I have no idea if he and Burgess Meredith and Gary Romero made a dime off this album. Or The Quartones, for that matter.

I know he missed his kids, and that my father had no idea how to stay in touch with them once his relationship with his exes was off

In the late 1950s, something went terribly wrong for Riley. So wrong that he dragged his wife (kicking and screaming) out of NY.

I found a page of my father's journal, and I wasn't sure what to make of it. I read it over and over. I remember our talks about her.

Richard told me that the night of his birth at the Doctor’s Hospital in Manhattan, Riley had made a bet that Truman would win the Presidency

Victor Shepard had stories to tell. He loved to gossip. "Your father was the horniest man I've ever met," Victor said.

Here's what I grapple with. Did my father believe his lies sometimes, or lie so often that he became confused about reality?

If I had to point to a time when my father had some prestige and success, it would've been the years from 1944-1948. He was young, talented,

Riley was young in the mid-1940s. New York offered him many fantastic opportunities to find work and meet new people.

“They had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. We know now that Government by...