Master Ceremonies: a True Story of Love, Murder, Roller Skates & Chippendales Diary 09-09-08*

And so it began. I showed up at the Watchung bookstore in Montclair, New Jersey, my new hometown, 20 minutes from where I was born, newly showered and smelling fresh, in my white F. Scott Fitzgerald pants, my creamy Ricky Ricardo shirt, my white Armani jacket, and my white bucks, to last begin my tour. Months and months of tracking down overworked underpaid community relations managers and bookstore event planners, crazy memoirists, impossible to get to TV producers, inaccessible journalists, amateur writers groups, reluctant university professors, heavily guarded book Festival chieftains, slick slacker viral video gurus, all leading to this moment. I spent all day bouncing back and forth between stupid optimism and bitter despair. I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed. Went over all the material frontwords and backwords. I felt slightly fatigued and logy the whole day, kept having this picture in my head of all these empty seats at the bookstore, the universe yawning in my face, too bored by my insignificance to show up. Every time I saw the picture in my head of the empty seats, I thought, well I’m just going to do my material anyway, I’ll use it as a dress rehearsal to practice my performance. After all, I’ve never really done this material in public, when you do a play, you rehearse over and over again and have a couple of preview performances. And the woman who runs the Watchung bookstore, Margot, is so nice, I was sure she wouldn’t hold it against me. It was just my neighbor Laura Schenone, and Arielle, those were my other panelists. So they weren’t going to hate me if no one showed up. And so I would talk myself down from the ledge over and over again. Finally in the afternoon I got so tired I took a nap and I was able to sleep for about half an hour, that was extremely sweet. Never underestimate the power of a good powernap.

Imagine my delight when I discovered, 15 minutes before the event was to start, that there were already people sitting in the seats. They weren’t empty at all. And people kept streaming in. Until all the seats were full. And people still kept coming. Standing room only. Literally. A bunch of people stood. Others sat on the floor. My heart soared like the eagle. I was so gratified, grateful, thankful, relieved, ecstatic, my faith in humanity restored. There were only three people I knew there. Apart from Arielle and my neighbor Laura Schenone. Almost everyone else there was a writer working on a memoir. First I introduced my fellow panelists, and I did it like an old-fashioned MC, people seemed to get quite a kick out of it. The problem is, I didn’t really introduce myself, and I didn’t have anyone else introduce me. One of the things about putting together an event like this, every time you do it, you learn from it. So I know that I need to do that now. Then Laura Schenone read some from her book the Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken. She’s really a very good reader. It’s funny when you know someone and you haven’t seen them work that much. I thought she would be good. But she was even better than I expected her to be. The piece she read was very dramatic, it was amusing, poignant, deep, and she has a warm welcoming presence, a very melodious voice, and a natural performers instincts for pace, volume and theatrics. Like I said, I was totally impressed. And then it was my turn. I was shocked at how nervous I was when I started. I mean I’ve been doing this for so long now. But I guess that’s part of the thrill of it. I still get your adrenaline glands all jacked up, and I love that drug. But I realized, the last thing I really performed on regular basis was from the one-man show chicken, and I literally did that hundreds and hundreds of times. I am so familiar with that material, I know where every pause is, I know where to go fast, I know where to go slow, I know it inside and out. But I don’t know anything about this new Master of Ceremonies material. In terms of performance. So it felt very bumpy to me. Unfamiliar. Like I didn’t quite connect with the material or the audience. Of course afterwards people said they liked it, and I do think the words themselves are really fun.  I must say I really enjoyed saying them out loud in front of an audience. The way they fit together, the way they move and roll the sound of them juxtaposed with the meaning and the hustle and the flow. After I finished with the first piece, it was probably only about 3 1/2 minutes long, there was a natural stop. I really felt like the audience was there to learn about the memoir, they wanted information. So I told the audience I would stop there. But to my delight and surprise, a cry came up from the crowd. They wanted more. So that made me feel good. So I did another piece, another three minutes maybe, about the construction guy from the Chippendales show singing the haunting Lionel Richie classic, Hello, to a big black beautiful woman, and people were really into it. So that made me feel good.

Then I gave a little brief history of the memoir, how it’s evolved, and then we talked about some of the particulars. Arielle talked about what she looked for as an agent in the memoir. Which was: story. A narrative. Beginning, middle, and. It’s a very difficult thing to make a cohesive story out of these seemingly random occurrences in a person’s life. We talked about being able to pitch your book, to explain it in a way that communicates how exciting, sad, tragic, funny, whatever, your memoir is. And to be able to do it in 30 seconds. I realized afterwards I made a mistake here too. I should’ve had Arielle and I our pitch our book Putting Your Passion into Print together. It’s a total party piece, our pitch is, we do it in unison. It’s really funny and entertaining. And I need to push that book, to show my expertise as a book doctor. We talked about family, privacy, the ramifications of seeing something on the page, versus hearing it. Of course, after my first memoir Chicken came out, my family wouldn’t speak to me for several years. It was kind of shocking how little I miss speaking to these people. My family. But Arielle pointed out that I was a little flippant when I was talking about my family during the event. I think she is right. My mother and her partner Judy, they were the only ones who really acknowledged my book, and talked to me about it, and we worked through it, lesbian style. So actually, the whole thing made us closer. I thought Arielle and Laura Schenone had really smart, interesting things to say about the process of writing your life stories. That’s what I was thinking at the time, that if I was interested in writing a memoir, I would find all this stuff very valuable.

