distract us all from onrushing death? Television?
—Jake
 
What you put your attention on prospers.
—Stephen Gaskin
 
Art takes whatever—and as long as—it takes.
—Lady Sally
 
Sexual intercourse vests no property rights.
—Jake
 
Perhaps I could stand loneliness if I were not so useless; perhaps I could stand 
uselessness i f I were not so lonely.
—Mickey Finn
 
 
"You don't even know if our species are sexually compatible."
"The hell I don't. I can see fingers and a tongue from here; anything else is 
gravy."
—exchange between Mickey (an alien cyborg) and Mary
 
Sometimes, just naming your burden helps.
—Mike
 
Writing is a simple trick: all you have to do is sit and stare at a blank piece 
of paper, until beads of blood form on your forehead ...
—Larry Van Cott
 

 
There are places on the skull where even a gentle rap will reliably drop a 
man—but the back of the skull bone is not one of them. Try it yourself. Borrow a 
blackjack from your mother and sap a random sample of ten guys, as hard as you 
like. I'll bet you fifty bucks not more than four of them go down.
—Joe
 
So many men seem to have the idea that what women secretly want most of all (no 
matter what we say, or even believe ourselves) is a powerful and remorseless 
engine of flesh impersonally hammering away at us without pause for hours at a 
time. They become upset with themselves if they cannot deliver this silly 
commodity. I don't mean that on the one occasion in my life when it actually 
happened to me, it was an unpleasant experience, exactly. (Until I tried to get 
up and walk the next day.) It's just that maybe once in a lifetime is plenty. 
And I've never seen that guy since, don't much care if I do. I mean, you could 
buy a machine to do that. They exist. And women don't buy them. Neither do gay 
men.
—Maureen
 
There are two kinds of people in the world: those who think people can be 
subdivided into as few as two categories, and those who know better.
—Doc Webster
 
I've tried my hand at matchmaking a few times, and learned that you should 
approach it like walking into a chemistry lab and mixing two unidentified 
beakers of chemicals: you might luck into a stable compound, or you might blow 
your hands off.
—Jake
 
From an ergonomic engineering standpoint, the only pardonable object in the 
typical human bathroom is the towel rack.
—Mickey
 
Usually if you've got the guilts, it's because you did a disservice to someone 
or something you care about. So what you want to do is go and do a service for 
someone or something you care about.
—Jake
 
It doesn't have to be the same someone. It's best, but sometimes the guilt is 
nonspecific and it can't be. And sometimes it's too late. That doesn't matter so 
much. The point is just to release the pressure—equal and opposite reaction. 
Slow and steady, ideally. What I'm aiming for myself is to achieve balance, 
equilibrium, about half an hour before I die.
—Merry Moore's codicil
 
You can love only your equals or inferiors—with your superiors, compassion is 
the best you can do. And it's pretty damn good.
—Mary Callahan-Finn
 
Some memories you don't want to put words on . . . because that would change 
them. Suppose, for instance, you gave a savage a helicopter ride. The experience 
would be rich and vivid for him. If on his return to his village, he told 
friends he had been in a little cave of ice that flew like a bird, at first his 
memories would still be true, and different from what he said—but the more times 
he told or rethought the story, the more "helicopter" would become "flying ice 
cave" . . . which, after all, is a lesser thing. By naming the inexpressible, 
you lose it.
—Edison Ripsborn
 
Why does a man try to comb hair over a bald spot? Is he afraid you'll fail to 
notice he's a jerk?
—Maureen
 
The Nazz had them pretty eyes. He wanted everybody to see out His eyes so they 
could see how pretty it was.
—Dick Buckley, speaking of Jesus of Nazareth
 

 
Vengeance is counterproductive. Not to mention the fact that it gets your soul 
all sticky.
—Lady Sally
 

 
If it's sloppy, eat it over the sink.
—Tommy Robbins
 
When I say that she played with me, for the first time in my life I mean that 
the way a little kid would mean it. She played with me, like a kid might play 
with another kid who had been whacked on the head recently and needed some 
diversion. Well, if this was a sane culture, I mean, and kids were allowed to 
have sex with each other as part of playing, like God intended.
—Joe
 
Art with contempt in it is always sour.
—Lady Sally
 

 
So isn't it a pity, when we common people chatter 
of those mysteries to which I have referred, 
that we use for such a delicate and complicated matter 
such a very short and ordinary word.
—Anonymous
 
Now I remember where I know you from. I looked up "ugly" in the dictionary and 
they had a picture of you.
—Long-Drink to Doc Webster
 
We were not making love, we were fucking. Nothing wrong with that; just not 
enough right with it.
—Maureen
 
I've been in hospitals. They take away your pants. Then they hurt you and starve 
you and expose you to disease. Then they bill you. A lot.
—Joe
 
All humans—without exception—want to love. No organic or emotional or 
psychological damage can remove that need. Humans can survive, albeit in pain, 
without being loved—but lock a man in a dungeon and he will find an ant to love, 
or try to. The sociopath, who feels no emotions, wishes he could love, and is 
driven mad by his impotence.
—Mickey
 

 
If you are feebleminded enough to want to believe in good and bad joss, the 
Constitution so entitles you—but have the decency not to try and spread the 
virus.
—Lady Sally
 
Why do men want to leave right afterward so often? When they could be cuddling 
and being held?" 
"Sometimes because the intensity of the relief, the depth of their gratitude, 
makes them feel small or out of control. Sometimes because in their secret 
miseducated hearts they believe they've done something disgusting to you, and 
are glad of it, and so are ashamed. And sometimes just because they were doing 
something when the dread compulsion came over them, and now they want to get 
back to whatever it was."
—exchange between Mary and Phillip (last name unknown)
 
Skills are the flowers you get if you water your talent bush enough.
—Arethusa
 
I don't know why it should be worse to die without time for pain or regrets . . 
. but to me, it is. I'm not looking forward to dying—but I've spent a lifetime 
getting ready for it, and I don't want it stolen from me.
—Joe
 
"Remember what I told you, kid: life is a shitstorm—and when it's raining shit, 
the best umbrella you can buy is art."
—Pedro Carmichael to Martin Looder, in the film Tune In Tomorrow, written by 
William Boyd
 
Try to live your life as though one distant day, your descendants will develop 
time-travel and cloning skills, and come back to resurrect everyone that ever 
lived who wasn't a jerk or a creep. Maybe at the end, when your whole life 
passes before your eyes, it's a high-speed data dump. Endeavor to see that it 
makes you seem worth the trouble of reviving. Try to be the kind of guest 
they'll want at The Last Great, Never-Ending Party At The End Of Time. It could 
happen, right? Do you know of a better shot at immortality?
—Sam Meade 
 
God gave women buttocks because sooner or later they have to walk away from us, 
and at least this way there's some consolation.
—Joe
 

 
Don't belittle yourself. If it truly needs doing, let someone else do it. 
There'll be no shortage of volunteers.
—Lady Sally
 
What shall it profit a man if he gaineth the whole world, yet he hath no 
allowable deductions?
—Mike
 
Any man is willing to believe that he was the best you've ever had. He knew it 
all the time.
—Maureen
 

 
One can dismiss out of hand any so-called religion that puts out death threats 
on satirists. It is self-evident that God enjoys rough humor.
—Gentleman John Killian
 

 
Death to anyone wearing a turbine.
—racist graffito spotted in Surrey, British Columbia, by Mickey Finn . . . the 
only person on Earth who fits the description
 
