PRETZEL WOMEN

Eva likes to pretzel herself into a variety of unnatural, if impressive, positions in very hot rooms. It's called Bikram Yoga, and depending on the power source, I suppose it is an increasingly significant contributor to global warming. It is performed in rooms heated to somewhere between 105 and 110 degrees Fahrenheit.

Luckily, yesterday, they didn't crank up the heaters in the ballroom of the Westin Hotel near LAX. We were able to watch the International Women's finals of the Bishnu Charan Ghosh Cup in relative comfort. Most of the positions the competitors got themselves into didn't look all that comfortable to me.

I realize that as I get older, flexibility becomes an increasingly important issue. In the end, gravity is all of our enemy, and being of limber limb will at least help prolong the battle. I can't do any of this stuff though. And I'm not even trying. (Eva can do some of it, and she swears by it, and I'm happy for her.)

Here's some photographic evidence:

EVEN THE OBVIOUSLY GUILTY ARE INNOCENT UNTIL PROVEN GUILTY

I think he's guilty. You think he's guilty. You'd be hard pressed to find anyone who doesn't think he's guilty.

But this is the United States. One of the greatest things about its legal system is that people suspected of crimes are innocent until they are proven guilty in a court proceeding. It is one of the things that, despite all its other faults, sets our country above so many others.

So, how can the Illinois governor be thrown out of office for what are still only suspected, not proven, crimes? Doesn't that set an ugly precedent? What's to say that a zealous district attorney can't drum up false charges against a political leader he doesn't like, have him arrested and have that, rather than any actual conviction, lead to the politician's impeachment?

When someone is arrested for murder, they are usually kept locked up until the trial is over, even if they are later found innocent. That's to protect the public from potential harm while the trial is going on. I am not familiar with Illinois law, but perhaps there was a similar option available to the state legislature - a suspension of the governor's powers until the criminal matters were resolved.

As much as I think he probably is guilty, the fact of the matter is that now ex-Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich has been thrown out of office for merely being suspected of crimes and malfeasance. And I do not like that.

If, however, the Illinois legislature had had the wisdom to toss him out on his ear for his haircut, well, I could have got behind that.

BAD BONUSES & A COUPLE OF GOOD RECOMMENDATIONS

I've got a friend whose husband recently lost his job in banking. He's pretty much the sole financial supporter of his family: himself, my friend, and their two kids. I hope he got his annual "bonus" at the end of last year before he got laid off.

You might wonder why I put "bonus" in quotes. Well, there are bonuses and then there are bonuses and lately, with the news of Wall Street firms paying out $18.4 billion in bonuses at the end of last year, it's become something of a dirty word. But, consider the fact that about 125 thousand people split all that money, (the average Wall Street bonus last year came to $112,000), and some of them really deserved it, needed it even. Like most things in economics, and especially in politics, it isn't as clear cut as it might seem.

Now don't get me wrong. I think John Thain, former head of Merrill Lynch, and any number of other scumbags who whooped it up with their company's money as the companies faltered and then collapsed, ought to go to jail. And not some white collar jail. I'd like to see how they do on a tier at San Quentin.

But most of the people who received their bonuses at the end of last year were like the husband of my friend. They were people who worked their assess off, at relatively modest - for the financial industry - salaries, who counted on their "bonus" to make their nut at the end of the year.

The thing is, a lot of what are called "bonuses" - and in the financial industry more than most - are really no more than a contracted part of a salary package. They aren't really bonuses at all. It's a way that companies have of rear-loading an employee's pay. There are all kinds of financial advantages to companies that do that.

It works like this: A company hires someone for a hundred thousand dollars a year, but it's broken up in the form of a five thousand bucks a month salary and a forty thousand dollar guaranteed "bonus" at the end of the year.

According to Webster's dictionary, a bonus is "something in addition to that which is expected or strictly due." By definition, I don't think you can guarantee a bonus.

Undoubtedly there were plenty of miscreants who stole real bonuses from their companies at the end of last year. (Although if they stole it, they no doubt knew what to expect, it's the "strictly due" part of the definition that trips them up.) And that's a crime, or ought to be.

But, most of the people who shared in that $18.4 billion were in the boat with my friend's husband. The boat where the "bonus" was just another part of their agreed upon salary and they needed it.

Unfortunately politics doesn't allow for much nuance. With regard to the slimeball crooks who stole real bonuses from their companies, I think President Obama's words weren't even harsh enough. But for the majority of hard working, honest employees who were included in that $18.4 billion, many of whom were also victims of the venality of their bosses, I feel nothing but sympathy.


