Howdy, Maurice!
If I were to start out with a joke, it would probably be, "Nice to see you finally quit smoking!", but there's too many people listening in for me to pull THAT one off...

Well, my temptation is to start gushing about all you've done for me in my life. As a kid who went through a lot of lonely misery, I found that listening to you guys and your music kept me going through much of it. See, I'm getting mushy already. Figures, right?

Well, I know you must be in a happy place up there in heaven. If you aren't, drop me a note, and I'll take it up with management. After all, they've listened to my prayers more than once...

Then again, the one prayer I had hoped would be heeded wasn't. They just couldn't keep you down here. Sometimes that happens, I guess. But I know you'd want us all to be brave, and be there for each other. Well, we can only try.

In the meantime, do what you can to keep the ball rolling. Next time some struggling songwriter can't quite figure out how to follow up an Amin7/Dmin7/Emin7 chord progression, just whisper in his ear what he (or she) needs to know. He'll call it a miracle, of course, an "inspiration out of the blue". We will know better.

Oh, and can you help N*Sync with those dreadful five part harmonies? Or is that too much to ask for? Oh well... Never got to play paintball with you, but Staten Island has many seagulls that have taken up the sport in their own peculiar way. That reminds me, I need to take my parka in to the dry cleaners...

Thanks again,

David Garcia,
Staten Island, NY