It's damned odd: the fight-or-flight adrenal rush is supposed to be the 
evolutionary heritage of millions of years of success in surviving crises ... 
and just about every time it's ever happened to me, it ruined my judgment or my 
coordination or both.
—Jake
 
In a world like this, a freak is no bad thing to be. They proved that back in 
the Sixties.
—Arethusa
 

 
There are few things on earth as dangerous as a liberal vigilante.
—Joe
 
Darling, all men think about rape, at least once in their lives. Women have an 
inexhaustible supply of something we've got to have, more precious to us than 
heroin . . . and most of you rank the business as pleasant enough, but 
significantly less important than food, shopping or talking about feelings. Or 
you go to great lengths to seem like you do—because that's your correct 
biological strategy. But some of you charge all the market will bear, in one 
coin or another, and all of you award the prize, when you do, for what seem to 
us like arbitrary and baffling reasons. Our single most urgent need—and the best 
we can hope for—is to get lucky. We're all descended from two million years of 
rapists, every race and tribe of us, and we wouldn't be human if we didn't 
sometimes fantasize about just knocking you down and taking it. The truly 
astonishing thing is how seldom we do. I can only speculate that most of us must 
love you a lot.
—Mike to Lady Sally
 

 
It's hard to strike a balance between keeping an open mind and being a sucker. 
But you have to try . . .
—Joe
 
Religions only look different if you get 'em from a retailer. If you go to a 
wholesaler, you'll find they all get it from the same distributor.
—Stephen Gaskin 
 
If you're raped, don't charge the bastard with rape. Charge him with indecent 
exposure. It is much easier to get a conviction for that charge than for rape. 
The defense is not allowed to ask anything about your sexual history or how you 
were dressed at the time. Forensic evidence is unnecessary. The total public 
embarrassment to you is cut more than in half. What's the guy going to do, leap 
up in court and say, "It's a filthy lie, Your Honor. I raped that bitch!"? In 
many states, a man convicted of indecent exposure will actually draw more prison 
time than a rapist. And weenie-waggers do harder time than anybody but a 
short-eyes—in fact, the scheme sort of incorporates the Law of Talion.
An eye for an eye ...
—Mary
 
Anger is fear with an attitude. 
—Mike
 
Everything in your body is connected to everything else. If you doubt it, have 
ear surgery, and then wiggle your big toe.
—Doc Webster
 
A fantasy is not even a wish, much less an act. There is no such thing as a 
culpable or shameful fantasy.
—Lady Sally
 
Memories are the only real treasures a man has. 
—Joe
 
I like my flattery plausible. 
—Arethusa
 
Straighten me, Nazz . . . 'cause I'm ready." 
—Father Newman quoting Dick Buckley's famous rap about the Nazz(arene)
 
Every time I hear someone put the word "mere" in front of the word "semantics," 
I bite my tongue hard and remind myself that I too am greatly ignorant.
—Phillip
 

 
There aren't many things a man can do as noble as passing up a chance to show 
how smart he is.
—Joe 
Do not waste your fear on the mighty. Cowards make the deadliest opponents—and 
pacifists never fight fair: they can't—and the worst thing about terrorists is 
how weak they are: so weak that they have to be monstrous to accomplish 
anything.
—Lady Sally
 

 
The distance between one and a hundred is nothing compared to the distance 
between zero and one.
—Joe
 
There's nothing wrong with wanting wars to stop—but the moment a pacifist uses 
any weapon but calm speech, he's a hypocrite. If he's willing to kill, he's a 
psychotic.
—Lady Sally 
 
"Thunder is good, thunder is impressive, but it's lightning that does the work."
—Mark Twain to Nikola Tesla
 

 

 
The best nonprescription analgesic is laughter. Maybe analgesic is the wrong 
word. If you laugh hard when you're post-op, you hurt like hell. You just don't 
give a damn. Hard to understand how a painful experience can leave you feeling 
better, but there it is. Sharing the laughter makes it even better ...
—Josie
 
You can learn as much about someone from watching them belly-laugh as you can 
from making love with them. —Joe
 
Wrinkles are your combat ribbons. Wear them proudly! 
—Shorty Steinitz
 
Short of accident or hypnosis, self-abuse is logically impossible.
—Doc Webster
 
A writer's real occupational hazard is carpal tunnel vision. 
—Jake
 
When something scares you shitless, you can go back up inside your head and 
hide. But when the thing that scares you comes from inside your head, you . . . 
well, you go to a place that isn't a place, erasing your footsteps behind you. 
And somebody's got to come in after you...
—Paul MacDonald 
 
The thing to do with a silly remark is to fail to hear it. 
—Zebadiah J. Carter
 

 
Some delusions are necessary. Or do you know of a rational reason for living?
(You say you do? I won't argue: your delusion is necessary.) 
—Jake
 
Pessimism may be a realistic way of looking at life . . . but who can live with 
that much realism?
—Jake
 
The human race has few (if any) problems that couldn't be solved by massive 
wealth. And we're literally surrounded by it, like a fly in amber. Now if we 
only had brains . . .
—Ben Bova
 

 
The worst misunderstandings are the unspoken ones.
—Slippery Joe Maser
 
The expression "lowest common denominator," when spoken outside the context of 
mathematics, is usually being misused. If used to connote contempt for something 
popular, it is certainly being misused. The speaker is both ignorant and 
elitist.
The phrase does not imply that the commonest denominator is always the lowest.
—Dr. Jacob Burroughs
 

 
Sneering at something is an admission of failure. You are claiming superior 
talent or insight . . . but declining to use it. The best way to sneer at 
something, if you must, is to improve it or outdo it.
—Shorty
 
Erections are certainly useful in pleasing a woman, but I've never understood 
why so many people seem to think they're essential. Sure, they're flattering—but 
a man who doesn't have an erection and still wants to make love to me, now 
that's flattering.
—Arethusa
 
To approach telepathy, you start with empathy and crank that up as high as you 
can.
—Jake
 
Never carry a grapefruit. 
—Lazarus Long
 

 
"Na mai kharundi, kai chi
khal tut,"
or, translated from the Romany,
"Do not scratch where it does not itch."
—Gypsy proverb
 
Why do we build refrigerators that spill money on the floor? And ovens that 
spill money on the ceiling? And sit them side by side, a heat-maker and a 
heat-loser, unconnected?
—Jim/Paul MacDonald
 
The customer need not always come first. Enjoy yourself: it's contagious.
—standard advice of Lady Sally to apprentice artists at her brothel
 
I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy.
—Tom Waits
 

 
A classic vicious circle: you don't love yourself enough, so you treat yourself 
so badly that it's hard for you to love yourself ... Be good to yourself. Maybe 
the idea will catch on . . .
—Les Glueham and Merry Moore ("The Cheerful Charlies")
 
Triads have a very short shelf life—unless all three members are ambisexual. For 
a heterosexual species with two sexes, odd numbers are unstable. If a commodity 
is scarce, competition for it will ensue.
Triads are as interesting as hell—while they last. But so is a chimney fire ...
—Lady Sally
 
Kindness beats honesty, every time. But think it through—and make sure you're 
being honest with yourself ...
—Mike 
 
You got it, buddy: the large print giveth, and the small print taketh away...
—Tom Waits
 

 
"Man alone cannot know himself. The container cannot contain itself."
"I do not understand what you mean. Do not all containers contain themselves? If 
not, what does contain them?" —exchange between Long-Drink and Mickey
 
Antiabortionists fail to carry their philosophy to its logical culmination: 
Stamp Out Menstruation! End the Slaughter of Millions! (And try to ensure that 
the ratio of females to males runs several trillion to one, so that every sperm 
can fulfill God's Plan for it as well.)
—Mike
 

