O Morgan Freeman, Morgan Freeman, Wherefore Art Thou Morgan Freeman?

 

 

All you need to do here is watch the video above.  If you do that- click and watch - my work is done.  Because this is all about me.

 

Wait.  That's a typo.

 

This is not all about me.  This is about Lisa Lutz - so please.  Just click on the arrow.

The video will explain everything - it's an appeal, from the terrific author I just mentioned - Lisa Lutz.  Yes, the author of the Spellman novels.  And if you haven't read them, why not?  Do you have something against funny and smart crime writing?

But the video.  This video.  In the video, Ms. Lutz speaks to Morgan Freeman.  Asks him to appear in a trailer for her upcoming book.

 

I mean, she doesn't speak to him, not directly.  It's more "An-Open-Letter" kind of thing.  Except it's a video, not a letter.  But same diff, right?  And there's a framed picture of Morgan Freeman overseeing the whole production, so actually Ms. Lutz is kind of speaking to him. 

 

To Morgan Freeman.

 

I saw the video for the first time today, soon after it was posted.  I took special interest in the plea because Lisa Lutz and I broke bread together before the release of her 2011 novel, Heads You Lose.  So there I was, a midlist bookseller, eating dinner with Lisa Lutz, a midlist author.  How perfect is that?
 

 

Dinner?  Dinner was at Kuleto's in San Francisco.  We ate from white tablecloths at a long table in front of a stone-fronted fireplace.

 

It would have been kind of romantic except, you know, I'm married and there were quite a few other booksellers there, in addition to the representatives from the publisher.  All those other people made romantic notions a little awkward.  None of that Number 1 Fan Stuff, here - no way.  Ms. Lutz talks about that kind of thing in the video.  Have you watched it yet?  Watch it.

 

And besides, at dinner?  Kind of difficult to share a moment with someone who is seated far away.  Did I mention that Ms. Lutz was not seated near me - I think that was probably smart.  And also besides - this isn't about me.  I already said that.

 

This is about Lisa Lutz.

 

The good news from that dinner?  I hit it off with the other author there that evening.  Kind of forgot to mention that fact, that there was another writer in residence, as it were.  See, the novel - Heads You Lose - wasn't only written by Lisa Lutz.  It was written by Lisa Lutz and David Hayward.  The novel deals with siblings who find a body - headless - on their property, so they move it.  Off their property.  But it keeps coming back.

 

Ms. Lutz had the idea that it would be charming to write a book with another writer, so she chose Mr. Hayward.  They ended up writing alternating chapters.  But, well, these writers have a history - they actually used to be a couple, so they squabbled a little bit during the writing of Heads You Lose.  These squabbles made it to the page where you read them duking it out.

 

You know, metaphorically.  They weren't actually duking it out.  There were disagreements, sure.  Mr. Hayward told me all about it.  He'd want the story to go one way, but Ms. Lutz thought perhaps the story would be stronger if they followed her lead. 

 

If you noticed, Lisa Lutz got top billing on the cover of the book, and, well, that can kind of feed a writer's ego, you know?

 

Anyway.  Mr. Hayward would say left, Ms. Lutz would counter with right.  He'd go up, she'd point down.  You read these differences in opinion in notes they included in the novel, notes to each other after the chapters - critical of the other's efforts.  These bits are funny, the novel bits are funny - but the dead bodies start proliferating.

 

And it's still funny!

 

In between Mr. Hayward describing this process, I kept him entertained with the synopsis of my own novel.  Well, novel-in-progress.  I mean, I actually haven't, you know, finished it.  Novels are, well, hard.  If you want to put a novel to bed you have to sit down and write.

 

Haven't done that, not totally.  Not to completion.  But oh! was Mr. Hayward enraptured with the story.  The little odds and ends that have been written - though those are, truth be told, quite few in number.  But the main idea, the plot if you will, I've got that all figured out.

 

I just have to actually write it.

