Sold a “Cheesesteak.”
A father and son came into the café wearing STOKE ALOHA t-shirts. They were on the mainland checking out colleges. “Rex” is from Hawaii too, so I invited them to join us. Richard Sr. was from Long Island and had gone to a summer camp in the Poconos, where he had been “the only uncircumcised camper,” but Richard, Jr. was island-born. They and Rex had a nice chat about high school rivalries, and Richard, Sr. and I had a nice chat about how we ended up where we did.
Which led me to push “Cheesesteak” on him since that had my answer in full

And I gave away a café journal.
It went to a fellow I had met at a summer camp in the Poconos (where everyone was circumcised). Then I had been the waiter for his bunk’s table. When he arrived here, he had a pigtail to his asshole and sold soft pretzels from a cart near Sproul Plaza. Later he became one of the Bay Area’s hippie plutocrats, selling guitars to rock stores and establishing extensive holdings in collectible comic books, rare wood, and classic automobile parts. He owns property in Sonoma, Berkeley and Santa Cruz.
Yeah, I shoulda charged him.

In other news:
1.) Both books are seeing lights at ends of tunnels. “Bob on Bob” is only four-days past when its final tweaks were promised. And the highly sought after Rebecca B. has signed on to lend a hand with the proofreading of “Messiahs, Meshugganahs…” as her schedule permits, so that should shorten the end date there.
2.) Was phone-interviewed by a fellow who is writing a book about a cartoonist I profiled 30-years ago. And phone-interviewed by a guy who’s writing a book about a fellow I interviewed when I wrote about the Air Pirates. It’s making me feel a bit like a natural resource, one of the last surviving members of some tribe or other. I half-expect Alan Lomax to show up and tape me singing the blues.
3.) Finally, as the sole proprietor of Spruce Hill Press, I have resolutely been conducting myself as an (idiosyncratic) small businessman as part of the performance art I see myself engaged in. I have a registered Fictitious Business Name. I pay my sales tax.
This year I submitted my check ($77) when due. For the next couple months, I received notices that my tax remained unpaid. Each time I called, I was told not to worry. It would be straightened out soon. Forms were handled in one department and payments in another and things needed to be reconciled. Or something like that. Finally, my bank statement showed my check had been cashed, and I figured I was in the clear.
Last week, I received a new notice. I owed a tax of $95.74, interest of $0.32, and a penalty of $9.57. (It was unclear if the $95.74 was in addition to the $77 I had already paid.) I called the Customer Service Center and was told my $77 payment was not reflected. I said I would be happy to send the money claimed but filling out the form was a pain in the ass. Maybe I would write a check and return it along with the state’s letter. The rep said they “are working on it in the accounts analysis unit. Give it two more business days.” I suggested, since with what I had already paid subtracted, we were talking about a penalty and interest on $18.74, that the state’s customer service persons and account analysts might be more profitably employed.
The second business day is now.

I sold one book and one I… We’ll get to that.
The sale, “Outlaws, Rebels…,” was to a 70-something therapist at the café. She wanted it for a “young cartoonist” of her acquaintance. “How young?” I asked. “Ninth grade,” she said. I was not sure ninth graders were ready for S. Clay Wilson, Dori Seda, Rory Hayes. I had barely managed “Man With the Golden Arm” myself. “I’ll look forward to hearing what he thinks,” I said.

As for the other…
Attentive readers will recall the artist/electrician who bought an “Outlaws…” last week. (Incidentally, the recent run on this title has caused me to go on-line to replenish my stock. Only three are currently available.) He loved it and read it straight through. He most admired my participation in the pieces. (“Autocritography,” an academic friend once termed what I was doing.) He wondered if I had anything else like it. I said “Goshkin” was the closest thing, and I would bring a copy the next day.
Then we started talking novels. Twice in my life, six years and 3000 miles apart, the hippest person at the party told me his favorite book was William Gaddis’s “The Recognitions.” After the second time, I read it – and did again a decade later. Not only had the electrician read “The Recognitions,” he had read everything Gaddis had ever written. (He had also read Flann O’Brien, Italo Calvino, Raymond Queneau, Gilbert Sorrentino, and several French Surrealists I had never heard of.) He had another Gaddis I had to read (“A Frolic of His Own”), which he would lend me.
The next day he didn’t come. He did the day after that – but had forgotten the Gaddis. He said he would go home to get it. I said it wasn’t necessary but he said, “It will help me be a conscious person.” When he returned, he said the book was a gift, so I made a gift of “Goshkin.”