 
Have you ever wondered how those missionaries communicated the idea of the 
so-called missionary position to the Indians? How did they come to have the 
vocabulary? It had to be show and tell, right? "Now, never do this ... or this 
... and especially not this . . ."
—Jake
 
Among the most common thoughts that ever passed through a human brain: "That 
doesn't apply to me." "It's not fair." "Not again." "I wasn't ready." "I might 
have known." "Make it not have happened." "This can't be happening." "I have a 
right." (Or, "I know my rights.") Note that they are all incorrect or 
semantically null.
—Doc Webster
 
God damn it, you didn't write it on a "word processor"! Or even on a "computer." 
What it is, is a goddam typewriter—a machine for turning fingerstrokes on a 
keyboard into ink symbols on a piece of paper. (Okay, yours can also be used as 
a computer when you're not writing—my old Royal manual can be used as a 
nutcracker, or a paperweight, or a murder weapon.) The silicon revolution did 
not change that process—from the user's point of view—much more than did the 
electric typewriter, it merely streamlined the error-correction process. When 
it's being used to make words appear on a page, it's a typewriter.
To speak of your "word processor" is like referring to your car as an 
"exothermically powered, myocontrolled matter transporter." The only purpose of 
the term is to cue your listeners that you can afford to use a computer as a 
typewriter, and all it really tells them is that you're insecure enough to worry 
that people might think you still use one of those old-fashioned things to type 
on.
—Mike
 
And "electronic typewriter" is silly in the other direction: what it means is a 
computer so stupid that all you can do with it is type . . .
—Susan Maser
 

 
Love is an active verb. It's not an abstraction or a conceptual idea. You have 
to perform an action to show that it's really real. Enlightenment is not so much 
making it to Never-Never Land through the secret passageway. It's more like 
getting off your tail and doing something...
—Stephen Gaskin
 
Concerning whores: anyone who thinks it immoral or exploitive or dishonest to 
"pay a person to pretend to care about you" has obviously never flown 
first-class . . . or gone to a psychiatrist, or a hairdresser, or eaten in a 
restaurant . . . or talked to a bartender they don't know.
—Mike
 
Politically correct euphemisms are for the differently-brained.
—Tanya Latimer
 

 
Librarians are the secret masters of the world. They control information. Don't 
ever piss one off
—Jake 
 
Glad; sad; mad. What else is there?
—Long-Drink
 
Think of some miraculous thing. Any wonderful object, okay? The moment there are 
two of them, one is second-rate. Once there are three, one is mediocre and one 
is the worst. Comparison sometimes kills wonder ...
—Jake
 

 
Prostitutes function rather like priests for people who feel more comfortable 
confessing their sins while naked.
—Father Newman 
 
One of the silliest preoccupations of man is the notion that it makes some kind 
of sense to divide whole categories of people up into one winner and a whole 
bunch of losers or also-rans. What poor sick compulsive first infected us all 
with that virus? And how?
—Doc Webster
 

 
"If I let them live rent-free in my head, they'll tear it up."
—black man on CBS Nightwatch, on his reaction to black women who bitterly 
criticize him for having married a white woman
 
It sounds so simple, but it's so hard to do:
To laugh when the joke's on you... 
—tag line for an uncompleted song by Jake
 
You can't eat half a piece of shit.
—Mike
 
People who hang up on your answering machine without leaving any message—not 
even an apology for wasting your attention—are the most cowardly of pickpockets.
—Long-Drink
 
I think that there is only one church, and your membership button in it is your 
belly button.
—Stephen Gaskin
 
Fellow movie fans, I'm very sorry, but there is nothing you can do with a normal 
car to make it blow up. At most, you might start it burning. Falling off a cliff 
won't make a car blow up. Only a dissatisfied business rival or a stunt 
coordinator can do that. Pity the hundreds of spinal cases every year who were 
pulled from non-burning wrecks by movie fans afraid of the "inevitable" 
explosion.
—Noah Gonzalez, bomb-disposal technician 
 
The pessimist sees only the darkness of the tunnel. The optimist sees only the 
tiny point of light in the distance. The realist knows that light is probably an 
oncoming train . . .
—Long-Drink
 
You are the people.
You are this season's people— 
There are no other people this season.
If you blow it, it's blown. 
—Stephen Gaskin
 

 

 
Meyer's Law: In any emotional dilemma, the thing you should do is the one that's 
hardest.
—John D. MacDonald
 
Looked at a certain way, people are essentially wish-generators, with no "off ' 
switch, and they're dangerous when armed. We can't help brimming with wishes . . 
. and most of them would kill us or worse if they ever came true.
—Mike
 
Ask the next question. Keep on asking questions and don't stop, and sooner or 
later you'll be asking intelligent ones. If you live long enough.
—Theodore Sturgeon
 

 
When I think of how different, how bleak and desolate my life could have been if 
I hadn't happened to pay attention, a decade and a half ago, to the drunken 
ramblings of a broken-down fellow folksinger named Jake, lab-quality Freon drips 
into my veins.
—Spider Robinson, from the Foreword, CALLAHAN AND COMPANY
 
In some ways, it's nice that memory is so plastic and transient. You play 
differently when you know there's tape rolling.
—Jake
 
Please consider yourself, now and henceforth, and no matter what anyone else 
ever asks of you, free to do any damned thing you want that doesn't hurt someone 
else unnecessarily.
—Lady Sally McGee
 
Puns (I) 
Set Pieces from 
Punday Nights . . . 
 
WARNING: the following pages contain material that may be deemed objectionable 
by more sensitive readers. Reader discretion is advised. Responsibility for any 
and all physical or psychological damage resulting from continued reading is 
hereby specifically repudiated. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK; do not read further 
while driving, riding in any conveyance, or operating heavy machinery. "Here be 
stynkera . ." 
 
One day a planet is discovered out Antares way whose sole inhabitant is an 
enormous humanoid, three miles high and made of granite. At first it is mistaken 
for an immense statue left by some vanished race of giants, for it squats 
motionless on a yellow plain, exhibiting no outward sign of life. It has legs, 
but it never rises to walk on them. It has a mouth, but never eats or speaks. It 
has what appears to be a perfectly functional brain, the size of a condominium, 
but the organ lies dormant, electrochemical activity at a standstill. Yet it 
lives. 
This puzzles the hell out of the scientists, who try everything they can think 
of to get some sign of life from the behemoth—in vain. It just squats, 
motionless and seemingly thoughtless, until one day a xenobiologist, frustrated 
beyond endurance, screams, "How could evolution give legs, mouth and brain to a 
creature that doesn't use them?" 
It happens that he's the first one to ask a direct question in the thing's 
presence. It rises with a thunderous rumble to its full height, scattering the 
clouds, thinks for a second, booms, "IT COULDN'T," and squats down again. 
"Migod," exclaims the xenobiologist, "of course! It only stands to reason!"
 —Long-Drink McGonnigle 
 
Did you boys ever hear of the planet where the inhabitants were mobile flowers? 
Remarkably similar to Earthly blossoms, but they had feet and human 
intelligence. The whole planet was ruled by a king called Richard the 
Artichoke-Heart, and one day at a court orgy his eye was caught by Fuchsia, a 
pale-eyed perennial. Her beauty was so great that it almost made up for her 
stupidity. Refusing to believe the ancient principle that beauty times brains 
equals a constant, the smitten monarch engaged royal tutors of all sorts for 
Fuchsia, to no avail. All failed to capture the attention of the witless 
concubine, whose only apparent interest was in gathering pollen. At last the 
embarrassed Richard gave up and had Rotenone slipped into her soup. As he 
exclaimed to his prime minister later that night, "I can lead a horticulture, 
but I can't make her think." 
—Doc Webster 
(According to Jake Stonebender, Fuchsia had a child before she died—and dark 
rumor suggests that Richard, a notoriously forward-thinking ruler, spent his 
declining years riding the Waif of the Fuchsia.) 
 