So, here's a couple of things you can do to stretch those meager "bonuses" a bit further:
Jurassic is a Taiwanese theme restaurant / beerhall. Food's great (especially the basil and the claypot dishes), beer's just fine, waitresses are cute (Winnie, the one on the far right is an economics student at UCLA who's from Shanghai) and the place is wonderfully kitsch. And it's fairly cheap, too. What more could you want?
Jurassic
15301 Gale Ave.
City of Industry, CA

You can find al pastor tacos all over town, but these are some of the best I've found yet. (Some great looking chorizo and chicken, too.) Nights only, in front of El Nuevo Jalisco restaurant at
3017 North Main St.
Los Angeles, CA

BLUBBERING, AND I'M NOT SURE WHY

I was, to say the least, skeptical, cynical, horrified even at the opening scenes of yesterday's pre-Inauguration celebration at the Lincoln Memorial. Military drummers and trumpeters, in tight formation, played a fanfare worthy of an emperor as Obama the anointed one made an entry that wouldn't have seemed out of place in HBO's previous spectacle - Rome.

I was thinking, much as I like Obama, as much as I agree with him on a lot of things, maybe it is getting to be time to flee the country.

Then Bruce Springsteen opened the show with one of his insipid, faux anthems and I almost changed the channel. Which, thankfully, we still have the right and ability to do. Unlike in, say, North Korea.

In the end, I watched the whole thing. Well, I fast forwarded through a few parts; the rest of Bruce, the Navy Glee Club (they brought no glee to me), that man and woman who I think were from American Idol, things like that. And hey, didn't Stevie Wonder just mop the floor with that weak-voiced Usher guy?

Biden's speech, well, it was a Biden speech only mercifully a whole lot shorter. And Obama's speech was stirring, inspiring, the sort of thing he does so well.

And then they brought Pete Seeger on stage for the rousing finale of Woody Guthrie's This Land Is Your Land (which I have long thought ought to be the national anthem) and I just lost it. Tears began to stream down my face. I shook and gulped and just plain fell apart.

It's not that I have some great love for Pete Seeger. I've always thought he was sort of corny and annoying. And I'm not at all big on banjos. But there he was, in some deep, unconscious way representing much of what made me. Representing the radicalism and ideals of the '30s, '40s, '50s and the '60s when I was young and idealistic and obnoxious and a radical and believed in right and wrong and a world revolution that fell down on the right side of things.

Of course there was a lot wrong with that. In 1966 I thrilled that young Chinese people were following Chairman Mao's Cultural Revolution into a state of "permanent revolution." I had my own copy of The Red Book that I'd wave around at demonstrations. In retrospect I know that millions of people were cynically slaughtered in what was really no more idealistic than any other naked power play. I idealized, and romanticized, Che Guevera and his attempts to export Cuba's revolution around the world. I know now what a murderous, duplicitous ineffectual killer he was.

And yet there was Pete Seeger, long time radical, a man who had been jailed and censured and beaten for his beliefs and his activities. And in spite of his reminding me of the folly of my youth, he also reminded me of the excitement and the optimism and the clarity (even if it was only an illusion) and the depth of feeling for issues and the lack of cynicism that all played a huge role in making me who I am.

He reminded me of Gil Turner, an old, now long dead, friend, a lapsed Baptist preacher and folk singer and activist. Gil organized the troupe of folk singers to accompany the Civil Rights marches through the south. He wrote the song "Carry It On" which was probably the second best known civil rights anthem after "We Shall Overcome." He was the first person, ever, to publically sing, then record his friend Bob Dylan's song, "Blowin' In the Wind." He was a huge man in every sense of the word. I drank with him. I dropped acid with him. I listened to him talk and sing and play guitar. I was a teenager and he was in his thirties and I never knew him as well as I'd have liked to. And to this day he's one of the two or three most remarkable, powerful people I've ever met.

And Pete Seeger (who was one of the people Gil used to hang out with) on stage reminded me of Gil and all the awe and respect in which I held him and the things he stood for and worked for.

And it reminded me of my mom and her incredible enthusiasm for life and people and the arts and people who she felt were working to do the right thing. And it made me very sad all over again that she died four years ago and wasn't around for me to hear her going on at near obnoxious lengths about how great it is to see Pete Seeger still alive and singing and just there, just plain there on stage in front of all those people in D.C. at an event like this.

And there was something about it all that seemed like the last shovel of dirt being tossed over the grave of the world that made me who I am. So I guess I was crying some for myself as well.