Oh yeah…
Readers will also recall the landlord to whom I gave an “Outlaws…” to deliver to his tenant for which he was to return $15, which he had failed to do. After a couple reminders, the landlord honorably gave me the cash and said he would take over the risk of collection himself.
In other news…
1.) No word has reached me as to (a) if or when my next article will be up at TCJ or (b) how the formatting of my Dylan book is progressing. Not have I received any newly proofread chapters of my next comix collection. However, an additional proofreader may be stepping in to help. It is a question of the number of pages to be checked and the time within which to do it fit her own schedule.
2.) A fellow who is writing a book about a cartoonist I wrote about over 30 years ago has contacted me for I am apparently the greatest living expert on her life. At least I mention things about her in my article no one else does has mentioned anywhere. He wondered about my sources. However, some years ago, I told him, I had concluded that no university would be requesting my papers and, feeling embittered toward scholars, had cleared my files of drafts and notes. He said that was likely a mistake. “Academics have become increasingly interested in the study of comics (and…) some young upstarts (may want) to do an in-depth history of comics criticism.”
I did find a cassette tape of an interview with the cartoonist’s boyfriend but (a) the last time I listened to one of these tapes, time’s degradations had made the voice unrecognizable; (b) I no longer had a working device on which to listen to this one; and © the odds are I was interviewing the boy friend about something else entirely. I offered the fellow the tape and the chance to have his own Geraldo-Opens-Al-Capone’s-Vault moment.
Stay tuned.

Sold a café journal and an “Outlaws, Rebels…”
The journal went to a woman with short grey hair, dark grey shirt-jacket and brown-gold patterned slacks. She usually comes to the café afternoons – and felt slighted no one had asked her to contribute. She has a rich background in journalism – newspaper, magazine, TV and radio – here and in Atlanta – her positions often ending due to a clash between her progressive politics and management’s less progressive ones.
She also has worked and a dog walker and dog boarder, her second in command being a black, 90-pound Belgian shepherd who, as described, seemed both fluent in English and dog. He lived until 16 and was an amazing creature. (I am a dog guy and love dog stories.) Now she has a little white brioche.
A lovely conversation.

The “Outlaws” went to a fellow with white hair in a pony tail, red-and-white checked shirt over a red tee, grey slacks, and red-and-grey hiking sneakers. He is an electrician, guitar-maker, and visual artist, both of whimsical postcards usually sent to his 13-year-old son of whom he has recently lost custody and full-size, abstract grids based on mathematical formulations of his own creation.
We had a fine conversation about how we each got into what it is we are doing. He told me the perhaps apocryphal story of the origin of the phrase “Bob’s your uncle” and I told him the certainly apocryphal story of “If the Creeks don’t rise.”
Another wonderful conversation.

In other news…
1.) A couple months ago this fellow who resembles a giant puffin in hiking shorts and rents a room from a cafe regular wanted an “Outlaws” but not the copy on my table because a cover corner was bent. We arranged to meet the next day, so I brought an unblemished copy, but he did not show. I kept bringing it and he kept not showing, so I stopped bringing it because I didn’t want to risk bending another corner. Then he came and we started this dance again.
Finally I handed a copy in a mailer to his landlord to give him. I said it was $15 and he could keep the mailer. The next morning the landlord told me the tenant was abroad. By the time the tenant had returned the landlord had misplaced the book. By the time he’d found it, the tenant was abroad again. Finally I asked for my book back because I had another buyer. “Oh, I gave it to him,” the landlord said.
“But no one gave me $15,” I said.
Completion of this transaction is pending.
2.) A friend of limited means in NYC inquired about acquiring my forthcoming “Bob on Bob.” I said it would be $10, plus postage ($3.92). She asked if I’d send a pdf. I said I didn’t send pdfs, but if she wanted to pay $10 and avoid postage… She said I had sent her a pdf of IWKYA.
“I sent you a pdf?” I said. “Didn’t I send a (free) copy of IWKYA? Didn’t you keep it in quarantine for weeks? Didn’t you just say you hadn’t read it yet because you had sore hands from all the letters and postcards you are writing in order to save democracy? If you already had a pdf, how did sore hands prevent your reading that? Could you not print a copy and lift one sheet of paper at a time? Could you not read on screen and push “Page Down” one finger at a time?
Believe me, I put this more tactfully. But if she did not read one free book, damned if I will send her another.

