I don't know how many people you've known who ran successful bars. I've known several. It is not a profession that is kind to the weak, and Zawinski's thrived in it for what must by now be at least twenty years.

I don't particularly care for the man; mostly I think he's kind of an asshole whose political opinions ossified some time around the year I was born, and whose ability to appreciate the world as is seems entirely circumscribed thereby. I do nonetheless recognize that he is worthy of my respect. Armchair psychoanalysts, not so much.