I met Pryvett on New Year’s Eve 1999. He was an improbable personage. At first glance, Pryvett resembled a melted snowman, a shapeshifter stuck between two ambitious shapes, but he was, clearly, not to be underestimated. He was drinking beer and tequila and wine coolers and smoking a pipe. He was the friend of friends, and I never really caught the connection Pryvett had to them other than he had once “gamed” with them. As the night wore on and outrage after outrage poured out Pryvett, my wife asked me (as other girls in the room were asking their boyfriends), “Who is that guy?” To which a friend, still choking on his drink, laughing at the freshest mordant bon mot from Pryvett, croaked, “He’s the the love-child of Don Rickles and Andrew ‘Dice’ Clay!”