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About me — Frank Van Gallagher
I once tried to write a respectable “About” page.
It came out sounding like a stiff “Alleged suspect profile” section described by a guy who’s trying not to blink. So I’ll do the honest thing instead: I’ll tell you what I am, badly, and you can decide what to do with it.
I have spent most of my life in motion. Not the heroic sort of motion, either — no fleeing volcanoes, no chasing buried treasure or catching an STD other than herpes from a Hollywood Alleged Celebrity — just the everyday traveling a man does when he keeps discovering that the world is full of fresh scenery and the same old bills. Countries change, faces change, tongues change, flags change, and rent keeps its appointment like a tax collector with perfect health.
A great many people have tried to buy me for less than I’m worth. Some did it with greed. Some did it with pity. Pity is greed with better manners. I learned early that I’d rather go hungry than cheap. Hunger is a straight-shooting companion — you always know what it wants. Cheapness is a slow disease. It makes a man smile while he’s being robbed.
have lived under skies that felt close enough to tap with a broomstick, and under skies so emotionally unavailable they might as well have been printed by IKEA. America gave me highways as straight as a pastor’s…
