Jonathan Ames (Born March 23, 1964) is an American author who has written a number of novels and comic memoirs. He was a columnist for the New York Press for several years, and became known for self-deprecating tales of his sexual misadventures. He also has a long-time interest in boxing, appearing occasionally in the ring as "The Herring Wonder". In 2009, he created the HBO television series Bored to Death. Ames is a 1987 graduate of Princeton University and he holds a Master of Fine Arts in Fiction from Columbia University. He has been a visiting faculty member at Columbia University, The New School, and the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Ames's novels include I Pass Like Night (1989), The Extra Man (1998), and 2004's Wake Up Sir!, described by The New York Times as "laugh-out-loud funny". In September 2008 Ames released The Alcoholic, his first foray into graphic novels. In 2009, he published a new collection of essays and fiction with Scribner, entitled The Double Life is Twice as Good. While at the New York Press his columns were often recollections of his childhood neuroses and his unusual experiences, written in the gritty tradition of Charles Bukowski. These columns were collected in four nonfiction books, What's Not to Love?: The Adventures of a Mildly Perverted Young Writer (2000), My Less Than Secret Life (2002), and I Love You More than You Know (2006). Ames was also responsible for the Most Phallic Building contest which followed an article he wrote for Slate magazine where he claimed that the Williamsburg Bank Building in Brooklyn, New York, was the most phallic building in the world. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Ames