 

I won't bore you - I was afraid I'd bore Mr. Hayward.  But since he was sitting in the corner, and I was next to him - well, he had to talk to someone, right?  So I dove right in.  My novel takes place on Halloween.  Oh, that holiday!  Halloween!  And--

 

Oh, wait.  Keep forgetting!  Not about me!  This is about Lisa Lutz.  Did you watch the video?  Watch the video!  Click click click!

 

 

I'll just wrap this up.  At the end of the Heads-You-Lose dinner, there was the requisite signing of the book for the attendees.  I handed my copy over to David - I feel I can all him David because we did spend an awful lot of time talking that night.  Did I mention he was kind of in the corner?  Not trapped by me, trapped is a little harsh.

 

But right there, you know?

 

So he took my copy of their book and spent a bit of time writing in it.  Sometimes authors just scribble their name, but David went out of his way to personalize it.  He intimated how intrigued he was by my own novel - er, Novel-In-Progress.  Then he signed Heads You Lose with a flourish before he handed it to Ms. Lutz.

 

She glanced down at what he had written and then looked at him.

 

What's this? she said.

 

What do you mean? he countered.

 

(It was like the novel, but in person!)

 

This!  You wrote an addendum to the novel in the novel.  You're just supposed to sign these things.  Poets!  You always get it wrong.

 

I was just commenting, he said, on the remarkable work that Nick described to me this evening.  Really breathtaking.  I felt the need, the urgent need, to memorialize it.

 

(Ok, David may not have actually said exactly that.  I may not remember precisely what he said but it was right in there.  Close, I'd say.  Very, very close.)

 

Ms. Lutz just shook her head.  Shook her head and dashed off a "Me too!" after David's kind words.  Just jotted down, super fast.  But actually, it was sort of sweet - if you look at it, you know, in the right way.  If you squint hard and tilt your head.

 

Besides, that night wasn't about me, it was about them.  Lisa Lutz and David Hayward.  And their novel Heads You Lose.

 

But today?  Today's all about me.

 

Wait, sorry.  Typo again. 

 

Today isn't about me.  It's about Ms. Lutz and her appeal to Morgan Freeman.

 

She passionately argues that she's fighting not just for free publicity, but for free publicity for the written word.  Sure, she'd benefit from Morgan Freeman's help, but what he'd really be doing is furthering our progress towards keeping books and bookstores alive.  Maybe it'd help bring about world peace.  An end to poverty?  Not so out there!

 

Okay, gosh, sorry.  That's all me, that stuff.  Ms. Lutz talked about books and bookstores, yes, but not the other things.

 

I get carried away sometimes.

 

Do you know Mr. Freeman?  Do you know anyone who knows Mr. Freeman?  Because if you could just get him to watch this video - it's only a few minutes (ok, actually, it's four minutes, but I'm not counting.  Nor should you), and if he spent just those few minutes watching, I'm sure he'd agree to help Ms. Lutz.

 

So if you do know him - could you pass these words along?  These glorious, funny, staggering words?

 

Oops, sorry again.  Not these words.  Not, you know, my words - but the video.  Could you pass it along?  Thanks.

Nick's Picks, the 100 Most Notable Books of 2012 - 94,93,92...

#94:  Arcadia, by Lauren Groff.  Hyperion Books.  $15.99.

First, can we get one thing clear?  Because Lauren Groff's remarkable Arcadia comes in at #94 does not mean that the #1 book on this list is going to be 100 times better.  Do you know how many books will be published in 2012 in the United States?

Neither do I.  But it's going to be a lot.  Some point to a staggering 15 million titles.  That's probably a high figure, but conservatively, we're talking about at least 3 million.  3 million!

Do you know how many books were published in the US 100 years ago?  About 9 thousand.  The difference between the numbers is staggering.  But - to my point - I'm listing 100 here.  That's the top .003 percent.  I think.  I'm a writer who sells books, math is not my strong suit.

Still - we're talking about an infinitesimally small number.  So Lauren Groff clocks in at #94 because Arcadia was one of the most notable books of a very crowded year, ok?  In addition to being one of the most notable, it was also one of the best.

Her writing is stunning - America in the '70's is beautifully rendered.  And Ms. Groff has created a cast of characters struggling with Utopian dreams amidst the often brutal realism of this country's past.  Ok?  Ok.



