Sold no books.
But I gave away 11 “Best Ride”s at my Café Venne reading. (I did not read from it, but from a story in which it factored.) “Couldn’t get bobbleheads in time,” I quipped, “and the ‘Strength in Numbers’ t-shirts had been spoken for.” (I also gave away eight guitar picks, but that’s a different story.)
The reading was lotsa fun. We drew 25-30 people, one-third invited by me, one-third invited by my co-reader/co-organizer, the magnificent Yvonne, one-third past-or-present morning regulars at the café, who knew one or both of us. (Some brought relatives or friends.) Only one walk-in arrived, but she was someone who knew me and saw my name on the flyer posted on the door.
I think the event was enjoyed by all. The only suggestion otherwise came the next morning when I overheard someone say to a fellow who hadn’t been there, “The audience was so old, half of it fell asleep.” I think she over-stated the situation. I only saw one person fall asleep, and she is in her mid-80s and receives chemo-, so she’s entitled. (She was also seated next to the woman who reported and may have fallen on her shoulder, which would certainly have colored her experience.)
Haven’t heard from management how business went (but I counted two espressos, three teas, a glass of wine, and a slice of cake ordered). Also haven’t heard how the hotel guests, of which the café is a part and to which there is only one shared entrance, felt about schlepping through the audience (sleeping or not) to get to and from their rooms. Pain in the ass or charming Berkeley native life.

First, an apology.
I missed last week because a burglar/literary critic made off with my laptop.
I had been planning to update new readers/FB “friends” with what I’d been doing anyway, and that is, since I began self-publishing, to sit in a café with a stack of my books and a sign of a Checkered Demon (drawn by legendary UG cartoonist S. Clay Wilson) saying “Buy Bob’s Books!” Then each week, I would report on sales or other notable encounters. A post-burglary development is that, when tidying my study, I came across an old “New Yorker” cartoon of a disheveled fellow standing on a corner, his hat set at his feet for donations, and a sign “Meet the Author, which I have added to my presentation.
In fact, I believe it was this cartoon that caught the eye of a cute five-or-six year old girl.
“Wanna buy a book?” I said.
That got me a big smile.
“You’re too young,” I said. “Come back in a few years.”
That got a smile from her mother.

Otherwise, one check in the mail for a “Cheesesreak” 2d ed., from a correspondent in the comic world.
And two copies of it and of “The Schiz” picked up by the burglar, but since they happened to be in the shoulder bag within which he carried off my laptop, I can’t put this down to editorial choice.
Before all of this I’d been running into a spate of “Maybe next time” and “I’ll think about it” and “I’m traveling light”s at the café.
My favorite was young woman – probably a grad student in one of the sciences, from China – jean jacket, jeans, over-sized glasses – who picked up a “Cheesesteak” and said, “About food?”
“A memoir about growing up in West Philadelphia,” I said.
“Your story? Very cool.”
“Take a look. Ask a question.”
“Maybe next time.”
I figure “Very cool,” “Maybe next time” are two handy expressions to have in English.

Sold one “Best Ride.”
The buyer was a thirtyish, baseball-capped civil engineer, who works on the Bay Shore trail. He said he would read it next week on his flight to France.
I hoped he would have something to cover the remaining several hours. I figured he would leave it in France, where it would be picked up by someone who would adore it and make me the next American artist to have his career revived there.

In other news…
1. A colleague gave me a brochure by a self-publishing guru. Of her Top Tips, the most relevant seemed “Persistence is Key.” Well, I thought, every day I sit in the café with my “Buy Bob’s Books” sign and wares, so I have that covered. But then there was “Build Your Platform.”
With the drain of the actuarial tables upon my core audience, I was having trouble holding my own. And this was even before people began bailing on Facebook.
2. The new, photo-illustrated edition of “Cheesesteak” has arrived and is currently available from my hall closet ($15 to POB 9492, Berkeley 94709; $10 in person) and presumably from discerning book stores and on-line. I sent copies to five Philly-area papers (since that’s where most of the action occurs). For promotion, that’s it. See what I mean about being “platform”-challenged. (But if you want to write a review, lemme know.)
3. Responses to the proposed reading series at the café have been positive – but not too many people want to actually read. The manager has been enthusiastic and supportive – but took the announcement down when the building owner was in town. I’ve also posted announcements at my other café and health club, which produced zero attendees at my last reading, but, you know…
Persistence is key.

