BRAINPAN LEAKAGE

I can’t even mimic Brando at this point…

Not my night? Hell, it ain’t been my week apparently.

If you read my previous blog you know that Momma Nature in all her bitchy glory, sent freezing rain and sleet down upon our heads today. And, as a result, my flight to Detroit was canceled, effectively keeping me from arriving at ConVocation, where I was to sign books, present workshops, and hang out with tons of really cool people.

Well, okay… bad enough… The airline managed to re-book me for a flight early tomorrow morning. All good. Not exactly the most convenient time as far as getting to the airport, etc, but I made the arrangements, left my bags packed and by the door… I was ready.

Well, Mistress Nature is gearing up to give us another ice lashing. She should start in on us again around midnight and continue on through tomorrow evening. Soooooo, in what must have been a preemptive move on the part of the airline, my flight was canceled, yet again…

I just can’t catch a break…

I suppose it was probably a combination of the weather, and accommodating passengers from other flights as well as those already booked prior to all this. Not to mention that for all I know the new flight might have been coming from one of the points East that is now getting beaten by waves 1 and 2 of this storm system.

At any rate, the best they could do is get me to Detroit sometime Saturday. Maybe. If I was lucky, the weather dominatrix sleeps tonight, and if I held my tongue just right while clicking my heels together and saying “There’s no place like Detroit, there’s no place like Detroit…”

I was willing to give that a go, but the problem is this – I would get in sometime Saturday… Maybe morning, maybe afternoon… Maybe even evening… Not really sure. They were shooting for morning, but hey, they were also shooting for today as I recall, and we saw how that turned out… Either way, the event ends by noon on Sunday. So, in essence I would have arrived (maybe) and someone would have had to come pick me up, then get me back to the hotel, check me in, etc, etc… By that time I might be able to mingle for a bit then go to bed, get up, pack, and go to the airport to come home.

The long and short of it… I’m not going to be at ConVocation this year. I’m not happy about it and neither are they. But, we all realize there isn’t much we can do.

So, save your programs. If you see me in the future, I’ll be glad to sign them… Hey, it will be a collectors item. The event I was supposed to be at but never made it to… If you are after one of my books while at the con, they have those there too. Tell Dorothy Morrison I said she could sign them for me.

My next tour date? The Ostara Festival in Harker Heights, Texas… That’s a couple of weeks away yet… Let’s hope the weather bitch is in a better mood by then…

More to come…

Murv

Being on a book tour is hard work.

On the outside, looking in, it probably doesn’t seem that way to most folks. But, trust me, it is. Take, for instance, this most recent tour.

Each day, Morrison and I would get up at the buttcrack of dawn. As in 4AM or even a bit earlier. Sometimes a bit later, but not by much. This would immediately be followed by us complaining about how we were too old for this crap. Instead of giving up and going back to sleep, however, we would take our turns getting a shower, then stuff all of our “possibles” (as Morrison calls them,) into our respective suitcases, and then spend a few minutes disassembling and reassembling the 3 dimensional puzzle that was the trunk and back seat of the rental car. Once we had jumped up and down on the trunk lid a few times, finally getting it to latch, we would hop into the vehicle and hit the road. Our first stop would usually be the office of the motel for a cup of coffee and a stale donut. If no such comestibles were available to us, we would find a Dunkin Donuts, local diner, or even a stop ‘n shop where we could grab the aforementioned caffeine and carb fix.

Then, Jane, AKA “the bitch in the box” would bark her orders at us as we navigated the streets of unfamiliar cities, eventually making our way to an unfamiliar highway, then striking out on the next leg of our journey. The drive could be 4 hours, or it could be 7. It all hinged on where we were expected to be next (as outlined in the sacred blue folder, which lived for 15 days tucked behind the sun visor on the passenger side of the car…) Sometimes we had to be in one place by 11AM, only to turn around and be in another place by 6PM. Somewhere in that mess we also needed to check in to our motel, freshen up our road weary faces, and do what it is that one does when your job is signing books and entertaining workshop attendees.

Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not complaining. Both of us truly enjoy going on book tours and meeting folks. I’m simply pointing out that this is NOT the glamorous life you see depicted in movies. It’s work. It’s tough work. And, it involves long, long days and nights. Typically, our work day is 14 to 16 hours.