One night the conversation turned to Richard Adams's book SHARDIK, about an 
ancient empire ruled by an enormous, semimythical bear. This triggered Doc 
Webster: 
The only way to become a knight in Shardik's empire was to apply for a personal 
interview with the bear. This had its drawbacks. If he liked your audition, you 
were knighted on the spot—but if you failed, Lord Shardik was quite likely to 
club your head off your shoulders with one mighty paw. Even so, there were many 
applicants—for the peasantry were poor, and if a candidate failed for 
knighthood, his family received, by way of booby-prize, a valuable sheepdog from 
the Royal Kennels. This consoled them, for truly it is written: "For the 
mourning after a terrible knight, nothing beats the dog of the bear that hit 
you." 
 
If you're under 35, and not passionately interested in health food, this one may 
go over your head. If so, count your blessings. 
Until very recently, a tribe of killer monkeys lived undetected beneath 
Greenwich Village.  
To some extent it was not surprising  that they escaped notice for so long. 
They had extremely odd sleeping habits, hibernating for 364 days out of  every 
year (365 in leap years) and emerging from the caverns of the Village sewers 
only on Christmas Day. Even so, one might have thought they could hardly help 
but cause talk, since they tended when awake to be enormous, ferocious, 
carnivorous, and extremely hungry. Yet in Greenwich  Village, of all places on 
Earth, they went unnoticed until last year, when they were finally destroyed. 
Everyone knows that Yule Gibbons ate only nuts and fruits . . . 
—Ralph Von Wau Wau 
 
I commanded a submarine in Her Majesty's Navy during the last World War, and had 
at least one secret mission. The famous spy Harry Lime, the celebrated Third 
Man, had developed a sudden and severe case of astigmatism—and many of his 
espionage activities forbade dependence on spectacles. At that time only one 
visionary in the world was working on the development of a practical contact 
lens: a specialist at Sir Walter Reed Hospital in America. I was ordered to 
convey Lime there in utmost secrecy, then fetch him home again. Lime was an 
excellent actor, of course, but I began to suspect that there was nothing at all 
wrong with his vision. I learned that he had an old girlfriend who lived twenty 
miles from the hospital. So I called him into my cabin. 
"I can't prove a thing against you," I said, "but I'm ordering you to go 
directly from the sub, Lime, to the Reed oculist." 
—Gentleman John Killian 
 
The toilet tanks on commercial airliners often leak. This results in the 
formation of deposits of blue ice on the fuselage. The ice is composed of feces, 
urine, and blue-liquid disinfectant. Now, occasionally, when a plane must 
descend very rapidly from a great height, as in the Rockies, chunks of blue ice 
ranging up to two hundred pounds can—and do—break off and shell the countryside. 
I have seen a UPI wirephoto of an apartment in Denver that was demolished by a 
fifty-pound chunk of blue ice. (The airline bought the occupants a house. 
Neither was hurt . . . and for a while—until it began to melt—they were actually 
grateful for the coolness the bolus provided. It was summer, you see, and the 
impact had destroyed their electric fan . . .) So even if you live where there 
are no strategic military targets, you can still be attacked by an icy B.M. . . 
. 
—Al Phee 
 
Puns (II)
 
Spontaneous Conversational
Eructations, Mercifully Brief
 
NOTE: as these are mostly unattributed, blame cannot, at this late date, be 
positively assessed. But it is safe to assume that better than half of them were 
perpetrated by Doc Webster. 
 
We were going to explore the Kama Sutra . . . but at the last moment, her Kama 
turned into a period ... 
 

 
Be he never so humble, there's no police like Holmes. 
—Bill White 
 
The success of a pun is in the oy of the beholder. 
 
Got a date with the doctor who did my vasectomy. She believes in reaping what 
she sews. 
 

 
The Buddhist hamburger joint: they'll make you one with everything. 
 
The hackers' burger joint: you can have chips with it. 
 
The junkies' hot-dog stand: they'll sell you one with the works. 
 
I know you'd like to screw like a bunny—but I just washed my thing, and I can't 
do a hare with it. 
 
He acquitted himself well at the trial. Regrettably, the jury did not follow his 
example . . . 
(He was blamed for something he didn't do. He didn't wear gloves . . .) 
 
Bulimia is one of those subjects that can only be discussed ad nauseam. 
 

 
He learned about sex by trial and error. Now they've got him on trial for one or 
two of those errors . . . 
—Ronny Corbett 
 
Name a cowboy hero you can't even call by his first name without going insane. 
ANSWER: Paladin, from HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL. His first name is "Wire"—it says so 
right on his card: "Wire Paladin, San Francisco"—so to call him by name, you 
have to go "Hey, Wire!"
 
The shortest distance between two puns is a straightline. 
—David Gerrold 
 
Songs
 
From the repertoire of Jake Stonebender and Fast Eddie Costigan, as performed on 
Fireside Fillmore Nights at Callahan's Place 
Those unattributed must be assumed to have been written by Jake and Eddie. 
 
The Drunkard's Song
 
A swell and wealthy relative of mine had up and died 
And I got a hundred thousand from the will 
So a friend and I decided to convert this into liquid form 
The better our esophagi to fill 
So we started in the city, had a drink in every shitty 
Little ginmill, which is really quite a few 
Then a cabbie up in Harlem took us clean across the river 
Into Brooklyn, where he joined us in a brew 
We was weavin' just a trifle as we pulled into Astoria 
At eighty miles an hour, in reverse 
But it was nothin' to the weavin' that we did as we was leavin' 
And from time to time it got a little worse 
Well, there's nothing like drinkin' up a windfall 
We was drunker than a monkey with a skinful 
So goddam drunk it was sinful—and I think I ain't sober yet 
 
We was feelin' mighty fine as we crossed the city line 
Suckin' whiskey and a-whistlin' at the girls 
But the next saloon we try, a fella wants to black my eye 
'Cause he doesn't like my shaggy hippie curls 
So then a fist come out of orbit, knocked me clear across the floor 
But I was fairly drunk and didn't really care 
And I was sorta disappointed when the coppers hit the joint 
As I was makin' my rebuttal, with a chair 
Ah, but the coppers come a cropper, 'cause I made it to the crapper 
And departed by a ventilator shaft 
Met my buddies in the alley as they slipped out through the galley 
And we ran and ran and laughed and laughed and laughed 
Well, there's nothing like drinkin' up a windfall 
We was drunker than a monkey with a skinful 
So goddam drunk it was sinful—and I think I ain't sober yet 
 
Halfway out of Levittown, we got our second wind 
In a dump so down and out I had to laugh 
So I had another mug, and my friend another jug 
And the hack another pitcher and a half 
When we got to Suffolk County, we were goin' into overdrive 
The word had spread, and crowds began to form 
We drank our way from Jericho along 110 to Merrick Road 
A-boozin' and a-singin' up a storm 
I lost my buddy and the cabbie in the middle of the Hampton 
We was drunker than it's possible to be 
But there finally came a time I didn't have another dime 
I sat on Montauk Point and wept into the sea 
Well, there's nothing like drinkin' up a windfall 
We was drunker than a monkey with a skinful 
So goddam drunk it was sinful—and I think I ain't sober yet 
 
Afterglow
(Iris's Song) by
Teodor Vysotsky
 
Tending to tension by conscious intent,
 declining declension, disdaining dissent; 
into the dementia dimension we're sent:
 we are our content, and we are content. 
 
