Blast from the Past #5

Eternal Novicehood and the Saving Grace of Good Friends - August 2005

Hey y'all,

This road trip was shaping up to be an exercise in humiliation until Joe
showed up. For instance, in Homer, at my first open mike, I had right in
front of my stage the Christian kiddie contingent. They were there to play
cards, talk loud, and make smart-ass speeches after different musicians
played just to show how cute they were, while the folks that were actually
listening attentively were behind them.

I was lucky though, they got even more obnoxious when the guy after me went
up to play his guitar and sing.

At the Land's End in Homer, my first night was the exact same time and date
as the post-Memorial service for Drew Scalzi, a former state Representative,
so everyone there was going to that. One couple tried to get me to go
upstairs, have some food and drink and let people know I was there, but
there's just something about going to somebody's funeral, especially someone
that I'd never met, to hustle some business that is...distasteful to say the
least. The same couple came down and bought a book - probably out of
pity because nobody showed up that day, and the wife suggested that I
should come in the winter, people are looking for things to do during that
time.

The next day, a couple of acquaintances and a couple of total strangers
showed up. I sold two books and all I could think was that it was a mighty
fine thing that I did not pay a dime for that space and that my beginner's
luck had run out, and I'm back in the time and space of being a
novice...again.

I packed up the Brown Beast (that is burning oil, but other than that is
running beautifully) and headed for Seward.

It seems like every year I decide to do something different that I know
nothing about, just so I can be a novice all over again. Perhaps Zen
Buddhists would applaud my embrace of Zen mind by constantly being a
beginner; but given that I learn by making many many mistakes, the
novice/beginner period can be agony.

In Seward, at the Resurrect Art Coffee House, I had set up tableside
storytelling for the sake of promoting my book. The owners are every
artist's dream come true as they support the arts and would let me do
whatever I wanted - so I set up for three days, hoping positive word of
mouth would help.

Day one, told several stories and sold...nothing.

Granted, I'm sure it could have been worse, I could have been insulted on
top of it. But to be in a place for four hours and have people nod politely
at my efforts is...awful.

Why would any sane person put herself through all this?

It didn't help that I had a Homer friend tempting me to go back to Homer, go
charter fishing and party. It was so demoralizing, I almost went, but I
made a commitment and as much as it hurt, that commitment must be kept. I
gritted my teeth to bear it on Thursday, where at least the day would be
mercifully short.

Told two stories to four people...sold two books. I perked up a bit. I've
survived painful learning curves before and it was always better. I even
sold two more books to a waitress and one of her followers at the bar where
I refreshed myself with a beer after hiking.

And then came deliverance...

Friday brought the arrival of Joe, who has absolutely no boundaries, and
therefore, no inhibitions. A born balls-to-the-wall salesman type. For
those who know Joe, after fishing in Bristol Bay, his dreds got infested
with bit of fish and he said every morning when he woke up his head smelled
like fish and he couldn't take it anymore. So he shaved them off, and his
beard, and damn he now looks like a respectable young man. I almost didn't

recognize him.

He listened to a couple of stories, and even stopped being a smart-ass half
way through the first one. A Colorado woman who calls herself "Soozie
Creamcheese," bought a book, and the two over-friendly studs I'd met at the
youth hostel bought none. And Joe took it upon himself to take a few books
and go to the bars. He took four and within 45 minutes, came back with
forty bucks and left with ten. By the time people were only caring about
getting drunk, he sold seven. While I stayed put, told more stories and
sold two more.

I'm busting my butt telling stories and trying to make a profound psychological

connection to strangers and this is what Joe does: "Dude, do you like fairy tales? How about dark fairy tales? Then you should really buy this book...." and he usually is talking to a female he'd like to sleep with.

He may not get in their pants, but damn! He can sell my books! I just might have to pack up Joe in my luggage... Thank God for good friends.

Montgomery

Ooohhh, that was so painful! And that was only the beginning. When I think back to that year, I remember it as the most humbling way to strengthen my ego imaginable. Just picture streams of people going by, smiling politely, if they even look at you and most of them don't give a hoot that this is my book, my dream, they couldn't care less. Then think of those who listen and nod politely as I'm telling an excerpt from the book and pouring my soul into it, promising they'll come back to get one late and they don't. For a hypersensitive type like myself, that was hard! But then there are those people whose eyes light up when they listen and they're excited to buy the book, and later you hear that they've passed it around to their friends. Actually that happened on this Seward trip. Two young women listened to a story, bought a book, and then passed it around to all their friends, making notes in the margins. That was a sweet moment, the kind that made it all worthwhile. In the long run, I learned to forget about the indifference and rejection I went through most of the time and to live for the Yes! And that's where I kept my focus.