You will notice in the above diatribe that nothing is mentioned about lunch. Just the stale donut and coffee at 5AM or thereabouts. Why no lunch? Because, when your schedule is that tight, and you are zipping across entire states going from bookstore to bookstore, lunch isn’t always an option. That stale donut/bagel and weak coffee is your primary sustenance for the day.

By the time you get finished with the appearances for that calendar date, it is almost certainly close to being the next day. As in, 11PM or after. You climb back into the car and head for the motel…or to the home of a friend where you are going to crash…and set out again. Sometimes the friend or motel is close. Sometimes it’s two hours down the road so that you are just that much closer to your next gig. It’s just the way of things. When you get where you are going, you suddenly realize that the donut and coffee are fully digested, every single nutrient that could be gleaned from them has been and has been used to its full potential…It also dawns on you that your adrenal gland, which has been keeping you upright for the past 8 hours is now tapped out. So, before you climb into bed to get your 3 to 4 hours of sleep, you roll into a diner and get a hamburger…or a cheese sandwich…or you even drop by the Quick E Mart and toss down one of those not so appetizing, pre-made, pre-packaged chicken salad sandwiches. (Well, I ate a sandwich, Morrison had M&M’s. I think she was looking for comfort food that night, and the Quick E Mart didn’t have a steak.) Anyway, the point is that you dump some kind of fuel into your system so that you can keep going.

So, what does this have to do with Pizza? Glad you asked.

After one of our gigs…I think it was in Rehoboth, MA, but don’t quote me, because I really did lose track of where and when I was (this is not unusual)…we had a one and a half hour drive to get to our crash point. We were staying with some friends who happen to live in Salem, MA. Since we had never been to their place before we had some directions with landmarks. A few minutes outside Salem, Morrison mentioned to me that one of the landmarks was the fact that their apartment building had a pizza joint on the ground floor.

Neither of us had eaten a thing since that morning. The magical word PIZZA had been uttered. We both looked at one another and said, “Pizza!” Our stomachs began to growl. Our mouths began to water. And, we said PIZZA! yet again. The monster was out of the proverbial closet.

We arrived at our destination, and with the help of our friends Kim and Alec, carted our luggage up to their spacious and exceptionally cool apartment. Kim called downstairs to order us a Pizza, primarily because we crawled out of the car and didn’t even say hello. We just kept saying, PIZZA and sighing wistfully. Fortunately, Kim and Alec are very bright and on the ball, which meant they were both able to quickly decipher the inane ramblings of two wiped out authors on tour.

The Pizza place was getting close to closing time so they told her they were only serving slices, and not making whole pizzas. Alarms went off. Eyes watered. Emotional breakdowns were on the verge of ensuing. Pizza was what we needed. Pizza was the only thing that would sustain us at this point. Without pizza we would wither and die. So, we all marched downstairs right into the pizza place. If nothing else, we were going to get a slice.

That was when Morrison gained a momentary spark of lucidity and genius. She looked at the girl behind the counter and said, “Are any of those pizzas back there whole?” The girl said, “Why yes, we do have a whole cheese pizza.” Morrison waved money at her and said, “Give it to me.” Note, she did not say “please, may we have that one,” or “would you be willing to sell us the whole pizza.” No, she said “Give it to me.” Obviously, since she was waving money she didn’t mean that the girl should literally “give it to her,” but it was obvious to everyone in the place that Morrison wasn’t leaving without that pizza.

I was reaching for my wallet. At that point we were both willing to toss all of the green we had onto the counter in order to obtain the sacred pizza. Fortunately, they were scrupulous folks and didn’t take advantage of us in our deteriorated states. We got the pizza, went back upstairs then stood in Kim and Alec’s kitchen, a slice in one hand, and a nice, cold, hard cider in the other. And we ate.

And we ate…

And we ate…

All in all, I can guarantee you that the pizza was pretty much average as pizzas go.

But, that night…Well, let’s just say on that particular night, it was the best damn pizza either of us had ever eaten in our lives.

More to come…

Murv

PS. In a day or two I’ll tell you about round two…New York style pizza (actually, they call it “pie”) purchased in New Jersey…