#93:  Quiet:  The Power of Introverts in a World That Can't Stop Talking, by Susan Cain.  Crown.  $26.

Susan Cain, I'm sure, has been bemused by the attention her book has received.  In it, she eloquently describes how this world of ours - that has gotten so loud - owes much to the introverts, to those who aren't interested in tweeting pictures of the mundane cocktail they drank to thousands of disinterested souls.  Good reading for the quiet among us - better reading for the guy on MUNI screaming into his phone about the bitchin' chick he met in the Mission.  Unfortunately, that guy doesn't read and the shy girl won't tell him about Quiet.





#92:  Seating Arrangements, by Maggie Shipstead.  Knopf.  $25.95.

Seating Arrangements is brilliantly funny - which is saying a lot because I read it right after reading Lucky Jim by Kingsley Amis.  It's difficult to think anything is funny after reading Amis' novel.

And if you haven't read Lucky Jim?  I don't know what to say.  It could very well be the funniest novel written in English - so please, for me?  Just go.  Go and read it.

But if for whatever skewed reason Amis is not your cup of tea, then grab a copy of Seating Arrangements.  In it, you'll find a certain group of misanthropes, idlers and skeptics stranded on an island.  It's like Lord of the Flies - except anyone could leave this island at any time because they aren't shipwrecked, they're there on purpose to celebrate the weekend nuptials of the daughter of Old Money.  It's a novel of manners, like Jane Austen, but with randier fathers and more booze.

And some violence that would have made Jane shudder.  Did I mention it was funny, too?

Nick's Picks, the 100 Most Notable Books of 2012 - 97,96,95...

#97:  No Easy Day, by Mark Owen.  Dutton.  $26.95.


"Mr. Owen" seemingly wants it both ways.  He's desirous of continuing the mystique of the Seals and all the sexy secrecy that surrounds them - while at the same time throwing open for perusal their most innermost workings.  But he does provide a fascinating look at one of the most intensive manhunts in history, so there's that.








#96:  Home, by Toni Morrison.  Knopf.  $24.


Home showcases Ms. Morrison at her most taut - but this may be its greatest fault.  She eloquently and viscerally shows the horrors of war through the traumatized eyes of a Korean War veteran - Frank Money - but I was left wanting more.  More words, more pages.  What we have is brilliant - but what you'll want are deeper explorations and resolutions to the wounds she lays bare.





#95:  Cuban Cocktails, by Jared McDaniel Brown and Anistatia Renard Miller.  Jared Brown.  $19.95.

Did Cuba have a Golden Age of the Cocktail?  Did it last through America's ridiculous and pietistic experiment with Prohibition?  It most certainly did, and these two authors not only give you the recipes, but they shed light on the politics and people of the time.  You'll want to mix the drinks, sure, but you'll also have a new appreciation for where those cocktails came from and the circumstances that led to their creation.

Nick's Picks, the 100 Most Notable Books of 2012 - 100, 99, 98

Lists, lists - everyone's on a list, compiling a list, reading a list.  So I've decided to crash that party.  Here is the first annual Nick's Picks for the Most Notable Books of the Year.

And just real quick - Most Notable does not only mean Best.  I might not give a fig about some of these books; they could be here because they made waves.  Others because I deem them worthy.  I'm not bashful - I'll let you know.

If you disagree - feel free to compile your own!

And - Nicks Picks will be fiction heavy because fiction's better than non.  Fiction.

Actually, I just read more fiction than non(fiction) so that's why there'll be more.  Fiction.


If I could cue up a drum roll, I would.  Lacking that, let's begin with--



#100:  Fifty Shades of Grey, by E L James. Vintage.  $15.95

No book was bigger this year - or most years.  It's not listed because I like it.  It's terrible.  But leaving it off would've been stupid.  So here it is.

Still - if it's erotica you want, may I suggest Little Birds by Anaïs Nin?

#99:  The Patriarch:  The Remarkable Life and Turbulent Times of Joseph P. Kennedy, by David Nasaw.  The Penguin Press.  $40.