I know well enough that Barack Obama becoming President is not the end of racism. It is not the end of any of the terrible things that make up so much of our world. But there is something magical about it. Something hopeful. Something new. Something that I very much want to believe will lead to a better world.

The realistic side of me, some might say the cynical side, knows that the world hasn't, and isn't going to change all that much for the better in my, or anyone else's lifetime. It's a continuum. The old world never really dies, it just shifts and the forms of misery and suffering and stupidity and corruption just shift with it.

And yet there are things that do improve. For all of its dire faults, the world today is actually better than it was when I was born, at least for everyone reading this and even for most people - though not all by a long shot.

The world that I grew up in, the people and places and events that cut me into the person I am today, does in many ways feel like it's died and been buried. And that makes me sad, even though I also know that's a good thing. And unfortunately, I don't know that anyone's youth ever rests in peace. I'm pretty sure mine isn't going to.


(Okay, so I know that was all sort of rambling and nonsensical. Really, I do. I haven't lost my mind. At least not completely. But I'm still not totally sure of all the reasons why I started blubbering watching Pete Seeger last night and I'm trying to work it out. So I figured I'd take it out on all of you. Thanks for listening / reading.)

GOOGLE, GAZA & COSMO - IT'S THAT KIND OF MONTH ALREADY

I've been suffering inertia, not having anything all that significant to say lately. The end of one year, the beginning of the next, are not supposed to be like that. It's supposed to be a time to reflect on the past and ponder the future and those ought to be natural topics for a writer. Or a blogger. Or a pontificator. Like me.

But my thinking's been more scattershot lately. Not that there hasn't been any. Here's some of it.

Google Books Settlement: Looks like I'm going to get sixty bucks per book of mine that Google has scanned and made available for free online. (Minus my agent's 15 percent, of course.) Big whoop.

This settlement sucks.

It's not likely to happen, but what if a million people read my books for free online. I still get paid sixty bucks for that. That's all. The way Google charges for ads is that you pay for the ad, and then you pay a commission per click after that. A fair settlement for us writers would have looked something like that. Perhaps an initial payment of sixty bucks and then a little something per click after that. If they had wanted to use the old-fashioned publishing model, they could pay per click only after the clicks had added up to the initial (advance) payment.

Sixty bucks is better than nothing. But it's further evidence that the whole model of creating something, then selling copies of it, is a dying form of commerce. What, if anything, will replace it so that us writers and photographers and musicians can earn a living? I have no idea and I am not optimistic about the prospects.

But I am thinking about switching my allegiance to another search engine.

Israel and Gaza: Sure, if a pack of vicious assholes are lobbing rockets into your country you have every right to try and stop them doing so. Some sort of military response is necessary. But a measured military response.

Isn't one of the definitions of insanity supposedly that someone keeps doing the same thing over and over again in the same circumstances, expecting different results? Isn't that what Israel is doing?

Israel needs to battle Hamas on at least two fronts, and by that I mean both militarily and diplomatically. It should do its best to pinpoint the rocket launching sites and the people responsible for launching rockets and take those out as surgically and cleanly as possible.

But when it launches a full scale offensive against a heavily populated area, and the casualty figures on the Palestinian side quickly grow to a hundred times what they are on the Israeli side, what do they expect? That's what they've done over and over again and all it has accomplished is to create more militants, to strengthen its enemies' resolve, to create less sympathy for the country around the world, to provoke further and even less containable violence.

So along with a more measured military response, Israel needs to provide proof that it really is willing to live in peace with its neighbors. It needs to get serious about stopping the creation of new settlements on disputed land. It needs to dismantle the illegal settlements that already exist. It needs to stop its blockade of the Gaza Strip. It needs to make it clear that it is willing to sit down at the negotiating table with whoever is necessary to make peace, no matter how distasteful that might be and no matter what the ugly history it has with those people. It needs to show that it can take the high road, and not simply respond to terror with even greater terror.

The Latest Cosmo: There I was at the supermarket checkout line and there it was and what caught my eye, besides the cleavage which I guess is intended to catch the eyes of female readers - since that's the magazine's target audience - was "What Sex Feels Like for Guys."

I have a pretty good idea of what sex feels like for me. And in spite of being a writer who has written more than his fair share of sex scenes, I'd have a hard time adequately describing it. So I was curious as to what Cosmo had to say about it.

Not much, as it turns out. Certainly not much of interest. It all fell into the category of everything in the whole magazine: how to snare and hang on to a man. And of course it offered generalizations about specifics that are almost entirely individual. One man's welcome finger up his butt during a blow job, is another's "what the hell are you doing, get that away from me."