Sold a “Lollipop.”
The buyer, a Hispanic woman in a SHE sweatshirt and short shorts, works as a researcher in public health. The notable thing about this transaction was that since I’d last used Square it had changed its sign-in requirements as if to prevent a flood of patrons from receiving unearned money in their accounts. I was baffled, but the researcher stepped in, swiped, swiped again, and… Voila! I had made $9.64 and Square its 36-cents.
Also Hank Rosenfeld and I finalized our deal. I received “Jive 95,” his rib-tickling, eye-rolling oral history of KSAN (Boy, were those people nuts – but good talkers), and he received an “Outlaws, Rebels…” and a “Most Outrageous” – and I threw in a “Cheesesteak.”
Finally, a fellow with white hair in a short pony tail and shades stopped by. “Wanna buy a book?” I said.
“I’ll have a look,” he said.
He picked up “Goshkin.” “That’s interesting,” he said.
And left.
My opening may need work.

In other news…
1.) I’m reading a book by a friend about a civil trial in which he was a plaintiff. When he got to voir dire, he designated the race of every prospective juror, including Caucasians, which caused me to note that, while I designate when people are African-Americans and Hispanics and Asians, I leave whites alone (See above), and I wondered if this reflected racism on my part, as if I am operating on an assumption “Of course, people are white,” even though, world-wide , most aren’t, and, in fact, at this very moment. in this very café, it is eight-to-one against.
I feared some memo had gone out on which I had not been copied, but when I asked my friend, he had no explanation – nor why he had not designated the race of the judge or the lawyers or other principals in the case.
This, I figured, was between him and his editor.

https://www.firstofthemonth.org/meetings-with-remarkable-men-2/

I fleshed out a post I’d put up at FB. A representational portion of the new piece follows:

(W)hile at Brandeis I never took a course from Herbert Marcuse or Abraham Maslow or Maurice Stein or “Tuesdays With” Morrie Schwartz, all of whose thinking would have great influence on members of my generation. Nor did I hear Marcel Duchamp, whose thinking would have great influence on me, when he spoke at the Rose Art Museum my junior year. (In fact, I never entered the Rose Art Museum. In fact, I knew nothing about Marcel Duchamp except “Nude Descending a Staircase” and, as nudes went, I preferred “Playboy.”

(In order of completion)
1. William Maxwell. Time Will Darken It. The first of three novels by Maxwell in a single volume I found in a Free Little Library. (I had already read the third and am now reading the second.) This one is a portrait of a family’s life in a small mid-western town in pre-World War I America. Steady, re-assuring old-fashioned fiction.

2. Jarislav Hasek. The Good Soldier Schwek. Recommended by a young man in the café. Schwek may have inspired Catch-22, but I am about the only one I know not to have been crazy about Catch-22, and I didn’t care for this either.

3. Claire Keegan. Small Things Like This. Another fine miniature by Keegan. Immaculate style and strong story.

4. R. Crumb. The Book of Mr. Natural. If you were a Mr. Natural fan, this compilation of his strips and stories may knock you out, but I wasn’t, and it didn’t.

5. Benjamin Labatut. When We Cease to Understand the World. I had read this two years ago and realized I had forgotten everything about it, so I decided to re-read it, and, boy, was it terrific. I am sure it will stick with me now.

6. Sarah Bakewell. How to Live. A biography of Montaigne. A philosopher/neighbor recommended it as superior to Bakewell’s At the Existentialist Café. I disagree.

7. Italo Calvino. If On a Winter’s Night a Traveler… Not for me. Way over my head. Maybe in the future, but I doubt I’ll try again.