Was Joseph Kennedy the most interesting, the most intriguing of the Kennedy's - as Nasaw asserts?  No.  No, he wasn't.









#98:  Jack Gilbert:  Collected Poems.  Knopf.  $35.


Yes, you should.  Not because Mr. Gilbert died a few weeks ago, not because he raged against the dying of the light - but because he writes like this:


Meanwhile:

It waits. While I am walking through the pine trees
along the river, it is waiting. It has waited a long time.
In southern France, in Belgium, and even Alabama.
Now it waits in New England while I say grace over
almost everything: for a possum dead on someone’s lawn,
the single light on a levee while Northampton sleeps,
and because the lanes between houses in Greek hamlets
are exactly the width of a donkey loaded on each side
with barley. Loneliness is the mother’s milk of America.
The heart is a foreign country whose language none
of us is good at.Winter lingers on in the woods,
but already it looks discarded as the birds return
and sing carelessly; as though there never was the power
or size of December. For nine years in me it has waited.
My life is pleasant, as usual. My body is a blessing
and my spirit clear. But the waiting does not let up.

To Have and Have Another

If you snuck inside my head to determine the prototype for The Best Book in the World According to Nick, you would determine two things, posthaste:

1.  Nick loves books
2.  Nick loves booze

With that knowledge in hand, you would conclude that the Best Book in the World According to Nick would - of course - combine these two things.  Then you'd write To Have And Have Another:  A Hemingway Cocktail Companion by Philip Greene.

The good news for me?  Philip Greene already wrote it.

Mr. Greene - co-founder of the Museum of the American Cocktail, mixologist, consultant on all things drink-related, and a descendant of the Peychaud family (of bitters fame) - has the knowledge and lineage to have written this paean to Hemingway and the boozy course he set with the publication of his first novel, The Sun Also Rises. 

From Chapter 8 of To Have And Have Another:

BRANDY & SODA - FROM THE SUN ALSO RISES

(Fine à l'eau)

2 oz. Cognac

4 oz. club soda

Combine all ingredients in a collins glass filled with ice.  Stir.


To Have And Have Another is remarkable - all the more so because David Wondrich writes the introduction, and if he hasn't gone and written the perfect apéritif for the meal that is Mr. Greene's book, I can't think of what would be better.

To completely enjoy To Have And Have Another, it helps of course if you already like Hemingway's books, but even if you don't, you'll be rewarded with the anecdotes, the back-stories, the pictures of beautiful women with their handsome men (like the photo of Jane Mason on page 45, the Jane Mason who, Mr. Greene lets us know, was described by a Hemingway friend as "one of the wildest, hairiest, most drinking, wenching, sexy superwomen in the world..." and was proud to be the model for Francis Macomber's wife in The Short Happy Life of Francis Macomber and if you haven't read this story we're not friends).

If we are friends and you haven't read the story - please?  For me?  Get to ye olde bookshoppe and purchase a collection of his stories.  Then we can still be friends and you can read the finest story dear old Hem ever penned.

What I'm trying to say is the book packs a wallop.  It talks about Hemingway, the man, the writer, the drinker, the womanizer, and - finally - the suicide.  But it also talks about the words - it celebrates the words.  And with Hemingway, it's so easy to forget the words - so easy to mimic the style and the cadence - when, in the final final, Hemingway at his best was one of our best.

Let's remember that.

To Have And Have Not begins each of its chapters with a drink and its recipe - in much the same way that I used to begin each entry in Drinks With Nick.  So there's the celebration of the words, there's the celebration of good drinks, and there's the celebration of how Hemingway incorporated food and drink into his works - so well did Hemingway do this that you could savor the meals and taste the drinks as you followed along the word-path that he had so carefully constructed.

Mr. Greene also devotes care to give the history of the drinks he describes - many of them created by Hemingway himself.  The Cuba Libre was invented - so the story goes - around the turn of the last century during the time that the US was helping Cuba gain its independence.  Coca Cola was extremely popular in the States, and there was so much rum sloshing around Cuba, that when our business and military interests brought Coke to Cuba's shores, the two were bound to meet - and the Cuba Libre came to be.

