Category: On the road…

Headed to Cuba tomorrow. Then on to South by Southwest. See you soon!

So last night I went a reading presented by Paul Collins at Housing Works Books. Dan Kennedy and Tom Bissell were there on the bill too. All three are going to be in my book so the event was more than a pleasant coincidence.

We had dinner beforehand, drinks afterward. The group swelled and contracted as friends and significant others came and went. Met Tommy Wallach, the “boy wonder” who started contributing to McSweeney’s at age 17 and was a steller fellow and Shana Berger, founder and editor of ReadyMade magazine, a fine Bay Area publication. Its editor is a total sweatheart. Matt Power, who contributes to Harper’s and this really cool radio show called “The Next Big Thing.” He lives in an artist collective in Queens called Flux Factory which is so rediculously well organized this it has its own web site and board of directors.

Somewhere in the midst of all this walking and corner turning and cab hailing, Shana said to me “to be lost and in circles and looking for a cab or someone to set you striaght is such a New York thing, terrifying and beautiful all at once. “

By around midnight, we ended up in the Soho loft of a friend of Shana’s. Nick Denton was there but I only saw his back. Somewhere around 1, Tom invited us back to his place for late night chat and a view of Ground Zero.

After waiting nearly an hour for a train and then riding home, I crawled into bed. It was nearly 4 AM.

This morning, I was awakened by the phone. It was my cousin Jonah. We had agreed to do brunch and ended up chowing at Barney Greengrass, a Jewish deli that hasn’t changed a lick since about 1939.

It was the New Yorkiest 12 hours of my entire life.

I finally did manage to calm down and make something of our experience at Da Ranch. Got a stone massage, explored some of the tiny towns in the Berkshires and saw Seabuscuit which was more than a little bad. Suzan left for home. I arrived in New York on Thursday.

“The men” descended yesterday afternoon and we spent the evening pigging out on smoked meat (in Manhattan. Who knew?) and talking about technology, politics, movies and our lives until the early morning.

It’s amazing, when I tell people each summer that I’m headed off to something called “Men’s Weekend”, they usually think beer, loose women or drumming and bad poetry. I guess there’s some of all of that but it’s really a chance for the seven of us, seven buddies from college to get together once a year and catch up on each other’s lives. It was a bit more cliched when we started it, nine years ago on Valentine’s day when we all hated women and decided to go eat steak and smoke cigars instead. But that was a long time ago. One of us is married and three are in serious relationships. We talk a lot about career, dreams, plans for the future. Kids even and if we want them or no.

We’re old old friends and decently evolved human beings so our connections are little bit more Ya-Ya than reunion weekend at the frat house. At a certain level then, I think that groups of old friends interact pretty similarly regardless of gender. Sure, we don’t really praise each other’s outfits or talk much about the wives and girlfriends, except to ask how are they. We probably talk more about people from college we would have liked to gotten freaky with and called each other “gay” and thought it was funny. But the nugget of why we travel thousands of miles to convene in one spot each year is that our connection is vitally important to all of us. It’s how we stay a presence in each other’s lives as we grow from college kids to men with jobs, relationships, house, families and probably old age someday. I want to be around when it all happens to these guys. And I want them to witness it happening to me.

Hey ya’ll. I’m leaving for vacation with my parents and to meet with my new publisher in New York. I’m set to return on the 6th.

I may be posting from the road when I get the chance. But most likely, updates will rather sporatic for the next two weeks.

See you soon. And thanks for all your book related well wishes. I really appreciate it.

Tired. Sleeping. More tomorrow.

Update: No longer sleeping. Decided to do half-days work and bag it to work out and watch movies. Felt good. Life resumes tomorrow.

Do you realize I haven’t been home for a solid month since October of 2002?

Hey all. Arrived home from Cicago yesterday and slept nearly 10 hours. Must have needed it.

A few nights before, we managed to grab the last available seats for a production of Too Much Light Makes the Baby Go Blind, a brilliant concept from the Neo Futurists theatre troupe. The actors write 30 two minute plays and agree to perform them all in 60minutes. Each play has a number hung from a clothesline above the stage. The audience yells out a number, the actors do that play, yell “Curtain!” then it starts all over again. At the end of the week, they roll a die and whatever number comes up is how many new plays the do next week. They’ve been doing this way for 15 years.

Oh and it’s a blast. Its so neat I may have to import this idea to San Francisco. In my spare time.

Now I’m off again to get all inspired and dizzy and loaded down with free books at the Book Expo America conference, Carnaval for the reading set. I’ll be in L.A. until Sunday.

What madness.

A Few Things I Learned in New York City

• Nan Talese and Sean McDonald are both excellent publishers and very nice people.
• Lower Manhattan feels like Europe. The Upper East Side feels like downtown Dallas.
• Geoaching is alive and well in Manhattan. And not just in Central Park.
• Drip is still the coolest coffee shop in the whole wide universe.
• I didn’t feel right visiting Ground Zero.
• Central Booking will survive in my absence.
• This year is almost over.
• Old friends are the best kind.
• A successful trip means you were ready to leave but are really happy to come home.

From an Internet cafe in the West Village with my old friend Dinan. All is well.

Leaving tomorrow, on a jet plane. Hope to be back again ok.

I need to take more road trips. There’s too much cool stuff out there.