Incandescent invention and blessed event, 
tumescent distention, tumultuous descent: 
our bone of convention again being spent, 
I am your contents, and I am content 
 
to be living . . . to be trying . . . to be crying . . . to be dying . . . (I 
want) 
to be giving . . . to be making . . . to be breaking . . . to be taking 
all you have . . . 
 
Assuming Ascension, Assumption, assent, 
all of our nonsense is finally non-sent—
with honorable mention for whatever we meant... 
You are my content, and I am content. 
 
Time-Travel Blues
 
You've heard of every kind of blues there is, I hear you say? 
Well, I'm leavin' here tomorrow . . . and I just got back today 
I got the time-travel blues, look at the mess 
I'm in I'm sad for what the past will be . . . and what the future hasn't been. 
 
I longed to know the future, like the Oracle of Delphi 
And then this cat knocked on my door: Goddam, it was myself! I 
got the time-travel blues, since I met myself comin' in; 
I'd tell you all about it . . . but where the hell do I begin? 
 
He said that I was going to invent a time machine—
That is to say, I told me, if you follow what I mean. 
I said, "I'm no inventor, man: I'll never ever get it." 
But he said, "Copy this one, and we both can share the 
credit!" 
 
I cranked it up, it blew right up, and then and there I died. 
I wonder who that joker was, and why the bastard lied . . . 
Got the time-travel blues: one of my life's most awful shocks 
Now I could use a doctor: in fact, I need a paradox 
 
If I am dead, my murderer can't logically exist 
But here I am in pieces, and I'm really gettin' pissed 
I got the time-travel blues—it's only natural, bein' dead 
To want to think that time is really only in your head 
 
Spice
 
And when I've just assuaged your lust 
By flicker-light of telly 
I love to lie between your thighs 
My cheek upon your belly 
To smell you and to feel you 
And to hear your small intestine 
And know that this is perfect bliss 
Just as it was predestined 
 
In the hour that my death draws near 
And I wonder what my life was for 
It'll be the afterglows 
With your fragrance in my nose 
I'll remember and relive once more 
 
And now I rest, caress your breast 
And sail in satiation 
On the oceanic motion 
Of your rhythmic respiration 
And now my lips and fingertips 
Are flavored sweet and sour 
For I have nipped and fully sipped 
My favorite furry flower 
 
In the hour that my death draws near 
And I wonder what my life was for 
It'll be the afterglows 
With your fragrance in my nose 
I'll remember and relive once more 
 
I know in time I'll have to climb 
Up next to you for sleep 
With no regret, but not just yet 
This moment let me keep 
And suddenly it comes to me 
—how glorious and dumb!— 
I had so much fun making love 
I plain forgot to come ... 
 
Please, Dr. Frankenstein
 
I've walked a thousand miles in an effort to retain ya 
And I didn't come for charity: I fully plan on payin ya 
But I've been so depressive, guess I'm ready for some mania 
That's why I've traveled all this way to gloomy Transylvania, singin: 
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won't you try and bring me back to life? 
Cause I truly have been grievin since I got "Goodbye, I'm leavin" from my wife 
I'm slowly goin nuts because the memory of her cuts me like a knife 
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won't you try and bring me back to life? 
 
I cannot seem to find my pulse; my temperature is down 
And I can tell I smell like hell, the way that people frown 
I feel like rigor mortis, all I do is lay around 
You gotta help me, Frankenstein, I'm halfway in the ground (I'm beggin) 
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, I am up for any kind of change 
Spent evenings in this coffin just a little bit too often, and it's strange 
Please don't consider me more than some flesh for you and Igor to arrange 
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, I am up for any kind of change 
I'll stagger like the victim of a wreck 
I'll wear those funny bolt-things in my neck 
I'd love to be in stitches—what the heck 
Do you need cash, or will you take a check? 
 
I'm not afraid of what you'll do—I'm immunized to pain 
Cause everything I ever had has bubbled down the drain 
Make me the Pride of Frankenstein and I will not complain 
Just strap me down and let me have a transplant of the brain: I need it 
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won't you try and raise me from the dead? 
My heart is barely beatin since I caught the woman cheatin in our bed. 
My entire world's a coffin and it doesn't get me off, an like I said 
Please, Dr. Frankenstein, won't you try and raise me from the dead? 
 
Come to My Bedside
by
Zaccur Bishop
 
Come to my bedside and let there be sharing 
Uncounterfeitable sign of your caring 
Take off the clothes of your body and mind 
Bring me your nakedness; help me in mine .. . 
 
Help me believe that I'm worthy of trust 
Bring me a love that includes honest lust 
Warmth is for fire; fire is for burning 
Love is for bringing an ending to yearning ... 
 
For I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone 
But your lovin' is the sweetest lovin' I have ever known 
 
Come to my bedside and let there be giving 
Licking and laughing and loving and living 
Sing me a song that has never been sung 
Dance at the end of my fingers and tongue 
 
Take me inside you and bring up your knees 
Wrap me up tight in your thighs and then squeeze 
Or if you feel like it, you get on top 
Love me however you please, but please . . . don't stop 
 
For I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone 
But your lovin' is the sweetest lovin' I have ever known 
I know just what you're thinking of: There's more to love than making love 
There's much more to the flower than the bloom 
But every time we meet in bed I find myself inside your head 
Even as I'm entering your womb 
 
So come to my bedside and let there be loving 
Twisting and moaning and thrusting and shoving 
I will be gentle; you know that I can 
For you I'll endeavor to be quite a singular man ... 
 
Here's my identity, stamped on my genes 
Take this my offering: know what it means 
Let us become what we started to be 
On that long-ago night when you first came with me . . . 
 
0, lady! I love you in a hundred ways, and not for this alone 
But your lovin' is the sweetest lovin' I have ever known 
 
Out of Your Way
 
You went out of your way to make sure I'd love you 
And now you say be patient for a while 
You went out of your way to be just as nice as you could be 
Until I fell, and then you modified your style 
You say you're somebody else's slave . . . I suppose we all got our crosses 
But I ain't nobody's slave and I figure it's time I cut my losses 
You could end up mine some way, but baby, until that day 
I'm goin' out of your way by a country mile 
 
You went out of your way to make sure that I'd need you 
You taught me the significance of need 
And I went out of my way to show you who I am and how I fell 
Which is for me a thing remarkable indeed 
You got a lotta laughs inside, but I'm afraid that's where they're keepin' 
You got a lotto tears there too, and I reckon you're much more fond of weepin' 
You could end up mine, it's so—but baby, until I know 
I'm goin' out of your way with all due speed 
 
You went out of your way to make sure that I'd want you 
With your eyes as much as with your knowing hands 
But you'll never be happy at all until you want to 
And till I don't want to be makin' long-term plans 
They've already dealt the hand: I'll either win it or else I won't 
You understand how I feel and you either want me or else you don't 
Take as long as you need to decide—but baby, I got my pride 
And I'm goin' out of your way while I still can 
 
—oh, can't you see? 
 
You ain't no use to me like this: there ain't enough of you left to miss 
Why don't you come out of your way, just one more time, with me? 
 
