Witnessing the egress of close relatives from this earth in the past few years, the idea came to me to do something that might seem silly. I've been thinking about writing fan letters to the guys that inspired me when I was young. Maybe it's a dopey thing for a man near 40 to do, but many of my idols are in their late 50's and 60's now, and not necessarily in great shape, so maybe I should thank them for the inspiration before either of us expires. I had always hoped I would one day move in circles where I could just run into, say, David Lee Roth at a party, but it doesn't look like that's going to happen. Plus a party where David Lee Roth would be a guest would by definition be a party I couldn't handle.

I've procrastinated, though, and in David Letterman's case I'm wondering if I'm not better off. When I was 14 I bought David Letterman's biography and made it the template of my life. I had hoped that the template would yield the same results for me that it did for him, and that I would one day be a guest on his show and could present him with that old book, tell him what a inspiration he had been, and have him sign it. Since I don't think call center phone drones make it as Letterman guests, I was going to write him, knowing full well that it would probably be thrown out with letters from other nutsos and never read.

Now I know that my letter would sit in a bag next to blackmail threats, and that I could hobnob with some wealthy 60-ish guy who occasionally bonks and gives perks to his female employees on any ol' street corner (well, maybe in Buckhead). The whole flap over Bill Clinton playing hide-the-cigar with an intern struck me as a bunch of hooey that ultimately pushed me into the Democratic Party, but c'mon, we have to hold our nation's talk show hosts to a higher standard!

Something that hasn't been mentioned is that Dave's first marriage fell apart for this same reason. He married his college sweetheart at 19, and she was the one who finally convinced him to move to Los Angeles at 26 and try to make it. She took a job at a department store while he farted around writing jokes all day. Ultimately he went to a comedy club in San Diego, banged some beach bunnies, and divorce followed. His first wife remarried and refused to discuss him with reporters. These latest affairs happened before he married his second wife, but they had still been a couple for around a decade when it happened, so it's just as bad in my book.

Rock stars, politicians, I expect some philandering out of them, but for some reason, not Dave. Dave's appeal was that he was without pretense. This is the guy who pissed off Shirley MacLaine when he kept asking her about her supernatural experiences that she didn't want to discuss ("What am I supposed to do for 10 minutes? Pay tribute to her because she can memorize lines?," he later said). It was noted by many that Dave didn't go to Hollywood parties and premiers, and frequently referred to his Indiana roots as though he was still just a guy from Indianapolis who was merely a tourist of the glamorous life in New York.

But now it looks like Dave is just the same-old, same-old, the same as that manager in your office who promotes all the blonds with big tits while everybody else toils in the same old jobs year after year. In any ordinary workplace a in-office relationship has to be documented with a dozen HR forms and can potentially lead to termination, but I don't think Dave's $14 million salary is going to wave bye-bye anytime soon. Joe Blow from Indianapolis would be on the sidewalk with a cardboard box in his hands already, but not a high-flying star from New York, which is what Dave is.

Am I as upset about this as it sounds? I'm not sure. I know I'm more frustrated than Lewis Black, but probably less so than a member of the National Organization of Women.

My real question is if Stephanie Birkitt screwed Dave to get camera time, what did Larry "Bud" Melman do*?

* Would you take a look at that Melman clip? That stuff was simply genius. Some of the best TV ever.