No sales.
But a delightful café conversation with a Washington State undergraduate from So Cal, who was visiting Berkeley. A computer science major, with an interest in journalism, she asked enough questions about “inspiration” and “process” that you would expect aspiring writers to ask actual ones that I almost believed I had become just that. I got a kick out of listening to her and listening to me and watching us both. I gave her my card and told her about my blog and said she could soon be reading about herself.

In other news, the new, photo-illustrated edition of “Cheesesteak,” with added supplemental material by the author, has shipped from the printer. It can be purchased in stores, on-line, or, personally signed, for $15 to Spruce Hill Press, POB 9492, Berkeley 94709.
And with the short story writer/memoirist Yvonne Martinez, I will be kicking off a new reading series at the Vanne Bistro (formerly the café at the French Hotel), 1538 Shattuck, Berkeley, CA, on April 16, 94709. (If you’d like to read at a future date, e-mail me: adelbob@comcast.net.)

No sales.
But after a couple weeks mullings over, Open Book, a small store in Elkins Park, outside Philadelphia, has agreed to take two copies of Cheesesteak (first printing) on consignment. If they sell, it will order the new edition. So if you are in the neighborhood…

In other news, (a) I’ve moved into the back room at one of my cafes. (At the other, I sit close to the door.) Less foot traffic, but the tables are bigger so I can spread out, and it’s quieter so I’m less vulnerable to chatter. (B) “My Two Cents” received a couple quality responses from FOM (though not of the quality of my pal Budd, whose recent review of Daniel Ellsberg’s new book received praise from Ellsberg himself) And ©, it looks like I will be organizing/hosting a series of readings (poetry and prose) at the aforementioned café. Still to be negotiated are how many per month, how many readers per evening, the hours of operation, and will I spring for the cost of a microphone.
Any suggestions for the latter?

My latest piece is up at http://www.firstofthemonth.org/me-two-cents/

It begins…

One evening in the summer of 1960, while waiting on a rocker-sofa on the porch of a friend’s home to give him a ride to a party, his step-father sat down beside me – and grabbed my cock.

Not a bad opening sentence, if I do say so myself.

Word reached him of two deaths, six months apart, of fellows from his freshman dorm, one from a heart attack, one from head injuries sustained in a fall. That made three he knew of, the other, a few years earlier, a chronic smoker’s, had been from lung cancer.
He had been most friendly with that fellow, an athlete, future lawyer, father of three. He had been second friendliest with the heart attack victim, in student government, and later the federal. He had been least friendly with the fellow who had fallen. He had been an amusing eccentric in college and, according to his obit, had blossomed into a fuller one, but beloved by many, at his end.
He thought abut the two times he had himself been coded. He thought of the hair’s weight on the scales of fate which had kept him here and able to write this. He felt like – saw clearly, in fact – he was a lemming moved two places closer in the pack to the cliff’s edge.

The dorm had two floors. About 25 boys lived there, and he found he could recall 23, who lived with whom, and in which room.
He could not, however, recall the bathroom or any detail about it.
He e-mailed news of the deaths and his recollections to five fellows from that dorm.
His roommate recalled them living on the first floor, not the second, and next door to someone whom he did not believe to have been anywhere in the vicinity.
Another fellow said he could recall the bathroom but not the names of either of his roommates.
A third fellow said he lived across from the bathroom but did not recall ever using it – or seeing anyone else use it either.
When he told Adele of his memories, she said, “Boy, something really terrible must have happened to you in that bathroom.”

Word has reached me of another Schiz sale.
The worked at Fantagraphics and proofread the first two books of mine it published. We had not been in touch for several years, so her purchase was nice because it suggested she had thought, Hey, I always liked Bob’s writing. Will buy his book.
Meanwhile, not only have I not been selling from my café table, I have not been attracting any interesting conversationalists either. (This morning all I got was some guy who wanted to crow about the outcome of Men’s Curling. How, I wondered, do you decide that is what you want to do with your life? Push 45-pound rocks across ice.)
Maybe I have become too familiar. Like the furniture. Maybe I need a new “Buy Bob’s Books!” sign. No one even seems to recognize the Checkered Demon.
One morning, when my favorite tables were taken, I went into the back room and sat in the far corner. I quickly felt at home there. True, there was not much foot traffic, but there was a certain symbolic purity to me, at work, alone in this corner.