Book excerpt: Harvey Milk, Larry Itliong, John Lennon, Woody Guthrie... My Letters to Dead People is legendary political consultant Richie Ross s epistolary exploration into dozens of historical, personal, professional and influential figures of the last 40 years. First, a star with Cesar Chavez. Then, a young campaign hot shot in the Leo McCarthy-Howard Berman speakership war. And, eventually, dubbed by the California Journal as Willie Brown s warlord. Richie Ross has come a long way from his early days working street-level on campaigns, night clerking for free rent just north of San Francisco s Tenderloin, and growing up with kids from housing projects as they held him down and took turns pissing on him. Since then, he has been involved in hundreds of campaigns at every level of government. A former chief of staff for California s legendary Assembly Speaker Willie Brown, Ross has worked as a union organizer for the United Farm Workers and a strategist for the hotel workers union.