The whole magazine was pretty much like that. And I'm wondering, for any of you women readers out there, do any of you take Cosmo seriously? Do you know anyone who does? Do you think anyone does?

Or is it a comedy publication? I got a lot of good laughs out of it. Hell, I'm considering a subscription.

YET AGAIN, I TRIUMPH OVER MALEVOLENT NATURE

You, dear reader, may have gathered by now that nature and I are not on the best of terms. Not that it has ever done anything all that dire to me. I have never been savaged by wild beasts - although a squirrel once nearly gave me a heart attack. Though my car has been dented by a rock slide - in Malibu Canyon - I have never had to try and swim for my life in an avalanche. I haven't died, yet, of exposure, dehydration, drowning, hypo- or hyper-thermia, starvation, falling from a great height, or altitude sickness (like my Cousin Ruth did) or any number of the multitude of other means by which nature is capable of bringing on my - or your - untimely demise.

In large part that is because I do not tempt fate. We have a mutual understanding, nature and I; for the most part I leave it alone, and it leaves me alone. Sometimes, in the guise of raccoons, it comes to my kitchen door begging for scraps. And sometimes I have been known to buy it off with offerings of cat kibble and water.

But, unlike my macha, woodsy girlfriend Eva who enjoys such risky behavior as snow camping - (Some relationship advice to all of those out there who are considering entering into relationships: it is best to avoid sharing all of your interests. It is far healthier for each of you to have some interests you can indulge with friends other than your mate.) - I am generally content to view nature out the window of my heated abode, where it belongs.

That said, we recently spent three days in Zion National Park. It had snowed there, but in spite of the fact that I have the same reaction to walking on snow that most people have to being in the vicinity of fingernails on a blackboard, we went hiking every day. Afterwards we retreated to the warmth and comfort of a well appointed cabin, complete with a gas fire, hot water and a bottle of good whisky.

And it was beautiful, as evidenced by the photos below:



Then we left Zion and drove to Tucson. Past some buffalo who were reasonably picturesque, ending up where there isn't any snow, but there are colorful cacti and trees. Tomorrow I shall head home where I will indulge myself in my two favorite Xmas traditions: Xmas Eve dinner of garlicky roast pork, black rice and beans at the house of a Cuban friend of mine where I will probably be the only straight man in attendance. And Xmas Day Chinese lunch and a movie matinee. Oh Boy!

Eva the girlfriend shall celebrate the holidays elsewhere, outdoors mostly, in the snow; indoors occasionally, engaging in yoga. I am very happy for her.

SHANGHAIED is coming

You can click on the poster to see it BIG.

Carnivorous Tibetan monks

Corrupt killer bankers

A murderous, sociopathic veteran of the U.S. invasion of Grenada

Comely kung-fu bodyguards

A painful dumpling accident

Drugs, sex, rock & roll

The usual coterie of business moguls and hookers, friends and foes

And the return of Ray's Chinese-Mexican colleague and pal, Wen Lei Yue.

Set in Hong Kong during the 1997 Handover back to China, and then in Shanghai.


The manuscript will be back from my editor this week. Watch out for an excerpt on my website sometime by the end of the year.

Here's another picture of Shanghai to keep you amused in the meantime:

VARIOUS GRIPES

In alphabetical order:

Airlines: Perhaps they are actually a lot smarter than I think they are and the reason they do everything they possibly can to make the experience of flying unpleasant, is that they're trying to discourage people from flying. If it was more palatable, the friendlier skies might be even more crowded and awful than they already are and then it would, perhaps, be even worse. Every time I fly anywhere these days, I take a very deep breath of relief that most of my travel in recent years has been by car.

Families: Break them up and assess their component parts individually, and often as not they are composed of nice, interesting, polite human beings. Put them together in one locale and often as not they turn into ravenous, vicious packs of snarling brutes whose behavior is informed by little more than the assembled lifetimes of perceived slights, insults, personal failings and betrayals. They are thrown together by genes, not by choice, and too many of them have no good reason for their unity.

Holidays: See families. Take that terrible dynamic and blend with enormous amounts of social pressure to have a good, cheery, warm and "familial" time - and what do you get? I don't have to tell you what you get. Most of you reading this have families. Most of you dread, for good reason, seeing them in large groups around holidays.
And don't even get me started on gift-giving. At least Thanksgiving doesn't demand loot. Sure, I like getting gifts as well as the next guy, but they're pretty meaningless when they're given in the context of obligation during a certain time of year. I would much rather have someone stumble across something they think I might like at any old time of the year and get it for me then. That has actual meaning. It isn't merely someone filling out their list.