Hardon You
 
I know my constant horniness gets hardon you 
Sometimes it seems I'm always in the mood 
If that is so, I truly beg your pardon, too 
It wasn't my intention to be rude 
My love is like my horniness, in that it never quits, 
But I'd love you if you didn't have those tits 
 
Men have only got the one thing on their mind 
It gets so repetitious it's a crime 
Somebody said a hard man is good to find 
As long as you don't find him every goddam time 
You are not only something that I lust for, that I hunt 
I would love you if you didn't have a cunt 
 
I'm neurotically erotic, with a taste for the exotic 
And your body is hypnotic when it's next to me 
I'm dementedly attentive, and in need of no incentive 
But you know you represent much more than sex to me... 
 
You know that I was horny for you from the start 
And that's the way it's always gonna be 
But you ought to know your sexiness is just a part 
Of the value you will always have for me 
It may have been what caught my eye: it isn't why I stick 
I would love you if I didn't have a dick. 
 
Mountain Lady
(Jeanne's Song)
by
Spider Robinson
 
Mountain Lady, sing for me: your singing makes me glad to be alive 
Mountain Lady, give to me your lovin', for it helps me to survive 
Mountain Lady, stay with me, and let me drink your beauty with my eyes 
I want you to lay with me, and be there in the morning when I rise 
 
You give me what I need, and you need what I can give 
Like you, I live for loving, and like me, you love to live 
I swear I'll make you happy if there's any way I can 
And if you will be my Mountain Lady, I will be your man . . . 
 
Mountain Lady, smile for me: your smile is like the rising of the sun 
Wait a little while for me—I'm coming back as fast as I can run 
Mountain Lady, talk with me, for talking is essential to our growth 
I want you to walk with me through all the days remaining to us both 
 
You give me what I need, and you need what I can give 
Like you, I live for loving, and like me, you love to live 
I swear I'll make you happy if there's any way I can 
And if you will be my Mountain Lady, I will be your man . . . 
 
Mountain Lady, dance for me, 
Your dancing takes my breath away, you know ... 
Save that loving glance for me—I love it when you let your loving show 
Mountain Lady, give to me a kind of love I've never had before 
I want you to live with me: I cannot live without you anymore ... 
 
You give me what I need, and you need what I can give 
Like you, I live for loving, and like me, you love to live 
My love is deep and stronger than a river running wild 
I want to be your lover, and the father of your child . . . 
 
Dramatis Personae
 
I believe in my heart of hearts—and in my brain of brains, for that matter—that 
an epigram should be like a good son-in-law: completely self-supporting. If it 
needs footnotes, it's not an epigram. My old friend and esteemed editor Jim 
Frenkel, however (like clams, he's better esteemed than eschewed), is certain 
you will find the epigrams in this book more enjoyable if you know a little 
something about their speakers. And he is quite keen that you enjoy yourself, 
since he has overpaid me so outrageously for this volume and wants to be sure 
you'll give copies to all your friends for Christmas. Who could argue with that? 
Well . . . me, for one. 
My feeling is that if you finish this book curious to know more about the people 
whose wit and wisdom hold its covers apart, the sensible thing for me to do 
would be to just refer you to the six available volumes in which they appear at 
much greater length, and hope you take the bait. 
But in all fairness, I have to admit that might not be the most sensible thing 
for Jim to do, as none of those six books is published by this house just now. 
(Although Jim was the editor who bought the first Callahan book . . . and was 
working for Tom Doherty at the time! Life, is strange.) [Editor's note: At 
presstime, this has been corrected. Tor has just bought the first three Callahan 
books and the next Mary's Place book, CALLAHAN'S LEGACY.] Therefore I bow to his 
editorial insight, marketing savvy and phenomenal endurance in argument. 
Here, then, are as few words as I can get away with concerning all the wonderful 
people you've heard quoted. (The descriptions in italics are quoted, and 
sometimes misquoted, from Chris McCubbin's excellent text for the CALLAHAN'S 
CROSSTIME SALOON role-playing game, available from Steve Jackson Games, Inc., of 
Austin, Texas.) 
 
MIKE CALLAHAN: He built his bar in Suffolk County, in the image of countless 
other roadside Irish taverns in the New York area . . . a serene and reassuring 
presence, he always kept his place merry. He looked like a big dumb Irishman, 
but it was impossible to talk to Callahan for more than a few minutes without 
realizing that he was a man of unusual depth, wisdom and sensitivity . . . from 
Big Beef McCaffrey, who tried to shortchange him, to the Mafia flunky who tried 
to scare him into renting a jukebox, anybody who tried to put the muscle on 
Callahan got the same treatment—a free trip to the parking lot, and probably a 
broken bone to remember it by. He smoked big cheap cigars that he lit with 
non-safety matches. His reverence for human dignity, privacy and liberty verged 
on the religious. He never mentioned his subjective age. It is assumed that he's 
about the same age as his wife, who is well into her third century. Mike was 
born centuries from now, in a place (possibly a planet) called Harmony. Since it 
has taken me several books to even outline his mission in this ficton (a 
technical term for a space-time locus), I won't attempt it here. CALLAHAN'S 
SECRET has the best summary, I think. Suffice it to say, he is a good guy. 
 
LADY SALLY MCGEE: Lady Sally was Callahan's spouse and counterpart in a battle 
across time. She opened her famous brothel, Lady Sally's House, in Brooklyn at 
the height of WWII, when such enterprises were tolerated . . . By the time the 
war was over, she had so many influential friends that there was no question of 
closing her place down. A tiny, trim redhead who spoke in a patently phony 
British accent, Lady Sally was not an incredible beauty. It was not her 
features, but her manner that accounted for her astonishing sexual appeal. She 
considered sex an art, and studied it extensively. Her employees were called 
"artists" (not "prostitutes," and never "whores" or "hookers"). Her artists were 
paid a regular salary plus room and board and allowed to keep any (optional) 
tips. Her clients paid according to their means. Her artists were of all seven 
sexes, and she catered to all sexual preferences except the dangerously violent. 
Her Ladyship is much tougher than she looks, and has fewer scruples than her 
husband about killing evil people. 
 
MARY CALLAHAN (now Mary Callahan-Finn): The only (known) child of Mike Callahan 
and Lady Sally, Mary was born and raised on Harmony. When she reached adulthood, 
she began working for her mother, and despite what some would call a weight 
problem, soon established a reputation as one of the most professional and 
popular artists at Lady Sally's House. After a few years, she transferred to 
working literally behind the scenes, as her mother's chief of security. Where 
she got her training as a blacksmith is unknown. She is a cheerful woman with a 
tremendous capacity for fun and no tolerance for evasions or self-delusions. I 
do not think Mary has a weight problem (I think very few women have a weight 
problem—although a lot of them have a big jerk problem), and neither does Jake 
Stonebender. She had a (very) brief affair with him once, but is now married to: 

 
MICKEY FINN: Alien cyborg, 6'11 1/2", 600 lbs; apparent age, 40 . . . Finn is 
the only survivor of a race exterminated centuries ago and far away by 
star-traveling monsters. They filled him with enslaving machinery and made him a 
scout. The very first Callahan story, "The Guy with the Eyes" (reprinted in 
CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON), concerns the night he walked into Mike's Place and 
announced that his job required him to sterilize Earth, and he felt just 
terrible about it. The response of Callahan's patrons was to sympathize: they 
got him drunk. Which, happily, shorted out the machinery that made him a slave. 
He spent the next decade or so learning how to be human (he spent some years as 
a farmer), but has since left Earth with his new bride, Mary. 
 