Hemingway describes the Cuba Libre in To Have and Have Not.  Greene presents that moment - when Harry Morgan enters Freddy's Bar to see the proprietor.  There's a tourist at the bar - Mrs. Laughton - and she's described none-too-fondly by Hemingway.  After Mr. Morgan and Mrs. Laughton briefly spar, Freddy intervenes.


What will you have? asked Freddy.
What's the lady drinking, Harry asked.
A Cuba Libre.
Then give me a straight whiskey.


And that's why I love Hemingway.  So - here's to him, here's to Philip Greene's To Have And Have Another, and here's to you.

CUBA LIBRE
(WITH A WHISKEY BACK)

2 oz. rum

4 oz. Coca Cola

Juice of 1/2 lime

Combine rum, Coca Cola and lime juice in a tall glass filled with ice.  Stir and garnish with lime wedge.

The Tequila Incident, or the Red Rocker does San Francisco

Before the tequila, there was Sammy Hagar.

Mr. Hagar – the Red Rocker to his friends – had just released his autobiography. He was going to make an appearance at ye olde bookshoppe in San Francisco. It’s often a combustible mix, when the famous write a book and go on tour.

Your typical book signing? The folding chairs are set up – not too many, because it’s better to bring more out than fold the extras up. A few friends of the author arrive early, eager for a seat near the front – unaware that all the seats will be near the front. With luck, a few customers - intrigued by the store’s display – will show up. If ten or twelve people are in the house, you’re golden.

Then there’s your untypical signing. Say, for someone who’s not a writer, but famous for spectacular feats off the court, on the screen or in the bedroom. First, there are the riders – the demands in a contract that bookstores must fulfill in order to secure that writers appearance. Most authors don’t have riders – they’re happy to have an audience. If pushed, maybe they’ll accept some coffee from the joint up the block.

Maybe not.

But for the famous, the rich? Indeed, Mr. Fitzgerald, they are not like you and me. The best rider we ever consented to included Belvedere Vodka (on ice) and boxes of Red Hots.

What makes these tours potentially combustible is the meeting of the two worlds. The Book World - known to booksellers, a given, no surprises here - and the World of the Celebrity. The Celebrity attracts fans, and because these fans aren’t often inside a bookstore, they can be as astonished and rattled as a bookseller would be if thrust onto the pit stop at Indy. Danica, we’d ask, kicking the tire in front of us, What am I supposed to do with that?

So when Mr. Hagar came to town, we didn’t know what to expect, not exactly. My friend Rich ran ye olde bookshoppe, and he called that day, wondering if I could come into town, supply the pit crew with another pair of hands.


It was a Friday night in San Francisco, so I arrived early. Authors don’t usually have Groupies, but there they were, like cattle at a crossing, waiting outside. One of Rich’s coworkers had written, in fancy chalk-letters outside the front door, The Line for Sammy Hagar Starts Here. And after those words were others, chalked by Mr. Hagar's patient fans: After Tom & Gayle! and then JESS & KIKI and then Janine and Amber! and then Bobby, and then Roger…all the way down Chestnut.

The line began assembling before the store opened at nine in the morning. The event was at seven that evening.

Usually, for a book signing? Customers aren’t queuing up ten hours in advance.

With the hundreds of people in line, Chestnut Street had taken on a different flavor than usual. The air was...aromatic. The liquor store on the corner busy. But the Red Rocker's fans were terrific at policing themselves -keeping doorways to other businesses clear - and as the clock crept closer to seven, their anticipation grew.

Mr. Hagar hadn't demanded vodka. He did request – bless Red! – that to get in line, you had to have a receipt from ye olde bookshoppe. The guy with the Amazon box under his arm, the guy who was late to the party? He couldn’t understand why it mattered. We didn’t have time to explain it to him because, at about a minute to seven, a Hummer limousine pulled up to the store. The line erupted. The Red Rocker himself jumped out of the limo, looked up at the cheering mass, threw his hands into the air – doing that horn thing with his fingers – and shouted, Let’s do this!