Hotels: Why is it that the more expensive a hotel is, the more likely it is to nickel and dime its guests to death? At cheap hotels and motels across America, you get free internet access. Only in the expensive ones do you pay for it - $9.95 to as much as $19.95 per day. I get free bottles of water, at least one, in most of the cheap places I stay. At the W in New York City the bottle of water they put by the side of the bed is eight bucks. And you have to hunt around a little to discover they're going to charge you for it. At cheaper places they tend to quote you the actual price you're going to pay for the room, including taxes. At fancy hotels they quote you a price, either mumble or put in small print that it doesn't include taxes, and in places like New York and San Francisco you can end up paying twenty percent or more higher than the price you were quoted. I don't care if your hotel gets the tax or not, it's still part of the price I have to pay for the room.

Ivy-League Educations: There's been an awful lot of blather lately about the fantastic team of Ivy-League talent assembled by Barack Obama for his administration. They do seem like a smart crowd and I do have high hopes that they'll make less of a mess of running things than the Bush Administration has. But I'm really fed up with people equating the university that someone attended with their ability to accomplish great things. Hell, George W. Bush, arguably the worst president we've ever had, is the proud possessor of a Harvard MBA. The Unabomber graduated from Harvard, as did Hitler's foreign press secretary Ernst Hanfstaengl. The last president to assemble a group of the annointed "best and brightest" was John Kennedy. That was the crowd that gave us the Vietnam War and who achieved very little else of lasting significance. So shut up already. I'll judge Obama's team on what it accomplishes, not where it got its degrees.

Royalty Statements: I spent many years as a business and financial journalist. I'm not an accountant, but I'm not unversed in figuring out statements of accounts. I have seen a very wide variety of bizarre financial statements over the years. I have never seen any quite so incomprehensible - in uncharitable moments (which is most of them) I think it must be deliberate - as the ones I receive from publishers to account for royalties, or the lack thereof.

TV News: It's not news, it's chatter. In a desperate attempt to fill up the 24-hour cycle, it elevates the mundane to ludicrous heights, making people think that important, intelligent matters are being reported and analyzed, when they aren't. It's the dumbing down of journalism. I have actually had people tell me they like seeing "news they can agree with." Huh? I tend to agree with Rachel Maddow much of the time, but I'm sorry, she's no more a journalist than Sean Hannity. Keith Olbermann is no more a reporter than Bill O'Reilly.

There, glad I got all that off my chest.

RELATIVELY SPEAKING

Distance is, of course, relative. It is roughly 21.7 million miles from the Earth to the Moon. Since 2005 I have driven 43,223 miles flogging my books. (That's only 1/502 of a trip to the Moon.) My most recent book tour, from which I got home yesterday, was a mere 4,779 miles.

It seemed longer. I knew it was getting time to stop for the night Thursday when toward the end of 12 hours behind the wheel I cranked up The Grateful Dead on my car's stereo. I was passing some very colorful trucks. Hallucinating, perhaps? (I hadn't listened to The Grateful Dead in, oh, I don't know, maybe ten years.) So I pulled in at Harris Ranch, just south of what a friend of mine refers to as "Cowschwitz" - the gigantic Central California feedlot. Steak, whisky, sleep. It was an easy 2-1/2 hour drive home the next day.

In Portland, Salem and Seattle I kept company with Bill Cameron a very fine writer - LOST DOG and CHASING SMOKE - and a swell traveling and book eventing companion.

He even managed to exert some sort of parental control and convince his obviously well-raised (she bought a copy of my book after all), daughter to show up for our book event at Portland's Murder By the Book. And the event was well-received. You can read about it from the perspective of the bookseller here. (You may have to scroll up to actually read the blog post.)

So, once more I'm confronted with trying to decide whether or not book touring is worth all the time and expense. (That's right, unless you're with a big publisher who has forked over a fairly large advance for your book, you pay for book touring yourself.)

On the plus side:

It's fun. What could possibly be bad about driving around one of the most beautiful and diverse countries on the planet, stopping in at bookstores to talk with people about your own book, and other books, and whatever else comes to mind. At this point it is like a holiday spent visiting friends.

