ONE DAY left in this firetrucker and I can’t wait for it to be done and gone; mankind can’t even risk writing that he can’t wait for it to be “dead and gone”, should in case this bad-mind mofo of a year take it firetrucking literally and take one of his own in its dying seconds. God knows 2016 has taken away way too many from all of us who ever saved the day by dancing the night away.

David Bowie, who justified his life, and defined mine, with “A Space Oddity” – what am I, if not that? – and who wrote so many more songs that saved me, from “Ch-Ch-Ch-Changes” to the “Heroes” they’ll play at my own funeral, was the first to go, on January 10th of this year so dread that it doesn’t sound bad enough in Latin: annus horribilis, my ass; call it a pain in the annus.