Following in the Red Rocker’s wake were five guys. Now, sometimes authors have escorts. Drivers who deliver them to signings, maybe help the staff if books need to be opened in preparation for the author’s signature. These guys? They were not your mother’s escorts. They were – tough. Not big, necessarily, not Mr. T. But, well, menacing. They had things hanging from their necks – shark teeth. A bear claw. And the great thing?

When a guy with a bear claw hanging from his neck says, Hey pal? Where’d you buy that book? Amazon? You kidding me? Listen, see that register?

And Mr. Claw points to the cash register at the front of the store.

Go buy yourself a book, he says.

When I tell the story, I add that Mr. Claw ended his admonition with the word, capiche. But that didn't happen.

Anyway - again - the great thing? When a guy with a bear-claw necklace tells you to buy a book from your local independent bookseller? The local independent bookseller who coordinated the event you've driven to? To get an autograph from one of the most famous singers of his generation? You don’t have much room to maneuver.

The regular booksellers? We’re cheering inside. Because, see, Mr. Claw has just voiced something that we think about all the time. When we host an author, and a customer comes to the store with a book he purchased somewhere else, it defeats the purpose, for us, just a bit. We keep our doors open, in part, so we can have events. Publishers send authors to us to promote the author, the book – and the bookstore. But if you don’t buy the book from us, it’s difficult to keep our doors open to host other events.

So when the guy with the Amazon box says, I don’t see what difference it makes, and my new friend with the tight silk shirt and the bear claw around his neck just stares at him until Mr. Amazon walks over to the register?

I hear angels singing.

And those angels continue to sing as Mr. Hagar and his entourage sweep through the store. We’ve got lines marked off on the stubby blue carpet with tape, lines that wend and weave to the table in the back. The line begins moving forward before Mr. Hagar has even taken his seat. Rich has me and a few other managers in addition to his regular crew – we’re guiding customers through the line, and we’ve got Mr. Hagar’s associates helping us, and that means the line moves quickly.

So quickly that one guy passes me, the opposite way, almost in a dead run, right out the door and back onto Chestnut Street. I lose sight of him for a few seconds before he pops right back in.

I’m sorry, I say, you can only go through the line once.

But, but, this guy sputters, this fan in a red t-shirt with a white 55 across the front. But look! he says. And then he shoves his hands towards me. The line's moving so fast, I didn’t get my book!

What? I say.

My book! he says. I got pushed out of there without my book!

If this was the Indy 500, and if this guy were Danica Patrick, things would be happening fast there in the pit. Cars would be screaming by – kind of like the line is screaming by me. Other crews would be on their bellies, yelling at each other as they tightened belts and loosened lugs – much as some of my coworkers are getting yelled at by a slightly intoxicated fan of the Rocker, a fan who is certain that Red would love to make her acquaintance.

You know, for later.

So while this screaming and yelling is going on, I’m replaying in my mind what happened to the guy in the I Can’t Drive 55 t-shirt. Did he have a book in his hand when he passed me? Was he out of sight long enough to hand the book to an accomplice before coming back here to scam us out of a book? And did I really just use the word accomplice?

My book! Mr. 55 pleads. Man, c’mon, that ain’t right!

Sir, I say. Honestly? You gave your book over to be signed, you’ve been waiting in line for ten hours—

Seven! he says. Just seven!

–for seven hours, and in all that time you’re preparing for one thing? To get a signature from Mr. Hagar—

Red! he yells. The Red Rocker! Yes!

–and after all that time, waiting outside, just waiting for that moment - and then when the moment finally comes, you leave the book behind? Is that what you’re asking me to believe?

And suddenly Mr. 55 looks at me kind of strange. His hands drop to his sides. His head cants to the left as he inspects me. What are you saying? he says.

I just look at him. He knows what I’m saying. I don’t want to say it again, because the line, it's moving so fast, people are wondering if they should buy more books and get back in that fast-moving line for another moment in the reflected glory of the singer, this man who’s been on so many radios in so many cars on so many afternoons, but before I answer his question, Mr. Claw walks up to me.

Hey, he says, and he holds up a copy of Red, My Uncensored Life in Rock, by Sammy Hagar.

