（外文电子版资料）SK.OnWriting.doc

PAGE PAGE 61 Honesty’s the best policy. Miguel de Cervantes Liars prosper. Anonymous First Foreword In the early nineties (it might have been 1992, but it’s hard to remember when you’re having a good time) I joined a rock-and- roll band composed mostly of writers. The Rock Bottom Remainders were the brainchild of Kathi Kamen Goldmark, a book publicist and musician from San Francisco. The group included Dave Barry on lead guitar, Ridley Pearson on bass, Barbara Kingsolver on keyboards, Robert Fulghum on mandolin, and me on rhythm guitar. There was also a trio of “chick singers,” à la the Dixie Cups, made up (usually) of Kathi, Tad Bartimus, and Amy Tan. The group was intended as a one-shot deal — we would play two shows at the American Booksellers Convention, get a few laughs, recapture our misspent youth for three or four hours, then go our separate ways. It didn’t happen that way, because the group never quite broke up. We found that we liked playing together too much to quit, and with a couple of “ringer” musicians on sax and drums (plus, in the early days, our musical guru, Al Kooper, at the heart of the group), we sounded pretty good. You’d pay to hear us. Not a lot, not U2 or E Street Band prices, but maybe what the oldtimers call “roadhouse money.” We took the group on tour, wrote a book about it (my wife took the photos and danced whenever the spirit took her, which was quite often), and continue to play now and then, sometimes as The Remainders, sometimes as Raymond Burr’s Legs. The personnel comes and goes — columnist Mitch Albom has replaced Barbara on keyboards, and Al doesn’t play with the group any-more ’cause he and Kathi don’t get along — but the core has remained Kathi, Amy, Ridley, Dave, Mitch Albom, and me . . . plus Josh Kelly on drums and Erasmo Paolo on sax. We do it for the music, but we also do it for the companionship. We like each other, and we like having a chance to talk sometimes about the real job, the day job people are always t