George Plimpton died on September 26, 2003. He was an amazing human being. He was intrepid, gleeful, generous, funny, silly, brilliant. He was a father, a husband, a brother, a writer, an editor, a performer. He was very kind to me, and I will always be wildly grateful that I had the good fortune to know him.

The following is an excerpt from my book, My Less Than Secret Life. It is from the chapter, "My Jewish Cousin, George Ames Plimpton." The time period in which this was written was October of 1999, a few weeks before my first and only boxing match. In preparation for this match, which is briefly referred to in this excerpt, I read George Plimpton's great book, Shadowbox, which I highly recommend. I also recommend subscribing to his beautiful magazine, The Paris Review.

My Jewish Cousin, George Ames Plimpton

Just a few weeks ago I had a particularily good escapade at Joe's Pub on Lafayette Street. I was the host for a night of storytelling put together by this group called The Moth, which has storytelling nights every two weeks or so at different locations -- it flits around -- though Joe's Pub with its clubby, candle-lit atmosphere seems to be The Moth's favorite venue. The theme of the night I was hosting was "icons." So the performers told stories about icons in their lives, and in addition to my hosting duties, I also told a story -- about my dear childhood pal, Jonathan "Fat" Eder, who for me is an icon of friendship and inspired, nutty behavior.

All in all, there were six storytellers, including myself, and the last performer of the evening happened to be one of New York's -- and perhaps the country's -- best raconteurs: George Plimpton. To introduce Plimpton, I launched into the following monologue:

"Our next storyteller is George Plimpton, but before I bring him on stage I want to tell you something about him. A few months ago, at a Moth event at the Brooklyn Academy of Music, George was the host and this time he was calling me on stage to tell a story and he said, 'Many people don't know this but my middle name is Ames. George Ames Plimpton. So I think Jonathan Ames is a long lost cousin. So please welcome my cousin Jonathan Ames.' This surprised me a great deal, but I recoved my wits quickly and when I got on stage I then said, 'What many people don't know is that my middle name is Plimpton. I'm Jonathan Plimpton Ames. And I guess George doesn't use the Ames part of his name because the initials wouldn't look very good on towels -- G-A-P, which is not very classy.' Well, that whole little speech got a big round of applause, and then after the show George was hounding me on this issue of our being related. 'So are you of the Boston Ames's?' he asked me. I kept sidestepping the question and trying to move us on to another topics. I didn't want to tell him that I was Jewish, that there was no chance in hell that we were of the same blood, and so I shamefully retreated into Jewish insecurity and secrecy.

"In my defense, I have to say that it was thrilling that he seemed to be taking an interest in me, even if it was only because he thought we might be cousins, which is why I didn't want to disabuse him of his cousin fantasy. You see I've always admired George Plimpton's work. As a young writer and as an ardent sports fan, I put him on a pedestal. He combined both my passions. Here was a writer who got to play pro football and hockey and he climbed into the ring with Archie Moore! And what did I write about when I finally became a journalist? Enemas, colonics, and hemorrhoids. My action journalism all took place around my ass! I even self-deprecatingly called myself in one of my NY Press articles 'the George Plimpton of the colon.' And now here was the man himself, this icon of American letters, liking me and thinking we were related.

"Well, after that show at BAM, we all went to a party and again George cornered me and inquired as to whether or not I was a Boston Ames. Now for years, I've often masqueraded as a WASP. It's sort of a hobby of mine. A fascination. I comb back my thin blonde hair and put on blazers and khaki pants and infiltrate WASP society. I call it religious cross-dressing. But now I had gone too far. A high priest of the WASP world was ready to take me in as one of his own. And I should have said to him at the party, 'I'm an Austro-Hungarian Empire Jew named Ames. I'm sorry George, but we're not related!' But I was too weak and irrational. It was absurd, but I thought he wouldn't like me if he knew I was Jewish, and so all I said was, 'There are no Boston Ames's in my family.' And shortly after that, having turned my back on my heritage, I left the party. I was acting like Shylock, but with less self-esteem.

"Anyway, I've been thinking about all this, and I realize that George and I might be related after all. The Boston Ames's, I bet, were originally German-speaking, Austro-Hungarian Empire Jews who ended up in England. But then because of religious persecution, they came over with the Puritans on the Mayflower. And since they were Jews and most likely rich merchants they could pay to get on the ship. Then once they were on Plymouth Rock, they probably -- like the Jews in Spain during the Inquisition -- thought it best to hide their Judaism in the New World. And this kind of secrecy or assimilation isn't done out of Jewish self-loathing, but for reasons of survival.

"Anyway, these Mayflower Ames's, these Boston Ames's, like the Spanish Jews, kept their secret so well, that over time they forgot that they were originally of the Hebrew faith, that they were children of Abraham. And so I believe that of one Boston's oldest families -- the Ames's -- is actually Jewish. Now George's middle name must come from his mother -- in WASP families the middle name is often the mother's maiden name. So George's mother was probably an Ames, which means she was most Jewish. And since one's Jewishness is passed on through the mother, George Ames Plimpton is actually a Jew!

"So ladies and gentleman, please welcome my cousin and Jewish-icon, George Ames Plimpton!"

Well, there was general pandemonium at Joe's Pub when I publicly outed George as a semite. People were howling. If they had yarmulkes they would have tossed them on the stage with joy, which would have made an interesting image. Instead, they merely screamed and laughed, while George gracefully made his way through the crowd and then onto the stage, where he threw a left-jab at me because he knows of my upcoming fight. I then retreated to the wings and George stood silently in front of the microphone, collecting himself and bringing the audience to the edges of their chairs. So we waited. And then stooping to the mike from his considerable height, bending at the waist in his WASP-issued blue blazer, he bowed his head and said in his great mid-Atlantic accent, "I've had some introductions in my day, but never one . . . . Well, thanks, cuz."

And the audience roared its approval. It was all very pleasing. In one fell swoop, I had reembraced my heritage and had converted George Plimpton back into the Hebrew fold.