It's been a cold month for Leos. After a curious string of what I believed to be unrelated relationship-ending stories from other Leos over the past few weeks, I finally had my own to tell. Then yesterday afternoon while huffing gusts of compressed air blasted by our presses' archaic, heavy-metal toy foil stamper, I received a call from my cousin. I just heard on NPR Robert Culp died, he said. Didn't you know that guy? I do. I thought momentarily of something my friend Maria (another partner on the Zodiac map) told me at the Soft Spot, "It's supposed to be a tumultuous time for Leos right now."

I did a quick search on the Internet for any confirming information about Robert and, perhaps overlooking it at first, found nothing. But then I saw the tiny wire report seemingly blinking off to the right, the tagline "Robert Culp, star of 'I Spy,' dies"; his obit waiting just underneath like I knew it would be.

I'm not one to believe in astrology or that the stars are anything for us mortals but pretty things to look at and name bands after, but the streak of bad luck that's befallen us Leos has somewhat shaken my doubt. For the past few weeks I've had this morbid obsession with checking the obits in the New York Times, for some sinking reason hoping to not see Robert's name there. I don't know for what reason I had this awful premonition, perhaps it was preservation through persistence, or maybe it was the alignment of Mars (I don't believe the latter). For every day I secretly checked the obituary page I exhaled an inaudible sigh of relief. But I knew it was coming and I don't know why or how or if I could even know something like that. When I saw the confirmation there was only shock, and any awe at my peripheral psychic connection to this terrible moment fleeted past unnoticed.

I met Robert through his daughter Samantha, before I even knew who he was. I was in the middle of filming some weird student-film short with the photographer Pat Tsai back in 1999. Samantha played a minor female lead, which I believe Pat cast in order to enhance my own character's limitless capacity for malevolence. A real incorrigible, unlikeable bastard.  My friends kept telling me Robert Culp was Sam's dad. Who's that? I said. "An actor. He usually plays a general or something military." Like the renegade general from Spies Like Us? Is that your dad? I never said I had good taste in film, either. My friends kept insisting I knew who Robert was, but I couldn't attach a face to him. Now I can't stop thinking about his great hair and that chiseled distinctive jawline he kept. His features are as clear as a well-lighted photograph.