Book postscript: Sidekick makes good

If you've read the book or kept tabs on my trip as it unfolded, you know Lee. Here's the first mention of him in Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day:

Allow me to introduce my friend Lee. “Friend” might be stretching it, actually, because the truth is, I barely knew him. We had spent a grand total of perhaps three or four hours together in person, at a writers’ conference in Key West, where we’d met two years earlier; since then, we’d kept in touch via email. Lee’s a novelist, bartender, and freelance scribe whose beats include nightlife and the singles scene. He lives in Baltimore and looks a bit like the actor Ryan Gosling. He has a quick, broad smile and, always, a wry gleam in his eyes. From what I’d gathered from our limited interactions and the man- about- town tone of his writing, he was the very definition of dashing and rakish—in other words, an appropriately inappropriate sidekick for someone who is, as the Dutch say, kindofaneuroticintrovert.

Reading that, and the rest of the book, you probably wouldn't think of Lee as the settling-down-and-getting-married type, at least not in the remotely foreseeable future--except, perhaps, to the Contessa we encountered in Munich. And in any case, by the time we got onto our respective airplanes back to the States, it was clear that there would be no Hollywood-worthy enchantment, no perfectly-scripted tales of European romance, ending with Alpine castles and the words "Happily Ever After" in a filigreed script.


Now, throughout the book, I tweak some of the tropes of travel memoirs, particularly the ones with sub-titles like How I Dropped Out of the Corporate Rat Race and Went to a Traditional Village and Herded Goats and Found Love and Meaning and Happiness.

If I'm to be honest, though, I have to confess that even though I was staying on the beaten path, and even though I roll my eyes at the paint-by-numbers epiphanies of so many travel books, I was secretly crossing my fingers for some of that myself. I mean, that is how it's supposed to work, right? Every passport stamp brings you closer to Total Happiness™? Especially when you're traveling with a vintage travel guide that you  like to imagine has some sort of old-fashioned magical powers?

But, no, it didn't work out like that. (And I spoil nothing about the book, I hope, by mentioning this fact.)

Of course it didn't. You can't script life.

But there's a twist. Always.


When Lee got back to Baltimore, he had a first date with Angy, a woman he'd met only briefly before. He mentioned to her that he'd just been in Europe, and she casually said, oh, that's interesting, tell me more. They started dating and she soon confessed, to Lee's amusement, that she'd been following our exploits through my blog—she knew all about the trip. As I was finishing my manuscript, Lee e-mailed me to say that they were engaged. I know it's naïve, wishful thinking to imagine that our trip had anything to do with that, but even so, I like to hold out hope that perhaps my guidebook had some residual supernatural properties after all.

My book tour in April ended in Washington, DC. The destination was intentional and the timing was intentional, because the following night, I had a commitment just up the road, in Baltimore: Lee and Angy's wedding. 

CONGRATS, LEE AND ANGY!

The morning after the wedding, over a late brunch with Lee and Angy and a small group of their friends, the story of Angy's blog-stalking came up again, in the context of introducing me. Lots of raised eyebrows and knowing grins in my direction: "Ooh, you're THAT guy!" 

I've gotta tell you: they're perfect together, not least because Angy shares Lee's kindness and spirit of adventure and, yes, that wry grin. I'm looking forward to hearing their own tales of journeys together. (For example, they just moved from Baltimore to Salt Lake City, where they are the resident cocktail experts and worm-keepers. You can read all of their exploits and findings, including the differences between "magic dust" in Baltimore and Utah, on their aptly-named blog, BmoreInUtah.) 

I'm also looking forward to traveling with them someday--a happy anticipation that is tempered with a dash of terror at hearing not one but two different people urging me to do something by saying, with matching wry grins, "Come on, Doug ... Spirit of adventure!" 

Actually, make that three people saying that, because I recently got engaged. And my blog inadvertently helped woo my globe-trotting fiancee, Maren. 

And ... well, that's another, longer story. 

The Brief Wondrous (and Salmon-Scented) Life of Professor Yeti

Once upon a time, I worked for an erudite yeti. Ghostwrote an advice column for him with my friends Teague and Alex. (Hard-core E5WTD fans may recognize those names as the guys with whom I did the Doughnut Quest a couple of years ago.)

Alex got married about a week ago (mazel tov, Alex & Alissa!). He asked me to tell a story at the rehearsal dinner, and the one that immediately came to mind was the tale of Professor Yeti, a web site that he, Teague, and I started shortly after we all graduated from Carleton College in 2003. The site is down--after we stopped publishing it, we accidentally let the domain name expire.* But you still can peruse the archives thanks to the borderline-creepy magic of the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine.

PY logo. Bear in mind that
we're writers, not artists.

The rest of this post is adapted from the piece I wrote for the rehearsal dinner.

This is the epic tale of the short but glorious life of a world-renowned publication called Professor Yeti. Motto: “The missing link in online journalism.” Alternate motto: "The online magazine of elusive news, astute views, and questionable advice."

