From the fifty (yes, fifty) jobs he held down to keep the paychecks coming, author and playwright David H. Lewis takes you on his wild ride back and forth between…• Cleaning out rental cars in Oakland, and dining high on Park Avenue a few days later with New York literary agent Bertha Klausner and Clare Booth Luce.

• Walking a rail yard by night, recording box car numbers, and the next, meeting with French mime Marcel Marceau to discuss a Mother Goose screenplay. • Typing out letters for a chemical company in Hollywood, and being handed by the office manager a rave review in Variety of his new musical Those Ringlings.

Sure to strike a familiar chord with aspiring dreamers in the performing arts, it should prove especially useful to talented young readers taking their own first steps into the nine-to-five of life. Lewis pulls no punches in recounting his colorful, hit-and-miss involvements in theater.

From prune picking in Santa Rosa to circus clowning, press agent to roller skating instructor to accidental librarian for Oakland’s largest law firm, Keep That Day Job! rolls on like a three-ring circus juggling day jobs with showbiz adventures on the side. .