And then we took questions from the audience. As usual, there were some people who just wanted to hear themselves talk. There were some people who actually had some interesting things to say. And there were a few people who had extraordinary, publication-worthy material, they just don’t know how to make their dreams come true, from a nuts and bolts, what-do-I-do-next perspective. There was one woman at the Watchung bookstore at our event, I have to find out her name, but her memoir was about autism, and Arielle told me afterwards that she had the most beautiful, exquisite, artistic book. Arielle wants to help her get published. This happens every time we do an event like this, and we’ve done at least a hundred of them. There are always a couple of people who have these amazing projects that absolutely should be published. Apparently this young woman’s story was quite astounding. I guess until she was seven years old or something, she thought she was an animal. And then she was sexually abused by the principle of her school, and fought until she had him fired, and became a local hero from that. Then she had a terrible time finding a job after college, finally got hired, and then was promptly fired because of her special challenges and circumstances. And then she sued that company and won. It just sounded like such an incredible story, and Arielle said the book she made was so beautiful.  So you see, I set out to promote my book, which is all about me and my success, getting people to read my story, notice me, look at me, love me. But it ends up where I’m brought into contact with this amazing young woman who has this incredible story to tell, and needs exactly the knowledge that we have. I love that. It’s the universe reminding me that I’m part of something so much bigger than myself, that there are so many stories in this world that need to be told, there are so many people who don’t have a voice, people that have beautiful dreams just needing a little help to have them come true. And I also realize how lucky I am, it makes me grateful for my life. To realize that I have found the people to help me realize my dreams.

Then we sold and signed books. Laura Schenone sold a bunch of Lost Ravioli Recipes of Hoboken. Arielle sold a bunch of Putting Your Passion into Print. And I sold a bunch of Master of Ceremonies. One of the good things I did, it worked like a charm, was to promise people a 10 minute consultation if they bought a copy of my Master of Ceremonies. I think I sold a dozen books, I’ll be curious how many of those people take me up on my 10 minute consultation offer.  It’s always amazing to me in my role as book doctor, I tell people to do simple, totally doable things when I first meet with him. And I’d say about 80% of the people, I never hear from again. They are either unwilling or unable to do this simple, daily shit that must be done.

I heard afterwards that this was one of the most successful events they ever had in the history of the Watchung bookstore. I don’t know if that’s true. I’ll find out and get back to you. But I do know that selling for 35 to 40 books in a night is a great haul for the small independent bookstore. I must say though, I did feel kind of let down afterwards. Because no one really seems very interested in the subject of my book. I believe that could be problematic. I was forced to read the book again because my publisher was terrified of being sued. I was glad that I did read it again. Because I really liked the book. I think it’s a very good book. I was worried right before I read it for the last time that I would think it sucks. But it doesn’t suck. And I’ve gotten such great response from people. So it’s not that I don’t believe in the quality of the writing or the story or the characters or the comedy or the tragedy or the pathos or the immersion in this strange place in this strange time that is so much a part of Master of Ceremonies. It’s that I fear people are just not interested in the subject. That was the feeling I got last night. Of course that could be my PTSD talking, the voice in my head that perpetually predicts doom and gloom. I felt totally exhausted from having to work so incredibly hard just to sell a dozen books. I can’t help but comparing myself with writers who just show up someplace and people by hundreds of their books. I always put myself in competition with people who are more successful than me, and I always end up the loser. What a ridiculous way to think. What a stupid way to live. I’ve only been in the book business for seven years now. I spent a lot of that time working on books that were just for money, not to write things I love in the style of, the brand of David Henry Sterry. I am only going to compare myself to myself. And I had a lot of fun doing that event. I learned a lot. I met some great people. I had fun with Arielle and Laura Schenone. I helped out a wonderful independent, Watchung bookstore, I sold some books, I had a blast performing, there was lots information and lots of laughs. Plus, we found a few amazing people who have great stories that need to get out there. And now it’s on to the next one. The Albany Barnes & Noble. Thursday, September 18. 7 p.m. and the big one after that, the granddaddy of them all, the Strand, September 22, with book superagent Jim Levine and international storytelling sensation Mike Daisy. And I’m absolutely certain that no one is going to show up. Well, that’s my two cents worth, and with inflation, I owe you one.
*please forgive any potential typographical errors, I’m using voice recognition, and the system has a wicked sense of humor.