Teague, Alex, and I had all been interested in writing and had each worked on the school newspaper at Carleton, and I think we all had that classic restlessness of the recently-graduated.

So we started an online publication. Now, I should note that this was in 2003, still the early days of the internet. Blogs weren't really a thing. Quirky essay-filled sites like The Awl or The Morning News weren't around. We had no real template, just the naive ambition of youth.

The plan was simple: one new edition every two weeks, with seven or eight articles and reviews and, the signature piece, an advice column penned by Professor Yeti himself, the world's only bigfoot with a PhD.

For purposes of this story, I want to focus on that advice column, Ask Professor Yeti.

Because, really. It is amusing and endearing but most of all amazing for me to think back to the hours that Alex, Teague and I spent sitting around their Uptown apartment—I can still see the wood floors and the orange chair—honing that voice, trying to figure out what a pedantic yeti would sound like and would want to talk about.

We settled into a groove of absurdist pompousness garnished with a healthy helping of woodland wisdom, as befits an eight-foot-tall primate who pairs a fine port with freshly uprooted juniper bush and wears a three-piece suit while ruminating on a fallen tree.

In response to a question about dealing with obnoxiously noisy coworkers, the good professor said:

I understand your plight. When I was a young yeti, I was visiting some friends in British Columbia, having a lovely champagne brunch on a tranquil beach, when a family of birds landed nearby to practice their calls. Bird songs can be melodic and charming, to be sure, but it is my experience that they offer up such sweet music only in the vicinity of humans. It’s part of a scam to keep birdwatchers enthralled — a friend of mine, a sparrow who asks that I not use his name, says that bluejays in particular are known to be major stakeholders in companies that manufacture binoculars.

In any event, birds, you should know, are less soulful in their singing in remote, wooded locals. There, they screech and rasp and chant dirty ditties. And so it was that my lovely brunch was utterly destroyed by a large group of birds squawking off-key.

I threw a stick at them, and they quickly dispersed.

Sincerely,

Professor Yeti

 All three of us had day jobs that were not exactly our chosen fields, and doling out questionable advice couched in esoteric woodland metaphors wasn't exactly what we had gone to school for, either. But for me, at least, it was actually a good transition to the real world of collaborative projects and concrete deadlines and accountability. It gave me a sense of duty and of purpose, in an off-kilter sort of way.

And in that early-adulthood time when the world was overwhelming in its burdens and potential, and full of conflicting advice from my well-meaning elders … well, it started to feel entirely natural to dole out my own confidently-offered but not necessarily useful advice, like spicing up a Super Bowl party by hiring a marching band to play on the front lawn or trying to woo a woman by adopting a salmon for her.


Or here's my personal favorite, from April 2004:

Dear Professor Yeti,

Doctor Seuss would have been a hundred this year. In honor of the occasion, I have been trying to find mathematical messages in his work; in fact, I am writing my master’s thesis about this. I’m convinced there’s some sort of algorithm that explains all the rhymes and explains all the allegorical themes that run throughout the Seuss canon. So far, though, I’m stuck on “one fish, two fish.” Have you given this any thought?

Horton Sneech, San Diego

Dear Horton:

Of course I’ve thought about it. Here’s the formula:

The theme you can gauge
From the third-to-last page
Just add your age
Invert your wage
Subtract a finger
Add a toe
(Or two point five
if your cousin’s named Joe)

Divide by the eye
Of a scrambling newt
Double the sine
Of the size of Beirut

Does he use the word “wry”?
If yes, give a toot,
And then you must try
With all might to compute
The log of the number’s
Inverted square root

Now return to that page
(The third from the back)
Tally the Ts
And each comical yak
Add two for all drawings
Of fleas in mid-sneeze
Subtract every adverb
And all anxious young bees

A prumvid means war
A blooznit means peace
A grimble means famine
A trinkle means feast

Compare all the numbers
Observe every word
Now get out your slide rule
(I assume you’re a nerd)

Count it all up
Write it all down
All will be clear
Sure as my fur’s brown

If you’re still stuck
Perplexed with a frown,
Just send it to me
With Prince William’s Crown,
The key to the town,
A ham of renown
Plus a parrot named Prout
… And I’ll figure it out

Cheers,
Professor Yeti

Eventually, of course, actual adulthood set in, which broke up our band. But we had a good run of it: fifty issues, more than two years, and something like a hundred fifty queries for the good professor. Sometimes other people even wrote us letters. One was in Latin. Professor Yeti also responded in Latin (and man was that a pain for his ghostwriters).

Over the last few days, I've been going back through my Professor Yeti files. And I have to confess that more than once, I teared up. Because I never would have guessed it, but it turns out that I really miss channeling the spirit of a haughty, erudite, three-piece-suit attired yeti.

 --
* THIS JUST IN: Just checked to see if the domain name was available again, and it was--so I bought it. Which means someday soon, I hope, we'll put the site back in full public view, where it belongs. 