It's educational. I learn a lot on book tours. About the places I drive through, the people I meet, the book business, all kinds of interesting and useful stuff. After my eleven years living in Asia I didn't feel really re-connected with home until I'd driven all around and across the U.S. Getting out of my comfortable, "elite" existence in Southern California, is one of the only ways that I feel like I can even begin to understand this country. And the more I understand it, the more I love it.

It gives me time to think. What else is there to do on long drives?

I listen to a lot of music. Again, what else is there to do on long drives?

I hear really bizarre stuff on the radio. Yet again, what else is...?

I eat. Sometimes I encounter really great, regional or unexpected food. (Sometimes I don't.)

I sell some books that I might not have sold otherwise.

I meet some fans. And that's great for my ego.

I get to know booksellers. And as a type of people go, they are among my favorites.

Booksellers get to know me. And I like to think that if they get to know me, they'll like me and do a better job of "hand-selling" my books.

I could probably come up with a few more if I spent some time thinking it over, but those are the plusses that come to mind.

On the minus side:

Well, there's really only one minus - it's expensive and it probably isn't effective.

The chances of it paying for itself in sales is pretty slim. If I look at it in terms of my royalties, I would have needed to have sold around 900 hardback copies of FLIGHT OF THE HORNBILL simply to break even on this book tour.

I took pictures of everyone on my tour who bought a book and had me sign it. (Two people managed to slip through the cracks.) Here's the 90 photos. Now some of these people bought several copies, although most of them bought paperbacks. (Accounting for royalties, my break even point was about 1,500 paperbacks.)

Every store I went to had me sign some stock for them before I left. Four books in one store, as many as 40 in another. If all the stores I visited eventually sell all the stock I signed, I'm still not at the break even point. If they order the same amount again and manage to sell all those, I'm still not at it.

There is a lot of talk in the book business about "hand-selling" - store clerks recommending your books to customers, to book clubs, etc. That can account for a whole lot of extra sales, but do the numbers actually add up if you're hoping to make a living at this?

No, they don't.

Many small press books, mine included, don't show up in most of the big box chain bookstores such as Barnes & Noble or Borders. They don't show up in airports or drugstores or at supermarket checkout counters. Where they do show up is in independent bookstores, and independents are where most hand-selling takes place.

At most there are 50 or so Mystery specialty bookstores in the U.S. There's another two hundred, at most, independents that carry enough mysteries that there's a chance they'll sell my books. Let's pretend that 200 stores sell, on average, 50 copies each of my books. That's 10,000 books - not enough to make much of a dent in anyone's best seller list. But 50 copies each is wildly inflated. Even if 200 stores do carry my books, the average is likely to be no more than five books each. (Some stores will sell a lot more than that, others will sell none.) That's nothing.

These days the biggest number of my sales are likely to come from online sources such as Amazon and B&N online. You can, in a sense, tour those places by being very active online and linking to your sales pages. But that's just not as much fun as going out and doing it in person.

My next book, SHANGHAIED, will be out in June next year. Am I going to be dumb enough to do a big book tour for it?

Probably. Look for me at a bookstore near you in June and July 2009.

DRIVING ME CRAZY

The drive from Boise to Portland was beautiful; through the rolling hills of Eastern Oregon and then down into the Columbia River Gorge and along the river. It rained a little, but mostly the weather cooperated by becoming part of the landscape. Somehow I avoided killing myself and others at high speeds while shooting the following photos out the window of my speeding vehicle.

Then I got to Portland, checked into Hotel Lucia - which tends to be my headquarters when I'm here - and went out to find something to eat and to make a pilgrimage to Powell's - possibly the greatest bookstore on the planet.

Now If you recall, last year Powell's and I had something of a lovers quarrel. I showed up on tour for Grave Imports, only to find that they were selling the two ARCs (advanced reading copies) that the publisher had sent them for free, and not carrying the actual, finished edition of the book that they would have to pay for. In essence, they were stealing from both my publisher and from me. I was annoyed. I made my annoyance known. I may have even implied in my blog that were someone to go to Powell's and shoplift my ARCs and send them to me, I'd be happy to sign them for them and send them back. Powell's wrote me a rather distressed email over the whole thing, and I rescinded the offer, but nothing was really settled.

So this year I went back, not sure what I was going to do if they were selling the ARCs of Flight of the Hornbill if they didn't also have the real book on the shelf. I was thinking that perhaps I would shoplift the ARCs myself, deliberately get caught, and then make a big case of it by insisting on going to trial and defending myself by claiming that I was simply trying to prevent their stealing from my publisher and myself.