Hey, Mr. Claw says again, and he holds the book out to Mr. 55. You left this on the table.

Right then I’m feeling pretty stupid, but Rich calls my name, asks how the line is going while Mr. Hagar’s associate heads back, and when I turn around my guy is already gone, gone and out the door.

Rich, I yell back. I’m going outside, ok?

He gives me a thumbs-up and I run outside. My guy? He’s got a sweet parking spot just across the street. Even that's possible in the Marina if you arrive early enough. I dodge an Accord and head over, get to his Firebird as he’s unlocking its door.

Hey, I call out, and he looks up.

I wanted to say I’m sorry.   To apologize.   That I didn’t mean—

My guy just smiles.  Dude, he says, it’s cool.   The Firebird is open now and he tosses his signed book inside.   It’s cool, he repeats. Then he throws his hands into the air, he does that horn-thing with both of them, just like the Red Rocker did before he yelled, Let’s do this!

My guy?   My guy yells, too.   The Red Rocker, man – I met the Red Rocker!   And he yells again, somewhere between a war cry and the mating call of, I don’t know, a musk ox.   A really nice musk ox.

It’s cool, dude, it’s cool! he says.  No harm no foul!

And he gets in his Firebird and sends me a thumbs-up just like Rich did.

When I get back to the store, Mr. Hagar is high-fiving customers as he leaves. Those still in the store cheer – their cheers are met by the cheers of the hangers-on outside. Before the cheers end the Red Rocker is back in his limo and gone. Where do rock stars go early on a Friday night in San Francisco?

That’s a question I’ll never be able to answer.

I look at my watch. It’s 7:14.

Rich, I ask, and Rich has anticipated all of us. He’s at the register checking the numbers.

285, he says. 285.

You sold 285 books? I ask.

And he signed every last one of them, he says. In fourteen minutes. Rich smiles and shakes his head. In fourteen minutes.

It’s later. We've returned the store to some semblance of its usual self. The tape's been pulled off the carpet. The chalk on the sidewalk is a little scuffed, but still readable. After Tom & Gayle!

Rich and I head around the corner to a Pierce Street watering hole. I don’t drink tequila, not regularly - I had a bad tequila incident once. Hasn't everyone? But Mr. Hagar owns his own distillery, so I order tequila for me, whiskey for Rich. I tell him about my guy, and my mistake. Rich just drinks, and laughs.

It’s cool, dude. It’s cool, he says. And he laughs again.

We clink glasses and sip.

No harm, dude, no foul.

Michele Bachmann doesn't like Gore Vidal

Gore Vidal, October 3, 1925 – July 31, 2012

I was trying to find the audio from Gore Vidal's 2006 appearance in San Francisco.  He was onstage at the Herbst Theatre as part of the City Arts & Lectures series.  I had asked to help out that evening - another outpost of ye olde bookshoppe sells the books for City Arts when an author is involved - but I was not in the best of moods because all my copies of Mr. Vidal's books, especially the seven novels comprising his Narratives of Empire series, were lost in the dozens of book boxes jumbled throughout our garage.  Such is the life of a bookseller - too many books, not enough shelves, and can't get his hands on his first edition of Burr when its author is in town.

I wanted to find the audio to refresh my memory of the evening.  In my recollection, I'm equal parts angry and disappointed that I wasn't able to find Mr. Vidal's books in time to get them signed.  Those feelings were tempered by my excitement on hearing him interviewed - by Scott Shafer.  And I only know the name of the interviewer because I saved the flier from the night.

I save too many things.

But I was excited because - after all - this was Gore Vidal.  We have so few giants of literature left.  So few names that are recognized outside the little world that is Arts and Letters.  Gore Vidal was one.  Probably the last.

Mr. Vidal did not look well.  Did not look like the urbane wit who dueled with so many of his contemporaries - most famously Norman Mailer and William Buckley.  And when I say he did not look well, all I mean is he looked old - when of course he was simply in the final round of his bout with that bully, Time.  But even though he looked drained of the vitality he had worn like a cape, when he spoke it was all different.