JAKE STONEBENDER: narrator of the Callahan's Place and Mary's Place stories. 
(And my financial arrangement with him is our business, okay?) A likable, lanky 
man with shoulder-length hair and a beard. If he doesn't watch himself, he can 
get a bit strident about his liberal politics. A gifted folksinger, he loves his 
guitar Lady Macbeth like family. While Jake doesn't have the most brilliant mind 
at Callahan's, he may well have the quickest. He certainly saved everyone there, 
and likely the whole planet as well, through his quick actions on the Night of 
the Cockroach . . . Jake used to have a wife and daughter, until he decided he 
could fix his own brakes. After their death, he tried suicide twice, and was 
fortunate enough to have his stomach pumped the second time by: 
 
DOC WEBSTER: who prescribed for Jake a trip to Callahan's Place, and not 
incidentally spared me a life of honest work. In many ways Sam "Doc" Webster is 
the leader of the gang, even more than Callahan himself. While Mike is the 
unmoving center around which the bar orbits, Doc Webster is usually the one out 
there pushing the other patrons to do things, have fun and keep The Place merry. 
An immense man, he is Callahan's most profound drinker. He's also an excellent 
physician, who once removed Shorty Steinitz's appendix on Callahan's bar-top. 
What most people remember about the Doc, though, is his immense, almost mythic, 
joyousness. He could break up the Sphinx with a one-liner that was old when it 
was built. He is the all-time Punday Night champion. 
 
LONG-DRINK MCGONNIGLE: The toughest and least charismatic of Callahan's 
regulars, Long-Drink (he's "one long drink of water," 6' 7") is an indolent and 
independent man with a razor-sharp tongue and no time for nonsense—unless it's 
amusing nonsense. In spite of his attitude problem, Long-Drink isn't as shallow 
as he likes to pretend. He genuinely cares about people who are hurting—and not 
just his friends, either. He cried openly when Jake broke Lady Macbeth. I would 
have to say that Long-Drink's sense of humor is the most primitive in the group. 
And I'm going to get him back some day ... 
 
FAST EDDIE COSTIGAN: Callahan's bouncer and piano player. Born in Brooklyn, he 
met Callahan after the war, at Lady Sally's, and accepted the piano chair in the 
bar Mike was just building out on Long Island. He resembles a badly shaven 
chimpanzee. As a bouncer, his technique is subtle and effective. He knows he's 
not as clever as the other guys at the bar, and he's comfortable with that. 
Still, he often surprises his friends with an unexpected insight or brings down 
the house with a quietly hilarious pun or wisecrack. It was he who found a way 
to make the broken Lady Macbeth well again. Eddie is the best damn piano man I 
ever hoid . . . uh, heard. 
 
LES GLUEHAM & MERRY MOORE (a.k.a. The Cheerful Charlies): In the early '70s, Les 
Moore and Merry Glueham were not happy people. As if their names weren't bad 
enough, they were also each out of work. With nothing to lose, each called a guy 
named Flannery who cheered people up for a living—satisfaction guaranteed or 
your money back. It worked. Tom Flannery not only cheered Les and Merry up, but 
when he introduced them, they fell in love. Then he gave them jobs as his 
assistants. When they got married, Les and Merry swapped last names—it seemed to 
work better that way. Tom died a few months later, as he'd been expecting to, 
and Les and Merry kept the business going. Their business card reads, 
"HAVE FUN-WILL TRAVEL." 
 
NOAH GONZALEZ, SHORTY STEINITZ, SLIPPERY JOE, SUSIE AND SUZIE MASER: regular 
patrons of Callahan's Place. Noah used to work on the county bomb squad; Shorty 
is the worst driver alive; the Masers have been a triune marriage ever since 
Joe's wives found out about each other. (It seems to serve him right.) 
 
JIM/PAUL MACDONALD: telepathic half-brothers with a fused identity, who appear 
first in CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON, and last in CALLAHAN'S SECRET. They 
sacrificed themselves to save the world from a cockroach. 
 
ARETHUSA QUIGLEY: surviving incarnation of a pair of telepathic twins. In 
contrast to the MacDonald brothers, these identical blonde sisters, raised by 
religious fanatics who denied the concept of twinhood, grew up with only a 
single public identity, which they took turns investing. The story of how they 
moved into a single skull together is told in LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE. 
 
JOE QUIGLEY: former private dick from New York; now gone public. He's married to 
Arethusa, and they worked together at Lady Sally's House in its final year. I've 
always thought he's a dead ringer for Dan Rather, myself, but he says he can't 
see it. 
 
JOSIE BAUER: one of Callahan's best-loved regulars. A humor groupie, her 
unvarying custom was to offer to sleep with whoever won the Punday Night 
competition. Few winners, male or female, ever turned her down, or reported 
regret afterward. Further deponent sayeth not. 
 
RACHEL (last name unknown): 232 years old at the time she entered cryogenic 
suspension in 1973. Fast Eddie visits her every week. See CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME 
SALOON for details. 
 
MAUREEN: this is probably Maureen Hooker, former artist in the employ of Lady 
Sally McGee, currently free-lancing as a team with her husband Willard, a 
legendary confidence man now retired from the game. They fell in love in 
CALLAHAN'S LADY. 
 
PRISCILLA (last name unknown): Lady Sally's bouncer; sort of a female version of 
the Terminator—the friendly one, from the second film. Her heroic death is 
recounted in LADY SLINGS THE BOOZE; briefly, she died because she was 
bulletproof. 
 
PHILLIP (last name unknown) and TIM (last name unknown): alumni of Lady Sally's 
House; see CL and LSTB for details. 
 
FATHER NEWMAN: a Catholic priest who hung out . . . uh . . religiously at Lady 
Sally's House. An organized and determined conspiracy of patrons, who attempted 
to nail down once and for all whether or not he ever actually availed himself of 
an artist's services while there, disbanded with the question unresolved. I 
know, but I won't tell you. 
 
WOODROW W. SMITH, COMMODORE AARON SHEFFIELD, AND LAZARUS LONG: Yep. That guy. 
Very merry gent. For an explanation of how a fictional character could walk into 
a bar in real life, see THE NUMBER OF THE BEAST by Robert A. Heinlein. 
 
STINKY KETTERING: all anyone remembers about this guy is that he probably came 
in with Lazarus Long. 
 
ZEBADIAH J. CARTER, DR. JACOB BURROUGHS: see above note regarding W. W. Smith. 
It was believed at the time that these customers might be gay (despite the fact 
that their female companions were knockouts), since they were overheard using 
that word an inordinate number of times. The Heinlein novel cited above later 
explained the matter. 
 
TOMMY ROBBINS: all I know is, the only surviving photo of him bears a remarkable 
resemblance to the guy who autographed my copy of EVEN COWGIRLS GET THE BLUES. 
Could be . . . 
 
GENTLEMAN JOHN KILLIAN: his photo resembles the guy who autographed my copy of 
STAND ON ZANZIBAR. 
 
LARRY VAN COW: strongly resembles the guy who autographed my copy of RINGWORLD, 
down to the detail that he apparently never drank anything but Irish coffee at 
Callahan's. The fact that said author writes a competing series of bar stories 
might account for the pseudonym ... 
 
CHIP DELANY: looks very much like the guy who autographed my copy of BABEL-17. 
 
EDGAR PANGBORN: If this is indeed the Pangborn who wrote DAVY and "Angel's Egg," 
I could kick myself for missing him at Callahan's. He's not with us anymore, 
more's the pity. Look him up in the library! 
 
