September 3rd. There I was, still trying to get my head around Sam Shepard dying — my mind swirling with memories of 16 year old me smoking Old Gold cigarettes in a Chuck Yeager A2 mil-spec USAAF jacket, reading “Motel Chronicles” and chewing Beeman’s Gum, imagining myself in a dusty bar on the Mojave or in New Mexico, wishing I could be that understated, monolithic, quietly cool. I wanted to be Sam Shepard. More specifically, I wanted to be Sam Shepard in “The Right Stuff.” But I was far too batshit. I was Chris Orbach. A little overgrown intellectually, maybe, but way way behind emotionally.