It really threw me off guard how hard it was to sell my own work because in the past, I'd been really good at sales (#1 Spaghetti Dinner ticket saleskid at St. Charles Catholic School four years in a row!). I thought something so close to my heart, my dream, no problem, and I was so wrong. In fact, the fact that I cared so much worked against me. Months later, I was on a plane filled with computer salesmen and they told me that the producer can never sell the product. Because they know too much about it and get bogged down in the details, whereas a salesman can just make a pithy one-liner that sells the deal.

Having Joe there really showed just how difficult it is to do something like along. People are uneasy around the lone wolf and it's easier to generate energy and excitement when you're a group - even if the group is a small one and people respond positively to that. I'm grateful for that year because I gained a perspective most people never do and grew a thicker skin.

Any fear of rejection I ever had is Ggggooonnnneeee.... and that's a very empowered place to be. Thanks for reading.

Blast From the Past #4

Tapestry of Life on the Human Highway - August 2005

Every time I'm on the road, it never ceases to amaze me how quickly friendships are bonded and easily untied - especially as the need arises. There's something about traveling - being suspended from the day to day life of jobs, rent, bills, social obligations, community service, and established groups - that suspends the usual rules of how people interact with each other. Boundaries are lifted, discretion is almost an insult when making friends and forming temporary community from town to town.

I met Ann at the Amped Cafe in Homer, the day after I arrived in town. She's torn between career and more school, and which way to turn. There was an immediate bond that forged itself when she mentioned living in her truck, with a dog, and a Holly Golightly-style best friend that was halibut fishing with a new fling, who "wore his mullet well," and thus, was currently unavailable.

What a coincidence! I'm also living in my truck.

Ann talked me into doing a reading at the open mike that night to get warmed up for the Concert on the Lawn that first weekend. The next morning, she met me at 8:30 to help me set up my booth and was in and out every so often, as the need arose.

Hey, she got into the concert for free. After the week-end, she felt comfortable enough to let me stay in a tent outside the mullet-fisherman's house and I had a place to reorganize my truck and make coffee in the morning.

At the Concert on the Lawn, a volunteer named Lia offered to let me park my truck and sleep in her van with a double bed if I needed a place to stay. She was widowed from the love of her life two years before, and she had done her fair share of adventuring in her youth. She was also letting a young man stay on her property that was on a spiritual path of Buddhism and daily meditation, so it was really no big deal. But she felt the need to assure me that she wasn't coming on to me and that the young man was not her lover.

When Ann moved on to Seward to look into a possible dream job, I gave Lia a call and after it took her a moment to remember me...

"Oh yes, the Scheherazade..." she said. (I totally dug that compliment) before giving me directions to her house.

She got a little reluctant about using her van, but I had a place to park, and a kitchen to make my coffee, and an outhouse to do my business, and my body was scrunched again into my truck's proportions.

She told me her story, and it turns we have much in common.

"We are all interconnected," she said.

If she ever comes to Juneau, of course she'll have a place to stay.

Ann's sweet dog was hit by a car on Saturday night and killed, so she left Seward by the time I got there and the Holly Golightly-style best friend met her in Anchorage. I doubt I'll see her much from here on out, but I have a couple of pieces of mail and her PO box key. I'm sure we'll keep in touch and all, but I suspect that Ann was my Homer friend.

So here I am in Seward to do table to table storytelling at the Resurrect Art Coffee House in Seward. I'm staying at the hostel and it feels like high luxury accomodation to be able to stretch out in sleep and have a place to put food.

This morning I was looking forward to coffee in the communal kitchen and writing in my journal when a born-again Christian wrecked the peace of my morning today when she had to tell me her life story of giving her life to the Lord and how happy she was that she didn't have to be good enough to get into heaven, because God sent his Son to die on a cross for her. It's incredible that Christians never stop to think how sadistic and cruel that is...

I felt my energy being sucked dry...dammit, I knew I should have kept my distance.

When I couldn't take anymore of her being saved speeches, I got up and told her abruptly that I had gotten screwed by the same system that had done so much for her, and would she please stop. She said, yes of course and we made banal chit chat and wished each other a good day.

I'm only one thread on the tapestry of life, and these intersections are only a moment and some are a part of beautiful patterns and others...are not.

But then my thread runs on, as does theirs.

As Lia said, we are all connected.

I remember that time well. Later, I regretted not writing a bit more about Ann's dog, Wylie. Part of the reason I didn't was because I wanted to write about the good times and didn't want to share my bad. That was such an extreme time in my life because I was on the adventure of a lifetime. It was exciting but also really frightening. But also, it was a painful time in my life, one of the higher peaks of estrangement from my family, and I was reluctant to get into that. Still am, for that matter. But blogging to a bunch of strangers is less uncomfortable than writing a group email to everybody I knew in a small town.