JOHN D. MACDONALD: again, if this was the author of the Travis McGee series and 
so many other fine books, I wish I'd bumped into him at Mike's place; among 
other things, I always wanted to ask him what Meyer's other name is, just to see 
how he'd answer .. . 
 
TED STURGEON: no question, this is that Ted Sturgeon, one of the two best 
science fiction writers who ever lived. I brought him to Callahan's myself. He 
was Punday Night champion for eight weeks running, a record exceeded only by Doc 
Webster himself—and gave seminars in Unlimited Inquiry (the symbol you'll find 
with his quote on page 110 was part of his autograph and stood for "Ask the Next 
Question . . ."), Marriages Involving Odd Numbers of Spouses, and Advanced 
Hugging. God bless you, Theodore, wherever you are. 
 
ROBERT A. HEINLEIN: Ted's only peer. If you don't know who he is, you should be 
reading one of his books instead of this one. 
 
DICK BUCKLEY: internal evidence—and mutual friend (and folk music legend) Ed 
McCurdy—suggests this may have been the late Lord Buckley (the Gasser! 
1907-1960), the legendary American monologist who composed and declaimed 
free-verse tributes to his heroes in Hipster, a dialect created by black jazz 
musicians and later adopted and adapted by white jazz musicians, beatniks, 
hippies and other undesirables. C. P. Lee states that, like Louis Armstrong, His 
Lordship never performed without firing up a large pipe of marijuana first; 
unlike Pops, he did so onstage. Lee also claims that Buckley and an entourage 
once crashed a Sinatra concert at the Waikiki Sheraton, stark naked. (George 
Harrison's song "Crackerbox Palace" was named for Lord Buckley's home.) Though 
his frame be long stashed, His Lordship's surviving records are well worth the 
trouble of seeking out. 
 
TOM WAITS: yes, this would seem to be the well-known pop star, songwriter, actor 
and former jazz singer—who once gave me permission to quote his song "$29 and an 
Alligator Purse" in my novel MINDKILLER, in exchange for $29.00. (Guess he 
didn't need a purse . . .) 
 
STEPHEN GASKIN: a preacher and semiretired wizard, who taught classes on 
spirituality at the Family Dog back at the dawn of the Hippie Era, crossed the 
continent with a convoy of school buses, and eventually founded the most 
successful of the hippie communes, The Farm, in Summertown, Tennessee. (It's 
still there—and so is he—but the last time I visited, they were pointedly 
ignoring each other.) At its peak, The Farm consisted of 1,000+ freaks on 1,000+ 
acres, totally self-supporting and living in harmony with their rural neighbors. 
Their international disaster-relief arm, Plenty, was praised as a model by the 
Canadian government. Nowadays The Farm is a corporation: you own shares, or some 
such; and I'm not sure what happened to Plenty, since everyone I knew in it has 
quit. 
I got no use for gurus and holy men. Irish whiskey works just fine for me. But 
I'm willing to punch the ticket of Stephen, and of one of his teachers, Shunryu 
Suzuki-roshi—because neither of them ever claimed to be any more than a guy 
who'd had a few minutes to think, and had noticed some interesting things. 
One quick Stephen story that may make my point: he gets up from dinner one night 
in the early '70s to answer the door. There stands an awestruck young man who 
says he's just walked here from the Coast because he's decided his mission in 
life is to follow Stephen around and record his every utterance for posterity, 
unobtrusively and at the lad's own expense. Stephen gently closes the door in 
his face and returns to the table. "Who was that?" asks his wife, Ina May. "A 
temptation from the Evil One," Stephen murmurs, and finishes his soyburger. 
That's my kind of preacher. Which is partly why I wrote the introduction to his 
latest book, HAIGHT-ASHBURY FLASHBACKS (Bonin Press, 1992). To give you an idea, 
its original 1980 edition was titled AMAZING DOPE TALES. 
 
CHARLIE DANIELS: one of my oldest and best friends in the world; directly 
responsible for my move to Canada in the '70s; presently straightening spines 
and otherwise practicing chiro in Yarmouth, Nova Scotia. The Lucky Duck, who 
appears in the current book THE CALLAHAN TOUCH, bears a bit of a resemblance to 
Charlie. Less sarcastic, though ... 
 
ANONYMOUS: a Callahan's regular, so self-effacing that no one can recall much 
about him. Not even how he got that name, which I'm sure we must have asked. In 
fact, I'm not sure he isn't still around Mary's Place somewhere (the bar Jake 
opened up after Callahan's Place was destroyed). 
 
SAM MEADE: a passing folksinger who ended up in Nova Scotia. 
 
EDISON RIPSBORN: nothing is known about this customer. Related to Pangborn 
somehow? 
 
BEN BOVA: yes, the Ben Bova, multiple-award-winning writer, ex-editor (of Analog 
and Omni) and space enthusiast, and my oldest friend in this business. (Well, I 
knew Jim Frenkel first, but neither of us was in the business then.) He became a 
regular at Callahan's shortly after I sold him the very first of Jake's stories 
about it, in 1972 . . . and he and Barbara are still seen in Mary's Place today. 
But not often enough... 
 
About the Author 
 
Since he began writing professionally in 1972, Spider Robinson has won three 
Hugos, a Nebula, the John W. Campbell Award for Best New Writer, the E. E. 
("Doc") Smith Memorial Award (Skylark), the Pat Terry Memorial Award for 
Humorous Science Fiction, and Locus Awards for Best Novella and Best Critic. His 
book CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON was named a Best Book for Young Adults by the 
American Library Association. His short work has appeared in magazines around 
the planet, from Analog to Xhurnal Izobretatel i Rationalizator (Inventor & 
Innovator Journal, Moscow), and his books are available in eight languages. 
Twelve of his seventeen books are still in print in the U.S. and Canada. 
He was born in the Bronx in 1948, on three successive days (they had to handle 
him in sections), and holds a Bachelor's degree in English. 
He has been married for eighteen years to Jeanne Robinson, a modern-dance 
choreographer, former dancer, and teacher of both dance and the Alexander 
Technique; she was the founder of Nova Scotia's Nova Dance Theatre, and its 
Artistic Director during its eight-year history. The Robinsons collaborated on 
the Hugo-, Nebula- and Locus-winning 1976 classic STARDANCE (Baen Books), which 
created the concept of zero-gravity dance, and on its 1991 sequel, STARSEED. 
(Jeanne was on NASA's waiting list for a Space Shuttle seat, to try out zero-gee 
dance in practice—until the Challenger tragedy ended the Civilian In Space 
program.) 
The Robinsons currently live in Vancouver, British Columbia. 
 
(Back Cover Blurb)
 
WELCOME TO CALLAHAN'S CROSSTIME SALOON...
 
At Callahan's Bar, you can hear the wit and wisdom of the universe...and bar 
toasts so good they're written on the wall. Here, for the first time, is the 
collected irreverence and mirth from Spider Robinson's wildly popular Callahan's 
Bar series, from saucy one-liners to the puns that groans are made of, including 
some never-before-seen bon mots. Such gems as: 
•"We raise hopes here...until they're old enough to fend for themselves." — Mike 
Callahan 
•"There are two kinds of people in this world: those who think people can be 
subdivided into as few as two categories and those who know better." — Doc 
Webster 
•"The Buddhist hamburger joint: they'll make you one with everything." — 
Long-Drink McGonnigle (or was it Jake Stonebender?...) 
Plus songs, a never-before-published Dramatis Personae, and enough fun stuff to 
drive you...