Extremely generous financial compensation is far from the only benefit that accrues to writing this column. Arista Records sends me free reviewers’ copies of albums every few weeks. And I get to make a fool of myself in front of countless hundreds of readers, as I did when I described Bruce Springsteen’s latest album as “a major, major embarrassment.” (I’ve come to regard it as greatreal low on musical inventiveness, just as I said, but with more than enough heart to render such considerations moot. Across the land, hundreds of thousands of Boss boosters will slumber more placidly tonight.) And USA Today called once when it wanted to know something about rock fashion. (I spent most of the conversation trying to convince them that Linda Ronstadt didn’t belong in a discussion of same. They didn’t believe me. No one ever believes me.) And intellectually impaired teenagers with chips on their shoulders send me death threats in care of the editor. And I get intimate insights into the lives and loves of interesting young penpals from sea to shining sea, and in such foreign countries as Canada.

I know, for instance, that while your life may be a cabaret, old chum, that of poor Gail Warnings, of Rochester, New York, is a soap opera.