Having just read the next entry from my email, I'm remembering all that I didn't put down in that space. And there were a lot of gaps. The one thing I remember is how alone I felt in that part of the road trip. I really didn't enjoy staying in Anchorage very much, so for a run of time that I had live storytellings at the Organic Oasis, I stayed at a cabin in Indian, Alaska for about 2 weeks. The drive wasn't that much, just midway to down the Turnagain arm between Anchorage and Girdwood, and the 20 minutes at least twice a week was more than worth it.
I don't know if the Organic Oasis is still in business, but I certainly hope so. They were very nice to let me have the stage a couple of times a week, but the experience was... enough to make me grateful when things went well. Before I left Juneau for this big road trip, Brett Dillingham - storyteller extraordinaire - came by to give me some tips on my style and his feedback was priceless of course.
"Oooohhh, you are going on an adventure," he said before he left. Then he gave me this look and continued. "I'm not going to lie to you, Montgomery, sometimes it's really going to hurt. But other times it's going to be grand."
Well, my storytelling at the Organic Oasis was one of the times that it hurt. And I mean it really, really hurt. There were times I was chasing down the waitstaff with my eyeballs just to have an audience member to have contact with. Because there was nobody in there. Other times, the sparse audience gave me the blank look of "What the hell do you think you're doing interrupting my dinner of healthful, organic nourishment with this drivel?" Other times they would continue eating without looking at me. I don't have a single memory of selling lots of books there, at all. Maybe one or two here and there, but often times none.
But I do remember that's when I stopped being such a chicken shit about public speaking. For the first two months, every time I had an event with a "stage" and "audience" Due to my life long terror around public speaking, I would sit cowboy style across a chair with the back between me and the audience and whisper timidly into a microphone. One night at the Organic Oasis, I suddenly thought, "Fuck it," and stood up. I noticed that the few people sitting there looked more interested in what I was saying as soon as I did that. A couple of them even looked excited for me. And I felt the biggest rush rush by doing it and I've been mildly addicted to public speaking ever since.
Also while staying at the Cabin behind the Brown Bear Saloon, I had a good date with a nice guy - which goes to show that Juneau is a horrible place to be single if this can happen in a town of 85 people. Brian was a recovering car salesman that told me all the low down dirty tales I've ever heard about that profession were true. He must have been comfortable in his skin as a man because he took me to see "40 Year Old Virgin," about a 40 year old man who never had sex and I think he laughed harder than I did. That remains in my memory one of the funniest movies I've seen in the last 10 years. While I stayed there, I saw moose by the side of the road and the rare and privileged site of a pod of Beluga whales in the wild in the channel at high tide. Also got to know quite a few of the weekend warrior bikers in all their leather clad glory, taking advantage of the gorgeous autumn weather of golden birches, blue skies, and dry weather to ride along the Turnagain Arm before the snow and ice hit. The temporary community in Indian, Alaska made some good relief before I moved on.
I can't believe I didn't write about any of this at the time. Definitely worth a mention and so now, I am.
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