He was on the fast track to unemployment, alcoholism and jail.

Lucile, going door-to-door hawking faux leather bound Bibles, wondered if this was the redemption she had been seeking.

Tracey had been killed off time after time, but managed to get herself written back into the soap by cajoling, carousing with, and generally making herself a pain in the ass for a succession of producers and writers.

"Hollywood got its grubby little hands on my masterpiece and turned it into mindless drivel and, Goddamn it, it became hot,hot,hot!" shouted the drunken novelist to the rest of the bar, flinging $100 bills from his pockets.

I remember standing on the dark street corner watching her grow smaller in the distance wishing I could ball up the universe and throw it into a trash can.

Their heyday long since passed, they continued to tour, trading youthful rebellion for middle-aged nostalgia.

Her love of humanity was being sorely tested that week after a series of run-ins with crass, cranky, rude, psychotic, fascist, and generally annoying people.