I didn't get the chance. They don't have any copies of the book on their shelves at all. (You can order it from them online if you know what you're looking for.) They also didn't even have any copies of my friend and fellow Bleak House author Bill Cameron's new book, Chasing Smoke, and he's a local Portland author.

I found the whole thing utterly depressing. There were a bunch of books I wanted to buy at Powell's. I decided against buying any books there if they aren't going to carry my books. It could be that my love affair with Powell's is now officially on the rocks, and that saddens me.

Sorrows were drowned over drinks and dinner with an old pal who lives here. It was a very good evening, but a hangover ensued. Hopefully things will perk up by the time of my book event in Salem this evening.

A MIGHTY FINE CUP OF BROTHEL BREW, THEN THE REST OF THE DAY

After dinner the night before at the Four Way Casino, Cafe and Bar in Wells, Nevada, I figured I'd be a lot better off breakfasting somewhere else. And I was. Surprisingly so.

One of the two brothels in Wells is Bella's Hacienda Brothel. It's one of the only, maybe the only of the Nevada brothels that is owned and operated by a woman - Bella. They also run Bella's Espresso House and Diner, right by the exit for Wells off of Interstate 80. So that's where I went for breakfast.

Now I gotta tell you, I'm pretty fussy about espresso. I make an excellent one at home, I'm particularly fond of the one to be had at El Cochinito - a Cuban cafe near my house - and also at LaMill - a fancy schmancy coffee place near my house. Add Bella's to the list.

There I was, in bumfuck nowhere Nevada, drinking one of the most truly excellent espressos I have ever had. (I drink it straight, no milk, no sugar, no nothin' between me and my near strong enough to walk on it coffee.) I had two doubles and would have had a third if I didn't think it would get in the way of rational driving. It was, without a doubt, one of the very best espressos I have ever enjoyed anywhere.

Breakfast was good, too. Fresh made biscuits, perfectly cooked and spiced homefries, perfectly cooked fresh eggs and a very good sausage patty. I was one happy author on tour. If a night at Bella's brothel comes complete with breakfast the next morning, it is well worth considering showing up in Wells with a wad of cash.

As is, I bought a couple pounds of Bella's Brothel Brew Beans, a couple of Bella's coffee mugs and a Nevada Brothel Cookbook and headed north on Highway 93 through the very top of Nevada and into Idaho.
I lived in Boise from about September 1970 until June 1971. I'd followed a high school girlfriend there because I wanted to get out of Los Angeles and go work among the "real people." That didn't work out so well at first, so I ended up in Boise State University for a couple of semesters. A lot of my spare time was spent hanging out in Hannifin's Cigar Store with that girlfriend. We'd play pinball, leaf through magazines, drink Moxie and listen to farmers and ranchers who sat around the old coal burning stove, trying different kinds of pipe tobacco and swapping lies. So today I went back to Hannifin's. It's still there, but the pinball machine is gone, the magazine rack has been replaced with a wall of coolers stocked with beer and soda pop, there weren't any farmers or ranchers and the guy working there hadn't ever heard of Moxie. Still, I took a couple of pictures. I appear in the exterior shot.

Then I walked around town for a bit. It is a fairly attractive old downtown, the once swank Idahana hotel still perches on the street like a timber town castle - although it is now infested with chichi businesses, and there are a couple of blocks of Basque businesses - something that is new since I lived there. Perhaps the most impressive site, however, was Otis the dog.
Rediscovered Books, where I had my event, was a very nice shop with an excellent set up for events. They've got a loyal clientele and a good, varied stock. They sent out 1200 emails to their list about the event, and did all they could to publicize it.

Still, that's book events for you - three people showed up. They enjoyed the show, asked interesting questions, but only one person bought one copy of Living Room of the Dead - wanting to start the series at the beginning. Another of the attendees apologized for not being able to buy a book until Wednesday, when his unemployment check shows up. Sheesh. I felt like I ought to just give him a copy. But I don't have taxpayers money to throw around, so I can't go bailing out book lovers.

It was one of those nights when you have to remind yourself that book events are for the bookstore, rather than for the audience who does or doesn't show up. It's good to get to know the stores and have them get to know me and my books. They'll sell more books in the long run that way. Still, it's no wonder that so many of us writers drink.

THE LONELIEST HIGHWAY IN AMERICA

That could refer to almost any book tour, at least for us lesser known writers. But it's not really true. There's the people who work in the bookstores and spending time with them is like visiting friends. And someone does always show up.

