This Is What It Means To Say Tucson, Arizona

As noted below, I headed off to Tucson this weekend for the 1st Tucson Festival of Books. I went both as author and pimp. With my author hat on, I did a panel with my good friend Rob Roberge and also did a booksigning at Mysterious Galaxy's booth. The panel was great -- Rob and I discussed the ten things we wished we knew when we were just getting started as professional writers (1. Have sex with Madonna...6. Say yes when James Patterson offers you a co-writing gig...10. Aderall and adult diapers...) -- and was SRO, which was cool, particularly since many of those standing seemed intermittently offended and inspired by our banter. We managed to get through the entire panel without telling anyone that the one thing they should avoid above all else would be mysteries where a cat helps solve the crime, so that was a surprise. The booksigning I did at MG's booth was at the same time as J.A. Jance's, which was a little bit like doing a book signing with Jesus in Jerusalem, as apparently Jance is Big in Arizona. She even had pre-signed photos. At one point a man walked up to her and said, "I thank God every day for you and Dean Koontz," which made me think that organized religion was in desperate need of re-evaluation. Nothing against either Jance or Koontz (well, maybe against Koontz, let's be honest...), but were they really put here by God to help lead us into the light? Anyway, J.A. was very nice to all of her fans (and me, certainly; she is a very nice lady) and I managed not to,  you know, say offensive things to them when they thanked God for her. 

I, of course, had my share of fucktard interactions:

Man: You got any Mack Bolan?

Me: Uh, I don't know, I don't work here. I'm an author.

Man: You like Mack Bolan?

Me: I think I did when I was 12.

Man: Those are the best books. You should read them. Each one is new.

Me: Do they even still publish them?

Man: Mack Bolan? Yeah, he's been writing them for years.

Me: "He" is actually about 50 different authors, I think.

Man: No, it's all one guy. Don Pendleton

Me: Don Pendleton is dead. But even when he was alive, he wasn't writing them.

Man: How would you know? You said you haven't read one since you were 12.

Me: But even then, they'd been written by 50 different guys.

Man: Your facts are wrong.

Me: Don't you think if Don Pendleton were alive, he'd be here instead of me?

Man: You should be so lucky.

And then:

Woman: [holding a copy of The Fix] Oh, you wrote The Burn Notice?

Me: Just the book.

Woman: How's that?

Me: How's what?

Woman: How did you just write the book?

Me: [I give her an exhausting explanation.] And now you're holding it.

Woman: [looking at the cover] Where's the black fellow?

Me: Pardon me?

Woman: The African-American?

Me: Pardon me?

Woman: [she taps the picture of Jeffrey Donovan on the cover] The one who helps the psychic solve the crimes.

Me: Oh, you're thinking of Psych. 

Woman: No, I'm thinking of The Burn Notice.

Me: No, I'm sure you're not.

Woman: 

Me: 

Woman:

Me: There is a Psych book, too, if you're interested.

Woman: I've never even seen that show!

The second half of my appearance, as noted above, was pimping. Namely, I was there pimping the UCR-Palm Desert MFA in a lovely booth sandwiched between the Southerwestern Association of PublishAmerica authors (that wasn't their actual name, but you get the gist) and business that handmakes books. Behind our booth was the food court, so for two days our booth was filled with the luscious scent of BBQ, Kettle Korn and corn on the cobb, which was great. In front of our booth was a cavalcade of humanity -- there were about 30K people at the festival. Weirdly, the same thing kept happening: People would walk up to our booth, look at who we were and then tell us some mundane fact about either Riverside or Palm Desert. For instance:

Man with approximately 50 pens stuffed into his breast pocket: Riverside!

Me:

Rob:

Man: Let me tell you what I know about Riverside. In 1956, a company in Riverside developed a cartography program that was used to help map a portion of Arizona. It was used extensively throughout the lower portion of the state and then also up near Flagstaff, as I recall. And then, in 1978...[goes on for about 15 minutes discussing cartography and then just stares at us.]

Me: Interesting.

Rob: You have a lot of pens there in your pocket.

Man: And that's all I know about Riverside! [slaps the table and walks away]

Or:

Old Woman: Palm Desert. I know Palm Desert. I used to live in Hemet. 57 years.

Me: What made you move to Tucson?

Old Woman: I got out of there when California began to...change.

Rob: Change to what?

Old Woman: You know. It changed.

Me: All the hippies, you mean?

Old Woman: It just changed.

Rob: How? How did it change?

Old Woman: It was...different. It had changed.

Rob: In what way?

Old Woman: [stomps off]

Rob: What do you think she was going to say -- the Mexicans or the Jews?

Me: I'm going to say the Mexicans, the Jews and a group she might have called "colored."

Rob: You think she'll apply to the MFA?

Or:

Man & Woman With Sweaters Tied Over Their Shoulders And Speaking In Perfect Unison: Riverside Poly Class of '57!

Me: What?

M&W: We graduated from Riverside Poly.

Rob: What's that?

M&W: You don't know Riverside Poly?

Me: Know? No.

Rob: I don't keep up with high schools.

M&W: We know UCR.

Me: That's great.

M&W: We're big supporters of Riverside.

Me: From your outpost in Tucson.

M&W: [walking away] We love Riverside!

Rob: Am I awake? Why does this keep happening?

Or:

Man In Safari Hat: Palm Desert. That means date shakes to me.

Me: That's more Indio than Palm Desert.

Man: I've had many date shakes in Palm Desert.

Me: I'm sure you have.

Man [staring at our fliers]: Where are you?