After a few days of camping in the back of his house, Ann and I gravitated to the inside of the mullet-fisherman's house and crashed on one of those L-shaped oversized sofas. There's something about knowing you could be more comfortable that is irresistible after sleeping on hard ground with gravel in spots. Anyway, one night was a bad one for me with heartache keeping me awake. Wylie moved away from Ann and cuddled up against my legs, and it struck me that dog knew I was hurting and was trying to make me feel better. I think it made me cry at the time. So when I was hiking and my phone rang with Ann in tears telling me that sweet dog of hers was hit by a car the night before, it broke my heart. So here is my belated eulogy to Wylie over 5 years after her death - here's to our furry friends and their amazing sensitivity and capacity to give. Thank you.

That was such an extreme time in my life. I wish I had been more

Blast From the Past #3

Great Expectations - August 2, 2005

Oh Expectation!

That enemy of common sense, I had great visions of
massive book sales dancing in my head as I rode my
injured Brown Beast to the end of the road, known as
Homer, Alaska. There was a concert on the lawn
weekend in a town that was known for its artistic
hippie population. How could I go wrong? I pushed my
injured Brown Beast to the limit to get there.

My first clue was that many of the bands playing were
the baby-faced offspring of the artistic hippies.
Therefore, many in the audience were....kids.

But, I get ahead of myself...

I made a new friend at a coffee shop - something about
living in your truck really makes for fast and furious
bonding glue when you meet somebody who's doing the
same thing. Ann had just arrived in the last four
weeks from Montana, and she's one of those who always
needs something to do, so she became my lovely
assistant in setting up the Wal-Mart special that was
my canopy and putting up silk tapestries, sarongs,
blankets, pillows, and scented candles to make our
booth more appealing to the passerby. According to
our master plan, they would be lured by the appealing
atmosphere, and they would come in and sit for a spell
while I spin a yarn about my heart-eating anti-heroine
and they would be so enthralled, they would buy the
book, of course, to find out what happens.

Several people asked how much the sarongs were - even
though there were books displayed, with price tags.
Many commented on how cozy we looked as they passed
by. One guy offered me ten dollars to sit under the
booth while Laura Love was playing, if it started to
rain. He did end up being my last sale of the day.
But that's not the point.

Three teenage girls came up to the booth and
said..."Okay, we're gonna do it...how much for all
three of us?" By that time, I'd heard that people
thought I was a fortune teller reading tarot cards, so
I wasn't caught off guard. When I informed them that
I was a writer selling a book, they sneered and walked
off.

Kids want face paint, exoticism and things that go
sparkle. Enough said.

A red-headed tinkerbell said she had participated in
the love-ins of the sixties, and that's what my booth
reminded her of. An artist/writer named Nancy said
"ewww" when I told her what Ella Bandita was about,
and then proceeded to tell stories from her own life
about how she got jacked, and thus managed to take up
too much space - physically and psychically. People
that were showing some interest in the booth craned
their necks around her, but couldn't seem to fit past
the chip on her shoulder, and moved on. She was
talking about how she didn't like to receive hugs from
"strange women," and after a few minutes of "Thanks
for stopping by, Nancy. Nice meeting you! Have a
great day!" She moved on after wishing me luck with
the book.

Day one, sold ten books, two "Why Roses Have Thorns,"
and one book on CD. A nice Swiss guy bought the
latter after buying the book. He is living in his
van. The fellowship of homeless travelers is lovely.
On Sunday, he brought me two more people to buy the
book and one sold me the "key to art" :)

I was hoping for fifty books a day...okay, so it was
unrealistic, but I can dream, can I?

The second day looked more promising...a guy who had
stopped by and shown interest in the book without
buying it, was at the coffee shop where I brushed my
teeth and recharged with a mocha. At the prompting of
his sister, he bought the book before I even got to
the fair. At the start, we rearranged my booth to
look more open and people were stopping by for a
reading earlier on and it looked up. Around three I
recognized a common thread that a lot of interest was
coming from fifty-five year old men that wanted to
know me better. Not that I'm complaining...at least
not really.

In all I sold twenty two books - one was an exchange
with the Reverend Poor Child CD of love songs. I
didn't have the heart to say no, and then found out
later that he was considered the bad seed in town and
to "stay the f*** away from him."

I"m meeting cool people, having lots of fun. This is
an adventure.

Miss y'all.

Montgomery

Reading this brings back some good memories... When the highs were high, they were really high!