At Cheesecake & Crime in Henderson, Nevada, five women from a book group showed up. They didn't know me or my books, but they seemed genuinely interested and they bought plenty of books and asked good questions. Here they are, with me:
Afterwards I went back to my hotel. I was in room 23-319 of the MGM Grand (it has 5,044 rooms in its main wing.) The rooms are perfectly engineered to make you want to go out. The bed is okay, but not so comfortable that you want to spend a whole lot of time on it. The desk chair is too low for the desk, so working is a problem. The air conditioner cranks up no matter what you do to the thermostat at night; and the heater kicks in high in the morning. The TV gets lousy reception and has no cable. The whole room, like everything else in Las Vegas, shouts: "Get out and gamble."

Well, I didn't gamble, not even a dollar. Instead I went to Michael Mina's Stripsteak in the Mandalay Bay Hotel where I had the finest French Fries I have ever had. They were double fried in duck fat and served with, among two other sauces, a white truffle oil aioli. Along with them I had an incredible steak - a Black Angus ribeye cap that wasn't on the menu. Washed down with a good single malt and I was very happy.

After that I walked around for a while, but Las Vegas doesn't change much. Having been there last year, it was the same place - except for the enormous multi-building project that is fast rising on the west side of the Strip. It looks like it will have some great looking, quirky buildings. On the way back to my room I was stopped by two cookie cutter Blonde 101 hookers - bleached, plumped and siliconed, squeezed into tight red dresses. The casino at the MGM seems to be one of the current strolls for what is known as CGs - casino girls. They wanted $500 for one of them or $600 for the pair. Don't they know there's a financial crisis? I politely declined and went to bed alone.

Today I hit the road to Boise, taking Highway 93, one of the two roads that lay claim to being "America's Loneliest Highway." It quickly became apparent why. It was strangely beautiful.

I stopped for lunch in Ely - a truckstop of a town that is also historic.
And I've stopped for the night in Wells, at the junction of Interstate 80 and Nevada 93. It seems to exist entirely for tired truckers: gas, groceries, casino, cafes and brothels. It has the remnants of a historic downtown, and two busy brothels - Bella's and Donna's. (Just imagine if they ever merge.)

Tomorrow morning it's off to Boise, my triumphal return - 37 years after my one year at Boise State University.

THE BEAT GOES ON

Book touring has not been quite as frantic as for previous books. Time and budgetary constraints have seen to that. It's still tiring though. And I still enjoy it. More pictures of those who have bought my books and had me sign them at events can now be found at my Flickr page if you click here.

Here's a random preview:




Tomorrow is the end of what seems like the world's longest election campaign. I've been complaining about it, but even I can change my mind sometimes. The current issue of The Economist has a column by Lexington that makes a pretty good case for why a long, expensive presidential campaign might be a good thing. I don't think you need to subscribe to the Economist's website to read it by clicking on this sentence. I could have summarized it for you, but I'm lazy this morning.

Speaking of which, here's some random thoughts that have been popping into my head lately:

BAILOUT MONEY - More like takeover dollars. A bunch of banks that are receiving our tax dollars are using them to buy other banks. It's easier to make money that looks good on your books, quicker, that way than by loaning the money out - which is what they were supposed to do with it. There oughta be a law. That's sleazy and will make matters worse in the long run. I was in favor of some sort of bailout. I figured it was necessary. But strangely enough, maybe it should have been regulated.

SMART REPUBLICANS WANT MCCAIN TO LOSE - The next president is going to be fucked. They'll be expected to put the country back together again and fast. But it isn't going to be fast. It is going to take at least a couple of years for the economy to even begin to balance out. Withdrawal from Iraq is likely to be a lot messier than expected. A comprehensive healthcare plan isn't going to get through Congress any time soon. Americans have short memories and expect miracles. The next president is going to get blamed for a whole hell of a lot that isn't really his fault, no matter who he is. If McCain loses and the Democrats take a much bigger majority in Congress, two years from now the Republicans will gain back a whole lot of Congress, four years from now they'll have a better shot at the presidency - and without having to deal with Sarah Palin in a strong position to be their candidate - having been vice-president. My guess is that the savvier Republican strategists are hoping Obama wins this time out.

I've been reading Beijing Coma by Ma Jian. It's extraordinary. He's one of the very best contemporary Chinese writers. Read it.

Thursday I'm hitting the road again. Off to Las Vegas for an event at Cheesecake and Crime in Henderson, then a drive up "America's Loneliest Highway" to Boise for an event at Rediscovered Books, then off to Portland, Salem, Olympia and Seattle before returning home in mid-November. I shall send dispatches from the road. I promise.