summer tour report: chicagoland

CHICAGO: did I think julie would actually show?....well, wred and I were debating that point in the car and my predictions kept changing along with my belly….i think the final tally was as follows: 8% chance that julie would actually show, 12% chance that her family would send some off-duty cops (or a lawyer) to literally/figuratively beat my ass, 40% that nothing would happen and a 40% chance that julie would send some sort of spy……and if it were me, I think I would have gone for the latter…..when I got back from the bar, there was an older lady sitting in the back row that looked incredibly out of place for quimby’s (perhaps the koolest alternative bookstore that I’ve ever seen)…..the lady in question was in her late sixties; she was well-dressed and appeared to be quite wealthy/refined…..(*note: did you notice I included the first semi-colon of my parents’ medicine just now?----just for julie’s aunt, ya know)…..i know that julie used to go visit an aunt who lived in chicago who was the headmistress of a school for gifted kids and although I can’t 100% swear that this lady was julie’s aunt, I’m relatively certain that it was…..the lady looked like julie and talked like julie….how do I know?---because I dedicated the whole show to her in what turned out to be my best performance of the tour…..in two words, I was WILD and CHARMING (and the special cookies and a bump in the alley didn’t hurt my cause either)…...did I mention that I was drinking an open container on stage in the bookstore?....did I mention that a rival “literary gang” sent their asian posse to heckle us, but I ran them off in less than 30 seconds after inviting the sleeveless one to “join the gunshow”?.....yeah dude, and I was easily more psyched to do a whole show for julie’s aunt than I was for the 75 rockfans in cleveland…..i think the first words I said when I went onstage were a thank-you to “julie’s aunt”…..i also told her that I was good/normal and that I lived in iowa now…..i told her that I was a college professor and that I hadn’t stalked anyone in 7-8 years….and julie’s aunt smiled and was quite cordial…..i also told her that wred and I had been debating in the car what would happen at the chicago show and how, if it were me, that I would have sent a spy…..and julie’s aunt looked at the ground while squirming a bit in her seat….then it was time for the crowd to request stories from fat on the vine and I announced that I would only take requests from julie’s aunt……and julie’s aunt asked for julie stories…..julie was/is a lesbian, so there was really no way to get around that (and I have to assume that julie’s aunt already knew)…..other than that, I think my julie stories made her look like a rockstar (somewhere between courtney love and the merry pranksters)…..like obviously julie’s aunt appeared uncomfortable when I described how julie would role-play with panties that I had stolen for her, but overall, I think she understood that I was paying tribute to her niece as opposed to trashing her ….and when it came time for another round of stories, julie’s aunt perked up and requested “top ten lovelife stories after julie” (and you know [censored because i like my job] was on the list, but she’ll be happy to know that in real time, I skipped over her name---on that particular night)…..and before I told those stories, I stressed the point that they were all absurd----that I wasn’t onstage to brag about the miracle nights when I did actually get laid, I was onstage to retell the most embarrassing stories of my entire life---“peanut butter parfait” was there as was “bossycow,” “the toilet troll” and “secretary liz”…..and six weeks later in the swiss cheese that is my brain, I don’t remember the other 5 stories that I told….no doubt, I was on a roll as exemplified by the fact that the original crowd of 8 people had swelled to close to 11….and as soon as the show ended, julie’s aunt popped up and was halfway out the door when wred said: “brother, I think you should give the nice lady a book for teasing her the way you did”…..julie’s aunt turned around, smiled and quietly replied “no, thank-you”---classy to the end or at least classier than me…..

summer booktour selections

BALTIMORE: i was the headliner that night, so after rummaging through the socialist book section of the store, I decided that my intro would entail offering to trade the poor socialists copies of my book for their panties----needless to say, my “joke” didn’t go over too well, especially with the head socialist, kate (who looked an awful lot like a girl named kate who was a student at that school in virginia where I was fired)….i forgot to mention that my “routine” basically entailed letting the audience choose from a list of 10 topics ranging from “tales of the big handsome” to “bad professor” and then I would improvise the rest…..one of the more popular choices on the list was “____ gets arrested” and you know that any good socialist worth her salt would wanna hear of battles with the Man…..of course, [CENSORED BECAUSE I LOVE MY MAMA] AND YOU JUST HAVE TO KNOW THAT WASN’T GOING TO GO OVER VERY WELL IN A COMMUNIST/ANARCHIST/FEMINIST BOOKSTORE…..i spent the majority of the rest of my time on stage apologizing to head socialist, kate and assuring the young socialists in the crowd that “MY KARMA WAS MUCH BETTER IN 2007 AND THAT I HAD LEARNED MY LESSONS WELL”…..needless to say, the co-op didn’t order any more of my books…..before the evening was over, I did manage to take some photos with some of the sexier socialists….i also took a shit in their bathroom that would have made karl marx use the exxon crapper down the street…..i personally sold 2 books that night---one to a high school english teacher who was trying to act much kooler than she really was and the other to a taiwanese doctor who was snapping pictures of me like I was elvis----I can only hope that the masturbatory pleasure that originates from photos of me can equal those of lil, baltimore-socialist whores…..

PHILADELPHIA: next up: philly (the home of the underground literary alliance)…..as you know I’ve been to philly a couple times before, so I kinda knew what to expect…..the 007 secret headquarters of the underground literary alliance are so underground that you have go through the looking glass of the inner city to even get there…..in this case, our bookreading was at a satanic bookstore filled with aleister crowley and anton lavey memorabilia….not to worry though----in this particular instance, the “satanist” turned out to be this middle-aged widower who had placed a handwritten note next to the toilet with instructions for maximum flushing efficiency…..you were expecting glen danzig?---me too, but after philly, I get the distinct impression that most “satanists” got picked on a lot in middle school….well, if some bully picks on david (the bookstore owner) in 2007, david might just have to send his lord/master, satan over to the bully’s house to give him a danzig-style beatin’…(*note: I’ve always hoped that god and the babyjesus appreciated the pain and/or sarcasm in my writing and I would hope that lord lucifer would extend me the same courtesy*)…….the bookstore itself was full of freaks---winos, the near-homeless, drug addicts of all shapes and sizes, plus the avant-garde of the philadelphia literary scene….my favorite moment of the evening was when I got this “hot” girl from the audience to call the big handsome on speakerphone…..i put “hot” in quotes because the girl in question appeared to have had a drug-induced stroke which left her with just a touch of the bell’s palsy----like she was 25 and had a nice ass, but one side of her face was kinda dead…..she was also a satanist who attended the bi-monthly “bloodsugarsexmagic” parties at the bookstore along with her boyfriend…..if you’re curious, I passed out fliers of a goofy-looking big handsome at each show and encouraged women from the audience to call and flirt with him (his cell phone number was included on the fliers, so if you’re in an eastern city, be on the lookout at all the bus stops and dive bars)…..anyway, after a lil speakerphone smalltalk about his “beautiful cats,” the chick asked big handsome if she could COME OVER TO HIS PLACE AND “CUT HERSELF”----the big handsome’s response: “THAT WOULD BE AWESOME” (and the crowd went nuts)……

NEW YORK CITY: next up: new york’s titty…..and I know a lot of you poseurs out there think that all life begins and ends in new york, but judging my entire value as a human being on how much I tip the bartender aint my idea of nirvana…..if you want me to try to give a shout out: at one point, wred and I were stonecold lost and I had eaten enough marijuana cookies to be a lil scared/intimidated…..and it struck me in the middle of that busy intersection that it must be pretty hard to live in new york, especially if you don’t have the bankroll to back up the value of your soul….that’s it, new york----you and bette midler are certainly welcome…..