Session Six of Graphic Therapy (also enjoyable on sunny weekends, should you live somewhere there is one) is up, filled with quirky details about wedding hook-ups, party-throwing mice, and godsent porta-potties. Feel free to comment with your own terrible tales of short-lived chivalry…

What makes a man step off a cross-country flight and jump in a cab from the SF Airport to the City to take one photo, and then get back in the cab in order to be where he needs to be, which is two hours in the opposite direction? I direct you to Exhibit E: This photo of Ellen Dunne and me. I’ve known for more than a dozen years, and seen the best of her from San Francisco to New York; under hot sun, pouring rain, and inches of dust; in various states of high style and deep slumming; in the most professional of circumstances and behaving badly at weddings. In perhaps the classiest moment in all of the many moments of sports fandom I’ve ever witnessed, this passionate Patriots fan helped me assemble my all-green outfit before I departed for the Super Bowl in Jackson, FL, where my Eagles were beaten by those nasty Pats. That’s a good friend. In every moment, she is uniquely Ellen Dunne: totally together, completely overachieving, taking on too much for too many, with no complaints nor discernible sweat. That’s the way they raise ‘em in New England. Plus, she’s very good to all of the cats and dogs. And too damn cute. A beautiful pregnant woman.

Her newest acquaintance: Mr. Sebastian Firestone Bradshaw, son of Ellen and Blair Bradshaw, genius artist and great man. Congrats!

For many young people, dreaming of rock-and-roll stardom and starting a band almost seems to be a rite of passage. For decades teenagers have been sort-of learning to play instruments, getting together with some friends, and writing songs that they know in their hearts will not only be their ticket to stardom, but will somehow change the world. But for every band that actually achieves some level of success, there are countless others that never even make it out of the garage.

In For Those Who Tried To Rock, the upcoming book from The Academy of the Recent Past (the minds behind Camp Camp), the stories of these would-be rock legends are finally told in the form of hand-written lyrics, homemade music videos, and any other leftover artifacts from the short-lived music careers of all those who never “made it.” On the For Those Who Tried To Rock website, where visitors are urged to submit their stories to be included in the book, editors Mervyn Tonin and Mel Schranz make it clear that they believe there is something truly great about these stories:

“We love you just the same if your band became the stuff or local legend or if it lasted little longer than the time it took to snap the photograph. We don’t care whether the band recorded original material or covers. We only care that you give us the chance to pay homage to your greatness.”

From the handful of stories currently featured on the site, you can already tell that For Those Who Tried To Rock is going to be the kind of book that is tough to put down. In addition to the promotional photos and press clippings, we also get to read the reflections of the now grown up former rockers looking back on what they thought was just the beginning of them fulfilling their musical destiny. It sounds a little sad, but most of the submissions come from people who have fond memories of their past and enjoy looking back on the period of their lives when they allowed themselves to have larger than life dreams. For Those Who Tried To Rock is proof that while not everyone gets to be a rock star, everyone can at least try.

Imagine dozens of writers gathered to post nonfiction, memoir, rants, poetry, criticism, thoughtful analysis, photographs, and true stories in any form on one big, raw, no holds barred website that’s part blog, part soapbox—or as Kip Tobin puts it, sboxlog (I’m going to try to work that into conversations). The site’s called TheNervousBreakdown, and its contributors are a cross-genre mix of well-known and obscure writers. Some post daily and some post bi-annually; most seem to post when the spirit moves them—or when they have something to say that just can’t be said anywhere else.

“TNB is the online literary equivalent of Lollapalooza, where recognizable names share the bill with indie writers,” contributor Megan Leah Power explains. “The audience is hot and whip smart and cheers heartily at all the right moments. Poetry one day, reportage the next, it’s a constant surprise.” TNB places fresh, emerging voices next to established, critically-acclaimed writers. I was delighted to find out that my college fiction professor is an active member. Writers take a lot of different approaches, and the diversity produces fantastic results. Noria Jablonski writes, “I think of the writing I do for TheNervousBreakdown as a kind of open notebook. It’s more spontaneous than my other work, less controlled.” “Kerouac wrote On the Road on a 120-foot roll of paper,” writes P.D. Smith. “I see TNB as something similar—a continuous feed of people’s experiences from around the world: what they’re seeing, doing, reading, feeling. Just scroll down and it’s all there: life, the universe & everything… well, nearly everything.” Go ahead. Click here to read, well, nearly everything.