I remember closing my eyes during his interview as I stood off there to the side in a dark back corner of Herbst Theatre.  And with my eyes closed that eloquent baritone of Mr. Vidal's filled the hall.  All I have, though, is a vague notion of what the exchanges may have been comprised of that night.  Politics, yes.  Literature, certainly.  I remember the audience laughing at every quip - much like reporters do in front of a ballplayer if he makes even the weakest joke, much like an audience does at a concert when the singer makes the slightest attempt at humor.

Why do we laugh so hard at these times?  Is it because we're surprised that a baseball player, nimble on the field, can't possibly be funny as well, and so when he tries to joke we laugh like it's George Carlin?  That's patronizing, isn't it?  And so I felt a little of that, that night.  A little bit like we were laughing too hard at his jokes.  This was Gore Vidal - he didn't need propping up by our laughter.

Or, hell, maybe he was just really funny and I've forgotten.

So I wanted to find audio from the night, to hear that voice again, place myself in his presence again.  Turns out that although KQED - our local public radio station that broadcasts the interviews from City Arts and Lectures - purports to have an archive of past shows, Mr. Vidal was not to be found.  There was a clip from Vidal Sassoon talking about hair, but not quite what I was looking for.

What I did find, though, was the fact that Michele Bachmann - you remember her, right?  For about five minutes she was going to be the Republican nominee for President.  She had read Burr, my favorite of Mr. Vidal's novels.  Fancy that.

Turns out that she didn't like it much.  She credits it for turning her into a Republican.  The novel I read?  It was fascinating because it didn't describe history from the winner's perspective.  History is always told from the perch of those who won, right?  But here was an example of history told by a loser.  And Aaron Burr?  One of the biggest losers in our history.  From his pinnacle - almost President of the US (though when has the word 'almost' carried such weight?) - to being tried for treason, dying in obscurity, unheralded, here was a life that so often received little mention.

Aaron Burr?  Oh sure, he killed Alexander Hamilton in a duel, right?

And Mr. Vidal took that dark life and illuminated it.  This was history told from a different perch.  George Washington wasn't the lionized hero.  Jefferson wasn't the cherubic angel who loved his wife and played the violin.  The novel made me question the role I had assigned to these men.  Mr. Vidal had taken the most inglorious of our bastards and given him a voice - and oh, what a voice.

Unless you're Michele Bachmann.  Her take-away?  Gore Vidal was merely mocking our Founding Fathers.  Because of this, she decided she wasn't a Democrat (she doesn't explain the causality of her party-switch any more than that, but such clarification might be expecting too much of Representative Bachmann).

What struck me most about her comments today - less than 24 hours after the passing of Mr. Vidal - was her insistence on describing him as snotty and mocking.  I thought there was a day-long moratorium on pissing on someone's grave, but that doesn't apply to politicians with the class and grace of the Representative from Minnesota.

If I could, I'd thank Mr. Vidal for being the catalyst that sent Representative Bachmann packing.  But of course I can't do that because he's dead.  Just yesterday.

Instead, I'll reread one of his books.  Maybe Empire.  My copy of Empire was given to me by a young man who worked at City Arts and Lectures back in 2006.  Unlike me, he had a small handful of Mr. Vidal's books that Mr. Vidal was gracious enough to sign that night.  When the young man - why can't I remember his name? - suggested I take the book, I begged off.  I couldn't possibly.

Why not? he asked.  He'd been listening to me complain about not having my own books with me that night.  He wasn't near the fan that I was - he'd feel better if I had something to take home.

I declined again, but he said, No really.  It's yours.  Really.

So I'll pick up Empire tonight.  Be thrown back into the political world of the US circa 1900.  And if I disagree with the treatment of some of its historical figures, I won't stop reading.  I won't throw it against the wall because it doesn't faithfully align with my own thinking.  Lord, can you imagine how boring life would be if the only things you read were mere props?  If you refused to read words that weren't creaky supports of exactly your own world view?

Thanks, Mr. Vidal.  Thanks for your words.  Thanks for your works.  Intelligent readers everywhere mourn your passing.