from MY STAMP COLLECTION (pg. 4)

I grew up with my Frank Lloyd Wright stamp. I never knew who he was, but there he was, plain as day, in front of a wavy flag. Well, I thought it was the flag. It actually wasn’t a flag at all, it was the Guggenheim. That’s kind of a wavy-looking building. But I had no idea what that was, and no idea who Frank Lloyd Wright was – and if someone said his name I probably would have said “Wright, Wright, you’re bloody well Wright” and if someone had said “Guggenheim” to me I probably wouldn’t have said anything. I probably would have gone to the record store and bought RUBBER SOUL and a Payday candy bar with its delicious crunchy peanut coating and nougat center. That’s because the Frank Lloyd Wright stamp came out in 1966, just like Rubber Soul. My favorite song was ‘Think For Yourself’ – which was also probably Frank etc.’s favorite song. I also like ‘In My Life’, which made me think about the past, and I was 9 years old. I think I had problems. ‘The Word’ was cool, too, especially when their voices break up when they said “Have you heard / the word is love?” Something else: this was a stupid 2¢ stamp. Even in 1966, that wasn’t much. A Payday candy bar, with the delicious crunchy peanut coating and nougat center, was a dime – 5 Frank Lloyd Wright stamps. The Franklin Roosevelt stamp was 6¢, the George Washington stamp was 5¢, even the Francis Parkman stamp, whoever he was, was 3¢. Nobody liked Frank Lloyd Wright. I can tell. I think that they were jealous. I wonder what he would have thought if he had known that a bearded hippie guy with a baseball cap on backwards would write about his love life in, like, 2000 and something. There’s one thing for sure, though: there wasn’t a stamp out there that was equal in value to a Payday candy bar. Frank Lloyd Wright was not alone. Women loved him. I think the crunchy peanut coating and nougat center is what sets Payday apart from all the other candy bars and Presidents. Frank Lloyd Wright had a lot of sex. People worshipped him, and then there was the stamp thing. You never know what will happen when you're dead. Frank Lloyd Wright's portrait was drawn by Patricia Amarantides and Ling Po. I wish I had one.