8. Iris Murdoch. Jackson’s Dilemma. I am a big fan of Murdoch, and Bakewell touted this, her final novel, but it seems primarily of interest because Murdoch wrote it while in the early stages of Alzheimer’s and the effects are observable.

9. Ivana Armanini. Love, Resist, Etc. A collection of strips by a cartoonist to whom language is mainly a page marker and visuals are paramount. It gives your eyes a trip and your mind a workout.

10. Amor Towles. A Gentleman in Moscow. Two friends had raved about this so imagine my excitement to find it in a “Free” box. Now I will be even more excited to pit it back in one.

Sold a “Best Ride” and a café journal.
They come with a story.
When a new owner bought the café and re-did it to suit his vision of what would play in Paris, he put up shelves for authors to display their work. Several did, including some I’d never laid eyes on and some who believed the cafe needed several of their books. I contributed a “Best Ride.”
The other day a fellow held up a copy and told me how much he’d liked it. “Where’d you get it?” I said.
He pointed at the shelf.
“Wanna pay me?” I said.
This led to a fun conversation. Hank is from Detroit, an ex-ballplayer, current writer, and friend of Lenny, who, when the cafe’s Hall of Fame opens, will be the first inductee. Lenny had tipped Hank to my book. Hank has just published “Jive 95,” a history of KSAN, the San Francisco radio station which was my favorite the first years I was here. We arranged to swap works the next day. He did not appear, but Lenny, who has multiple pieces in the journal and is out of copies himself, acquired one from me for Hank.
I look forward to further conversations – and transactions.

In other news…
1.) That sale of IWKYA to a 6th grade friend I reported last “Adventure” fell through in an unsettling way. I had mailed it and he was to mail a check. Calling to learn my address, he mentioned he was sending me a book which, he recalled my saying, I was short copies of, a statement I did not. His check never arrived but the book did – the IWKYA I had sent him. Inquiries confirmed his advancing dementia. The next day I read in the “Chronicle” the obit of a woman I had made out with in Philly 60 years ago. She had become a physician – and lived five minutes away in El Cerrito, all news to me.
Both of which served to further unsettle my sense of footing in the universe.
2.) Foot traffic has been, well, mixed. (A) Middle-aged white guy picks up a “Lollipop,” and when I ask “You have a Chicago connection?”, puts it down and leaves. (B) College-aged African-American woman excitedly looks at several of my books. She is in a rush, accepts my card – and hasn’t been heard from since. (C) Colorfully dressed 30-ish African-American woman examines “Outlaws, Rebels…” “Are you an artist?” I ask. “An enthusiast,” she says. She takes out several dollar bills but is short. I give her a card, and she promises to be back.
3.) Received an e-mail from a cartoonist who said he enjoyed my stuff at TCJ and wanted to send me his new book about a family of goth vultures. While I am familiar with vultures, I say, goths are after my time. But, sure, I will be delighted.
Still a kick to know strangers read me.

Sold an IWKYA to a fellow I’ve known since 6th grade when my literary claim to fame was “Dognet,” a “Dragnet” satire I’d cribbed from a stand-up comic’s routine. We remained friends through my law school years and in sporadic – sometimes very sporadic – touch until recently when email and phone contact became frequent, a common phenomenon, I suspect, among us older folks.
Then sold a “Lollipop” to an electrical engineer in town from San Diego with his wife to settle their son in at UC. The Dad works in the manufacture of computer chips of the type the US is trying to keep China from getting its hands on. His conversation was full of words like “photons” and “plasma” and “lasers,” with which I was familiar, but I could not understand a single sentence. He was ten when the events described in my book were on TV and decided to learn more about them.
My next transaction was not as easy as it sounds. The local chapter of the Authors’ Guild has been holding monthly get-togethers at a downtown brew pub. Five of us at the most recent: the organizer, Sven, me, another guy, a Caucasian woman and a Korean-American woman. When I mentioned I sold my books at a café, the Caucasian woman said she walked by it every day and would buy one. Let’s say her name was July X. But when I got home, I realized I would not be there as early as I’d said I would, so I decided to e-mail her.
When I retrieved the email to the group announcing the meeting, there was no July X among the recipients but there was a, let-us-say, June Z. So I e-mailed her.
June Z replied she did not know who I was or what I was talking about.
I apologized.
Then Sven sent another group e-mail. Again, June Z was included but not July X. So I emailed June Z and asked if she had a pen name.
She replied that June Z was her pen name. Her actual name was June Y.
So I emailed Sven and asked if June Z was AKA July X or vice-versa. He said, Ooops. He had left July X off his emails – and sent me her address. I then told her of my changed business hours, and she told me she had visited my web site and wanted both “Cheesesteak” and “Fully Armed.” (I offered her an Author’s Discount – and threw in a “Best Ride.”) Then I visited her web site, saw her books, and proposed a swap.
She will bring some next week, so I don’t know what I’m getting.

