Paul Shaffer—born and bred music junkie and longtime leader of David Letterman’s Late Show band—opens up in this candid, endearing, hilarious, and star-studded memoir. From playing seedy strip joints in Toronto, to being the first musical director of Saturday Night Live and helping to form the Blues Brothers, to being onstage every night with David Letterman and playing with the greatest musicians of our time, Shaffer has lived the ultimate showbiz life. Now—dishing on ev...

A Million-Dollar Bill surveys our lives in America up close and personal from the first young summer taste in "Watermelon Seeds" to the hopeful hand-made creation of legal tender to purchase the necessities and accessories of the American Dream in the title poem.Quirky, original, and astute, this expansive and engaging poetry collection by Eric Paul Shaffer entertains even as each poem presses readers to pause and think for a moment.From love to de...

Green Leaves: Selected & New Poems collects work from Eric Paul Shaffer's seven volumes and thirty-five years of publication. On voyages around the Pacific Rim, from California to Okinawa to Hawai'i, Shaffer's sharp eye for natural and human detail delights and illuminates. A charter member of the "Clear Pool School," Shaffer writes direct, profound, and often funny poems celebrating the American vernacular and encouraging a broader sense of the human, humane, ecological, and plan...

One evening on Lāhaina's Front Street, as Shaffer walked to an evening with friends, someone passing on the sidewalk commented, "The islands are even further west than I thought." Those accidental words, like poetry, shifted his perspective once again regarding the place he lives. Even Further West is a collection of poems written of, in, and on the Hawaiian islands. Companion volume to Lāhaina Noon, this collection includes poems striving to encounter and reveal the actual place and peopl...

Immiserizing Growth Fails the Poor refers to situations where economic growth does not lead to poverty reduction. How should this phenomenon be conceptualized? How often, when, and where does it occur? Why does it occur? Shaffer addresses these three sets of questions drawing on a wide range of theoretical perspectives and empirical approaches. This volume presents a conceptualization of immiserizing growth which combines the notions of failed and malevolent inclusion, being bypas...

Immiserizing growth occurs when growth fails to benefit, or harms, those at the bottom. It is not a new concept, appearing in some of the towering figures of the classical tradition of political economy including Malthus, Ricardo, and Marx. It is also not empirically insignificant, occurring in between 10% and 35% of cases. In spite of this, it has not received its due attention in the academic literature, dominated by the prevailing narrative that 'growth is good for the poor'. Immise...

**From Paul Shaffer, lifelong music junkie, hipster, and longtime leader of David Letterman's band, comes a candid, endearing, hilarious, and star-studded memoir of a life in-and love of-show business.**How does a kid go from a remote Canadian town at the tip of Lake Superior to the bright lights of Broadway and a gig leading the band on Letterman? This book is Paul Shaffer's answer to that question. From playing seedy strip joints in Toronto, to his first legitimate job out of co...