Inkwell: Authors and Artists

    
Hah!  Then there's baby wailing.  Some humans just don't even notice it 
(unless from their own kid, perhaps) and others are allergic to any little 
kid wimper. Can't call the cops, however, so that will never get into your 
beat!

I bet you'd be good on manners, oddly enough.  Little "crimes," if you
will.
  

    
wow, great idea!
  

    

I don't use pseuds in this conference, being a host and all, but if I did,
I'd adopt "in the think of an argument."
  

    
That reminds me that I have meant to use this topic to publicly thank
Mr. Hoover for supplying me with a long string of pseuds in the Media
conference, where the police log appears weekly. I believe my current
pseud over there is "sidewalk wallower." Thanks Kevin! 
  

    
My pleasure. All of this attention is really encouraging. Orders for
Vol. II are starting to come in and now it seems even my careless typos
have some pseud utility (at least to David). So I guess this is the
time to come down with a big-ass case of writer's block. 

This week we get the first emergency mini-shipment of books, my staff
and I have an all-contributor signing at Northtown Books during Arts!
Arcata Friday night plus gear up for the massive mailgasm to follow the
following week. (I promised Tracy at Cover to Cover Books in S.F. I'd
have her some books by Dec. 18.) Oh yeah, and we have to put out an
issue of the newspaper as well.

I saw Pete today (you may know Pete from Vol. 1). He was shambling
along in his blankets in the loveless asphalt wilds of Alliance Road
and Spear Avenue. There''s a house there that my brother and I used to
rehearse with our band in back in 1987. Outside was a 4x8 piece of
plywood with a marvy-hideous psychedelic mural painted on it. For a
brief moment, Pete's hunched-over figure was juxtaposed against the
swirly-colored mural. I whipped into the mini-mart parking lot and
galumphed after Pete to get him to come back for a photo in the dying
light. But he was in an uncharacteristically foul mood, and said he was
"in a hurry." OK, that alone is very weird, as I can't remember Pete
ever hurrying anywhere - he seems borne on the wind. Anyway, he
trundled away across the road and I struck up a conversation with the
guy in the yard with the mural. We were exchanging pleasantries when I
heard a loud voice, and it was Pete actually yelling, "You talking to
me?" over and over like an ornery, aged DeNiro draped in blankets. I
smiled and said no and waved him away because it seemed like we were at
some kind of uneasy tipping point, and fortunately, he went so i
continued talking to the yard guy. I realized that I was standing in
the exact spot where, in the late'80s, my brother had a vigorous 
discussion about -ta da! - religion with a passerby. And not just any
passerby, but the gentleman who walks a big cross on a wheel around the
country for some religious reason. The frank exchange of views ended
with my brother offering the cross-walker a peanut butter and jelly
sandwich and a glass of milk, tersely declined.

Well, this has been a good exercise for writing this week's coplog,
which I guess I better get around to.
  

    

Dang!!
  

    

Jesus's cross idn't have a wheel.  What a slacker this new guy is.
  

    
There used to be a guy witha big cross witha wheel who hung out in Santa
Cruz. Could there be TWO of them?
  

    
Yep, I think there's more than one. College towns must be good
cross-wheeling ground.
  

    
I bet Ithaca isn't.
  

    
Ann Arbor didn't work out so well, either.
  

    
I'm on deadline, but if anyone has time to find out why them dudes do
that, it would be fleetingly interesting. Some form of penance?
  

    
Sounds like a prop from a passion play -- is that possible?
  

    
I'm doing an interview with Jefferson Public Radio in the a.m. for
airing probably later in the day. I'll keep you posted as to airtime.
  

    
Good luck, Kevin!
  

    
Thanks. It went pretty well, even though I got a bit tongue-tied
reading one of my own limericks. But I tried to sound NPR-ish
(sensitive, thoughtful, erudite). And believe me, my two remaining
brain cells were approaching thermal failure after keeping that up for
10 minutes.

It's to air on their Classics &*News channel at 4:30 p.m. You won't
get it down there, but for what it's worth, they do stream at
jeffnet.org.
  

    
Looks like I'm doing a book signing Friday, Feb. 25 at Cover to Cover
Booksellers in S.F.
  

    
Excellent! When that date draws closer, be sure to post another reminder
(and be sure to include the address and what time you'll be there).

Any chance you'll be doing a book signing and/or reading in Sonoma or Marin
counties?
  

    
Just got back from Ashland, where I blithered and bloviated for an
hour on Jefferson Public Radio's Jefferson Exchange call-in show. No
one was waiting outside with torches or handcuffs afterward, so I guess
it went OK.

A signing in Sonoma or Marin? Sure! I only need a bookstore to let me
know my presence is desired, and I'm so there. I guess it would help to
have some Bay Area publicity. Maybe I should rob a bank. Or,
alternatively, get serious about book promotion and not sit around on
my ever-more-ample posterior waiting for calls.
  

    

I can give you some publicity on my radio show.  If you can arrange to be in
Berkeley on a Wednesday night when I'm not on the road...,
  

    
Wow, thanks. Are you in town the Wednesday before the signing, on Feb.
23?
  

    
And speaking of blowing one's own horn...

http://www.sacbee.com/content/news/columns/lundstrom/story/12106326p-12976313c
.html
  

    

Feb 23 works for me!  9pm.