In other news…
1.) My Checkered Demon “Buy Bob’s Books” sign drew to my table the first café patron under 50 years of age to recognize S. Clay Wilson’s work. This fellow, in his mid-to-late 30s, was tall, overweight, with shoulder-length dark hair, Grateful Dead-related tattoos on both arms, and self-identified as an artist-writer-musician. I was in the midst of discussing the Anonymous Artists of America with my tablemate, Rex, and this fellow said they sounded like they’d be right up his alley. Then he introduced me to his girlfriend, thin as a needle, all in black, black hair dyed blacker, her own tattoos. He said they’d check out my books the next time they had money, the artist-writer-musician business not being lucrative, I suspect.
I gave them my card and have not been seen or heard from them since.
2.) “Kit” and “Jill” were two cute-as-button kids, both in baggy, comfy grays, he with a discrete nose ring and she with brown hair in a tidy bun. Jill noticed “Cheesesteak.” “I’m from Bucks County. Are you from Philadelphia.”
“I probably left Philly before you…” I looked at her. “Before your parents were born.” (I am always surprised to find myself saying things like that.)
“Where else can we get your books?” Kit said.
“No where,” I said – and gave them my card.
They have not been seen or heard from since.

Sold one book; swapped another.
The sale, a “Cheesesteak,” was to “Natasha,” a 20-something African-American, with rhinestone-studded eyeglasses and shoulder-length hair under a multi-colored knit cap. She has been working at home since Covid, which does not suit her. “I need interaction. I’m a social person.” She wants to read more. She wants to learn. We agree, despite our differences in background, as far as my books go “Cheesesteak” is a good beginning.
The swap was of “Most Outrageous” to my café pal Gene for his latest. Faithful readers will recall him, perhaps under a pseudonym, as a retired architect and author of humorous seniors erotica. This time, “Train Six, Party Mix,” he has widened his range to a ninesome (of which I have, so far, met five), the youngest of whom are in college. The action occurs in transit from Berkeley to Chicago and seems well-researched. I have learned a lot, for instance, about some not-on-the-menu possibilities within dining cars.

In other news…
1.) I shared my hard-earned self-publishing wisdom with “Judith,” a retired professor of pedagogy, who has turned from academic prose to poetry and essays. A mutual friend asked if I would counsel her, and I said I would be happy to, especially if she bought one of my books. Unfortunately, the friend had spoken highly only of IWKYA, which I happened to be non-holding the morning Judith showed, so my advice turned out to be gratis.
2.) And the café has seen the return of “Sam.”
He used to be there every morning, sitting in a corner, wrapped, regardless of the weather, in a wool Raiders jacket, eating a yogurt acquired at the supermarket. Sam had a ferociously untrimmed beard and ghastly pallor, but he was nice enough that no one begrudged him the loans he promised to repay the first of the month – and never did.
Then Sam disappeared. He was gone over a year. “How you doing, Sam?” I said.
“I’m doing good,” he said. “I’m going to repay you what I owe you.”
“No rush,” I said.
“And could you buy me a coffee? I’m kinda desperate.”
I handed him a five.
Later “Michaelangelo,” the café’s well-known multi-media artist and I were discussing this visitation. “You never know who’s going to walk in,” he said.
“But ‘Rick’s’ gets Ingrid Bergman,” I said, “and we get Sam.”

All my books are available at www.theboblevin.com
Gene’s is available thru Amazon.