Blast from the Past #2

July 27, 2005

Ode to the Brown Beast

King of Resilience

(At least, I hope so)

Cursed be the blockhead that twisted the oil cap too
lightly,

The Brown Beast lost precious blood on the first run
of his long journey

Clanking its death rattle into Tok, Alaska,
the rider of the Brown Beast was alarmed to 
receive the news from a twelve year old with braces
that the Brown Beast would be lucky to make it to
Anchorage...

the Brown Beast would need bypass surgery, if not a
transplant...

"It's got an old heart, and old hearts get tired," 
said the shaman grandfather of the boy.

The boy offered to buy the Brown Beast, if the rider
cared to sell...

Fear not! 

The Brown Beast rattled and rolled its way out of Tok,

determined to make its way to the City of Muck.

The death rattle wound down to an occasional clank on
slowing to a walk and stop, and the rider was
reassured, somewhat.

The Brown Beast made its way to the city and comes to
life when called upon to do its duty.

But the need for a doctor is imminent, if not
immediate...

Will the Brown Beast ride again, valiantly to the end
of the road, holding out for the Carnival?

Or is it a terminal case?

Either way it sucks that my emergency fund is needed,
oh... immediately.

At least I had a place to crash...

Montgomery

I still miss the Beast, that was one mighty rig.  It started out as the Big Brown Beast, then the Brown Beast, and then just the Beast - a 1985 Forerunner painted milk chocolate brown that was not on the color palette of Toyota, and NOBODY had a truck like it.  It was a 4 cylinder manual and I finally learned to drive a stick shift in the Winter in Alaska in that Beast.  

It had no get up and go, and could go no faster than 60 mph with the pedal to the metal, and after that happened, the Beast smoked and clanked with some loose widget, causing me many anxiety attacks - but that sucker lasted for that year.  No small feat, I drove all over Alaska, Washington, Oregon then to Colorado then to California, then everywhere there.  The Beast mastered some primitive highways in Alaska - never got a flat once, not even when going to McCarthy - gaining and losing elevation as the slowest vehicle on the mountain roads - even I could feel the strain of that old, compromised engine going up and down mountain roads, and salty air and maniac drivers along the California coast where the unwritten minimum speed limit is 75 mph.  

I doubt I will ever love a vehicle like I did the Beast.  It died not long after I got back from the trip, and it broke my heart to sell it to a mechanic's girlfriend.  It was kind of cool in a sad, nostalgic way to see the Beast resurrected with a new engine.  I tried to follow once, but it was going too fast and that's when I realized the new engine was a 6 cylinder. It was no longer my truck.  

    

Blast from the Past #1

Yippee!!!!!  My Book Release Party - July 12, 2005

Hey y'all,

I'll cut to the chase...my book release party is
manana, at 7 in the PM at Sandy Beach, the second
shelter...the cool one with the stone fireplaces and
yes, there will be a fire.

It's possible y'all are sick of getting these
promotional emails, I'm sure sick of sending them, but
since my goal is to get everyone to come down and
spend their dinero, I gotta do what I can to make it
happen!

Prices are fast and easy...and for this event only!
$8 for the book, "Ella Bandita and other stories
$5 for the book on CD - of the title story "Ella
Bandita," 
$5 apiece for the homemade books - great for kids -
"Preacher Man and the Golden Pedestal," and "Why Roses
Have Thorns".  Both come with purty pictures drawn by
Joy West, also of Juneau.  

And of course, for the full package...(drum roll, if
you please) of all four items is just $20!  

There will be some food, some drink, a fire, and
music, even if I have to bring my boom box and CDs! 
Feel free to bring a guitar, a banjo, a harmonica, and
be my live music!

No matter what, come on down because I wanna see ya!  

Montgomery

Wow.  When I look at that email from over five years ago, I'm amazed I was actually that ballsy, that clueless, or both.  To give anybody who happens to come across this a little background info... In 2005 I wrote and self published a collection of adult fairy tales - not erotica, but they could have been - got a $5000 grant from the Rasmuson Foundation in Anchorage to help fund the road trip for a DIY book tour that lasted a year.  Needless to say, I spent far more money than I made, but that experience was one of the most amazing adventures of my life and I learned a lot.  I also kept an email journal that I sent out to friends and those I wanted to show off for - only to have my hubris blow up in my face later.  And these entries became a blog on a local website.  

I'm rewriting the stories with the main character into a series of four novels, I figured it made sense to resurrect these emails into the blog.  It brought back memories to reread that email, but I must admit I also cringed when I read it.  I can't believe I had the nerve to hit up everybody I knew in a small town in Alaska like that.  Oh the joy of buzzing on endorphins!  

Still hoping I don't mess this up...