With three interviews and numerous errands today, and a 10-day tour that starts at 4 a.m. tomorrow, it was hard to justify going to a concert last night. Harder still to justify going backstage and talking to some guys in the band until almost 1 a.m.

But when the band is the Pogues . . . well, I'll sleep when I'm dead. Bear in mind, this is an opportunity that came about because I hang with some big dogs, guys who attract a lot of admiration from the kind of people that also attract admiration. Sometimes, it's cool to be the chihuahua.

Oh, and everyone with whom I spoke last night is a thousand times better-read than I am. Proust! Finnegans Wake! (I've never met a non-professor/non-English major who had read this.) I even got a little advice on how to conquer Ulysses. "The first part is slow, but once you get to Bloom, it picks up." "Hmmmm. Can I sort of skip ahead? Or at least skim.?" It was decreed that I could, if I must.

My advice? DiFara's pizza in Brooklyn. Oh, yes, it was a pretty lofty cultural exchange.

Anyway, if you notice the bags under my eyes in the television segment I'm taping today, for air tomorrow -- I don't care.