Top 10 Things I Learned On The First Day Of The Festival Of Books

Day one of the LA Times Book Festival is...uh...in the books. All the weather forecasts predicted rain and wind and a plague of locusts (or is that a commercial I keep seeing for a bad mini-series?). I'm tired, I smell suspiciously like tri-tip sandwiches (man, those are good) and I've pledged to Wendy that tomorrow I'll spend, like, less than I did today. But never mind all that. Here's what I learned:

1. Fuck all that stuff down Janss steps. Not that there aren't interesting booths and events going on down there (there are...Uglytown is down there, pimping their newest release Kill Whitey...McSweeney's has a booth filled with attractive looking humans who seems all too attractive to be writers...that hot-ass Italian chef chick was doing something on the culinary stage...), but once you walk down the 90 flights of stairs, you gotta walk back up, too. And since I found out I have the Death Ear Crease, my shit has to keep relaxed.

2. What's up with the authors who really dress up for the LATFOB? Like, you know, in expensive suits? Generally speaking, I don't wear a suit unless the IRS is showing up at my house to talk about the odd deductions I took for Cinemax porn, or I'm about to lose an award (again). Today, for instance, I wore some jeans, a shirt, a jacket (the same jacket, I noticed, that Michael Jaime-Becera was wearing...the guy has good taste) and a disaffected gaze meant to encourage passers-by to wonder just who I might be. But I noted at least 50 male authors done up like they were going to the prom. Whatever happened to disaffection?

3. Defrocked TV weatherman Christopher Nance had his own booth. When I walked by, he was sitting in a chair glaring at everyone, as if wondering how the fuck Kelly Lange got to be on a panel and he's forced to sit at the kid's table (literally -- he's in the kid's area, spitting distance from someone in a Barney suit).

4. Why do the hardcore book collectors all look vaguely homeless or vaguely insane?

5. I lost my cell phone. Really. If you happen to have my cell phone number, please call it and tell the person who answers it that I'd like it back. (And an apology in advance to Paris Hilton...sorry about not taking your name off my auto-dial.)

6. I had a great time moderating my panel, though I think I might have frightened Kem Nunn a bit when I announced to the audience that I kinda wanted to have his love-child.

7. How is it possible that with something like 75,000 people walking around, I kept running into people I know? Students, ex-students, ex-students who are now couples (which is weird -- I mean, don't they need approval from me for that sort of thing?), authors, friends, family (I'd ditch Lee on one side of campus and five minutes later would literally run into him on the other side of campus. Maybe it's the Jewdar), you name it. Yet the one author I really wanted to meet, Steve Oney, I missed all together.

8. Saying, "I'll see you in the green room," just never gets old.

9. Now this is just something particular to my experience here -- whenever I'm signing Fake Liar Cheat one of three things always occurs:

1. A woman of about 21 will walk up, grab the book, read the back, read the front, flip through some pages, will grab her friend, they'll both giggle and say, "I'm totally living this," and then walk off without buying it.

2. A man, usually wearing a straw hat of some kind, will walk up and say either, "Is this about Bush?" or "Oh, so you wrote a book about Clinton?" and will then laugh like friggin' Gallagher just busted a watermelon on an unsuspecting audience.

3. Teenage boys will try to barter with me on the price of the book. "Dude, I've got nine bucks. Will you cut me a deal?" Sorry, I say, but I don't actually own the books, so you gotta pay what the store charges. "Could I, like, borrow five bucks?"

10. No opportunities for spork talk...though I did my Silverblatt impression for T. Jefferson Parker and he said it was spot on...just warming up, baby, just warming up...

Comments

[Aldo]

Tod, the panal was great. sorry about my question.

[David J. Montgomery]

What's a Death Ear Crease??

[tod goldberg]

David: http://www.cmaj.ca/cgi/content/abstract/126/6/645

[Attila Girl]

You did a really nice job; really kept things together on your panel.

[Angela Stubbs]

I missed seeing you! But agree, the panel was excellent. And I agree, what's with dressing up for the FOB?