Me: I'm sitting right in front of you?

Man: No, I mean in Arizona, where are you?

Me: I'm not. Well, I mean, I'm here now, but our campus is in Palm Desert.

Man: Why are you here?

Me: To steal your graduate students and poison the water supply.

There were plenty of other weird occurrences -- notably people who would stand in front of us and just stare, so I'd say "hello" and they'd stare some more and so I'd say, "hi" and they'd stare some more and then I'd say, "You do speak, right?" and then they'd walk away. It was very strange. People did that all weekend long. We also saw a lot of people who vaguely like 1998 and 2002, several people who had hundreds of buttons on their hats, many people with just too many damn pens, a very large man who Rob predicted we would one day read about getting cut out of his house, and, particularly in our panel, people who didn't find our jokes about Jesus all that funny. Maybe that's why that lady left California. Too many hippy liberals mocking the Zombie King.

The highlight of the weekend was a show I went to Saturday night. Rob, who is also a guitarist in the seminal punk band The Urinals, was backed up by the excellent Four Killer Flats, at Che's Lounge in downtown Tucson. At the show -- which featured Rob and the boys doing great covers of "Here Comes a Regular" by the 'Mats, "Sammy Hagar Weekend" by Thelonious, "Ain't No End" by the Jayhawks, a Dream Syndicate song I can't recall, "Drank So Much" by the Gear Daddies and two other songs that have slipped my mind -- I got to have the honor of saying "I'm with the band" every time I went up to the bar for a drink, which meant I got all the cans of Pabst I could drink, which it turns out is about five these days. I'd like to think that if it was all the Amstel I could drink, I would have comported myself better, but, alas. The really cool thing, though, happened before the show, when I went with Rob to rehearse with the band and got my own private concert. I sorta almost cried during "Here Comes A Regular," I will admit.  

Finally, the really odd thing was that I ended up in one gypsy cab -- it didn't even have a meter, so basically I just got in some guy's yellow car and he drove me to my hotel and charged me 30 bucks -- and another cab driven by a guy who kept screaming "Motherfuck!" at me because his credit card machine was broken and I didn't have any cash, so he had to drive me around Tucson looking for an ATM. He'd pull up to a nightclub and would say, "There's an ATM in that club." And I'd say, "I'm not paying a cover so I can go into a club to use the ATM. Don't you have fucking banks in Tucson?" And he'dscream, "Motherfuck!" and keep driving. This went on for at least fifteen minutes. And yet I still tipped him. Motherfuck!   

Comments

[Yvonne Navarro]

While I'm sorry I missed you at MG, I'm so glad your trip to our fair city was entertaining. We do aim to please. While fending off questions about Bones of Fairie ("Sorry, I don't work here, but I think it's on that table.") and other books, I signed with Michael McGarrity. Mr. McGarrity immediately took my pen, because the guys with too many pens were elsewhere at the moment, and then spent the next hour telling everyone he was an ex-cop and former psychotherapist and now he was writing bestselling books. I've never read his books but I could certainly tell about the previous two statements-- he acted just like a Chicago cop I dated for 2 years and... let's not go there. When the booths closed, I went to the wrong parking garage and couldn't find my car. Eventually I did and proceeded to the authors' reception, where I subdued my aching muscles (from hauling two containers of books around) with two lovely, large glasses of White Zin and a bit of dinner with friends. After the second glass of wine, I went right to my car. There's something to be learned about this, and I don't think it has anything to do with cartography or the deceiving online U of A campus map.

[Jeff Sipper]

My theory still holds true... the desert heat will fuck up your brain!

[Lauren Cummings]

If they were from Poly High School and walked around talking about it then you probably would not have liked them, so best they left quickly.

[Stephanie]

Dont worry tod when you go to Vegas for a book signing, I'll see about rousing up my friends and I to be your annoying screaming fanclub in the corner that has to be constantly hush. :)

[Jim Peeken]

I think I know that cab driver. Did he have a bag of fritos in the console next to him, and a did he use the bored out part of his arm rest as a salsa receptacle?
The easiest way to get change for a hundred or cash back on your credit card is to drive down to Miracle Mile. I think the crack dealers there have credit card machines, and for a small fee will give you cash back .

I used to be in said band Fourkiller Flats, I miss the days of saying Im with the band. I used to get salty eyed sometimes playing with the band, like when I would look over at Neal and seem him engrossed in his guitar playing to the point that if the strap around his neck snapped and the guitar fell to the floor, he'd probably still keep on playing. And somehow, it would still sound good.

[LogopolisMike]

It doesn't seem that you have any trouble finding fucktards...or them finding you, but if you ever decide you need more exposure, read the Mack Bolan wikipedia page or check out MackBolan.com; the fan reviews are really something else. I've never seen so many exclamation points in my life!!!!!!!!!! There's a forum AND fan fiction section too, but I didn't dare explore those!!!

Sorry if this just comes across as being rude and snotty, but I've apparently been living under a rock when it comes to this series and books like it!!!!!! The fact that somebody uses the term "men's adventures" to describe a genre of books blows my mind!!!!! And since it's your fault for causing me to do a search because you mentioned it in your tales of Tucson, I had to share right back!!!!! Continue at your own peril!!!

[Geoff Schumacher]

My sixth-grade English teacher in Pahrump wrote Mack Bolan novels. No shit.

[Paul Sadler]

I'm noticing a theme in your descriptions of unsuccessful recruiting that might explain your need to keep pimping the program ;) Is there a minor in sarcasm?

P.