What is this thing called my obsession with pregnant women? I can’t say, I just think they’re about the most bold, beautiful, ferociously awesome creatures on this complicated planet. Among the most creative, kick-ass, lovely women I’ve had the pleasure to know is Ms. Mo Clancy. Mo launches companies while you’re trying to figure out where to go for lunch, then gives you five new notions on how to make yours better as she walks home. She’s a straight shooter, a guy’s girl who women love, a superhuman person who seemingly has 36 hours in each day. She’s what Burt Reynolds calls a “1″ in Semi-Tough. You need to read the book to understand. So just trust me.

So here she is. Pregnant. Beautiful. As surprised as anyone about the state she’s in. And yet, as she tends to do when the unexpected shows up, embraced this moment without pause. And still, she’ll tell you exactly how it is. “I’ve got to be honest,” she told me as we ate burgers in Greenwich Village, “I’m still waiting for the maternal instincts to kick in.” I’m not worried: Mo can’t fail.

Are you or have you ever been a member of the pregnant party? Submit your story, and photo if you’re feeling the love, at SMITH and Rick’s Picks “What’s Your Pregnancy Story?” contest. Lots of you will win pickles Three of you will end up on a nationally distributed “Slices of Life” pickle jar from Ricks. Oh, those pickles are good.

Emily Steinberg is back, and her single girl comic Graphic Therapy is kicking Cathy’s ass and stealing Carrie’s clutch. This week she dates a copier salesman with a penchant for Wonderbras, battles a psycho shrink who tries to control her urinary desires, and is seriously shown up in group therapy by Zero Mostel on acid and his hotbox of crazies. Seriously folks, tell your friends!

The effects of overhearing a random piece of conversation can be dumbfounding. Comedian Lewis Black made this point in his bit about overhearing a woman say, “If it weren’t for my horse, I never would have spent that year in college,” where he proposes his theory that hearing something that stupid out of context could cause a brain aneurysm. Overheard in New York is a website that exists for the sole purpose of sharing similarly unforgettable pieces of conversation. 

New Yorkers are constantly surrounded by people who are talking (to each other, to cell phones, and to themselves). This kind of living situation makes it nearly impossible avoid overhearing some pretty interesting things throughout the course of the day. Overheard in NY provides the public with a forum for sharing these pieces of conversational gold, such as the following:

Teen girl #1: I’m done with you. I hate you. I hope DJ Spinbad performs at the sweet 16 you’re going to tomorrow!
Teen girl #2: Ohh you take that back. Take it back!

It makes you wonder-what’s so bad about DJ Spinbad? Could he or she really single-handedly ruin a sweet 16? You find yourself asking these types of questions when reading even the most inane posts on Overheard in NY, proving that even the most ridiculous pieces of conversation, taken out of context, can be thought-provoking in their own right.

Like other SMITH favorites, Found Magazine and Written On The City, Overheard in NY relies on it’s readers to keep the site active by regularly submitting the crazy things they overhear. Non-New Yorkers can get in on the action by sharing things they overhear to Overheard Everywhere, Overheard in the Office and Overheard at the Beach. However, when doing so I think it’s important to take Lewis’s medical advice under advisement:

“Don’t think about that sentence for more than three minutes, or blood’ll shoot out your nose.”   

Maybe you were one of the 38 million watching and cheering for Barack Obama’s Mile High acceptance speech. If so, you were in good company: friend of SMITH and “Internet Rockstar” Ben Brown was doing the same last Thursday when a phrase caught his attention. Discussing the Republican administration and the mistakes of the past decade, Obama said that “it’s time for them to own their failure. It’s time for us to change America.” As Brown explains in a blog post, the words set the wheels turning in his head, and by the next morning he had launched Own Your Failure. “Barack Obama is right,” he writes on the site. “The Republicans should own the failure of the last 8 years… but we all know the chances of that happening are slim! That leaves a lot of failure left to be claimed. Who wants it?” Read more »

Now that you’ve burned off that Labor Day weekend haze, don’t forget to check out the new installment of Next-Door Neighbor, “Post Traumatic” by Tim Hamilton. It’s a touching anecdote about life, relationships, and cancer. Don’t miss it.

Mark your iPhones: Susan Shapiro, a friend of SMITH, and friend of every journalist (especially those who take her personal essay writing classes) is holding a panel on The Future of Publishing, with an amazing cast of characters ranging top literary agents to editors from The New Yorker, New York Times, Time Magazine, Slate, Wired, and SMITH’s own publisher, HarperCollins. At the bottom of this post, we name names. Read more »