Why Stevie Can't Date

'.as I speed along the two-lane blacktop lined with joshua trees, I open my sun roof, crank up a live version of "Take Five and think that, as far as women are concerned, I finally did "something right."

Memories of a fair and just childhood, from age eight to 48 and beyond, explain "Why Stevie Can't Date," a collection of puckish tales about good and bad women; trying to cultivate the "Playboy" image at 17 and suddenly meeting a celebrity father who writes for "Penthouse"; and growing up straight while straddling a line between California and Nevada, the Golden State and Hollywood, the Silver State with its open roads and attitudes, and panorama of entertainment, from Jack Benny to blackjack to bull riding to brothels.

From the drudgery of a low-level casino job to the perks on the next rung; from hitchhiking across the country to meeting the mayor of New York City; from romances that didn't work to romances that did.for a while. Sardonic remembrances of subtle adventures by a man who is 'in varying degrees, agoraphobic, alcoholic and misanthropic," probably from having lived the reasons "Why Stevie Can't Date."