"I [heart] Carole L." refers to his first girlfriend, Carole Lowe, who died of cancer in late 1999 or early 2000. The character of Mona is based on a real woman at the Bimbo's 365 Club in San Francisco known as "Dolphina". In the 1930s, a magician worked the joint and rigged up a series of mirrors that would project an image of anyone who was lying on a rotating table in the basement up into the fish tank located behind the bar.