Poop Strong: Goofy Name, Great Cause

*UPDATE: It is with the heaviest of hearts that I update this post to say that Arijit Guha died on March 22, 2013. I miss him so much. But please keep reading to see why he was such a wonderful guy.*

This is my friend Arijit (pictured with his wife, Heather). He's one of the funniest, kindest, flat-out coolest people I know, the type of person for whom the term "full of life" was invented. We went to school together at Carleton College (hail the maize and blue!).

You know that guy (or woman) at your college who organized all the class activities and served on the student government and always seemed to be involved the coolest organizations on campus--and might even help found an organization if there was a void? For the Carleton class of 2003, that was Ari. (And that much-needed organization was the Gender Neutral Cheer Boys, an absurdist take on cheerleading, about which much more in Note 1.)

But what's most impressive to me--and this part is most important and just truly, incredibly rare--was that Ari filled that role without having any ego about it. Big man on campus, sure, but also big-hearted. He was simply nice to everyone, even the socially inept among us (hey, the world would be boring without some of us around, right? RIGHT??)--and, therefore, beloved by everyone, too.

He's awesomely goofy in all the right ways. After college, he grew his hair out and then subjected himself to the most ridiculous haircut possible for charity, raising nearly $4,000 for Doctors Without Borders and other worthy causes, and ending up with a Krusty the Klown hairdo.

Now, Ari needs some help from the rest of us. At the ripe old age of 31, he's battling Stage IV colon cancer and, due to the high costs of treatment, potential medical bankruptcy. 

This is the point in the post at which three-quarters of you are about to tune out. Don't. Please, please. Don't. This is not gonna be some Hallmark Channel sob story. 'Round these parts, we use humor to fight the crappy parts of life.

Case in point: Ari has set up a web site about said battle with colon cancer, a web site titled Poop Strong. Among the various items you can purchase there are brown "Poop Strong" bracelets (you know, like those yellow bracelets some guy named Lance made popular a while back) and various incredibly fashionable and deliciously offbeat t-shirts.

The man's been ravaged by cancer, blasted with radiation, had his abdomen sliced open and his colon yanked out, at the ripe old age of just 31 ... and he's laughing in the face of it all. That's bad-ass. (Um, no pun intended there.)

Also bad-ass and amazing (and, yes, more than a bit heartbreaking) is the fact that he's doing all of this large-scale fundraising and event coordination--not a small task for anyone--while he's battling really seriously major cancer and also, you know, trying to live a normal life and do normal-life things. Seriously, ponder that. (2)

If you want to know more about his story, keep reading. But here's the point:

(Here, we'll make this brown, in honor of Poop Strong):

1. Arijit Guha is awesome human being. He is precisely the sort of person the world needs more of.

2. He needs our help to continue being awesome. Because, man, FUCK CANCER. And medical bankruptcy, too.

3. You can help him AND get some sweet stuff at the same time by buying said sweet stuff on PoopStrong.org: a goofy t-shirt, a brown bracelet, a poopstrong.org email address (and you know you want that). Or ...

Another thing you can get to support Ari is to buy a raffle ticket. You can win some fantastic books, courtesy of Hill's Kitchen, signed and adorned with the Poop Strong rally cry by authors like celebrity chefs Mario Batali and Spike Mendelsohn--or you can get a copy of a Europe on Five Wrong Turns a Day signed by yours truly. Or a signed Hold Steady album. Or lots of other cool stuff.

Ahem: http://store.poopstrong.org/products

Oh, and, in about a week, there'll be another item added to the raffle: an hour of my time to provide travel or writing consultation by phone/Skype (or in-person if you're in the Twin Cities area). Going on a trip? Let me help you plan--especially if you're heading to Europe. I know that place. Wrote a book about it. But I've got plenty of general travel tips and tricks up my sleeve, too. Or I'd love to help you with your writing/blogging project. Need someone to look over your short story or to give you tips on the process of finding an agent? I can help with that, too. In short: travel writer available for consultation regarding both parts of that job title.

But the only way to get it, aside from giving me a round-trip plane ticket to Paris and a private car to Gerard Mulot, is to enter the raffle. Buy a ticket over at PoopStrong.org, once it's posted on June 1st.; and for now buy a ticket for other cool stuff.

Thanks! And ... Poop Strong!

--

Okay, you want more of Arijit's story? Here, check this out. Further proof of his stellar sense of humor and all-around excellence as a human being:




And now, let's turn things over to the man himself: 

Last January, my wife and I returned from a trip to India and soon after our return, I was beset with intense pain in my abdomen. After numerous visits to the ASU student health clinic failed to uncover what was going on, I eventually headed to a gastroenterologist, who did a colonoscopy and discovered I had a 6-cm-wide growth in my colon that was nearly completely obstructive. I soon learned the tumor was malignant and then, when in surgery to remove the cancerous growth, my surgeon discovered that the cancer had spread well beyond the colon and small tumors had metastasized throughout my abdominal cavity. The extent of the disease meant my colon could not be re-connected and I emerged from surgery with a colostomy. In a matter of weeks, I went from thinking I had a bad stomach bug to learning I had metastatic colorectal cancer.

Fortunately, in part due to my young age and the extraordinary care I have received at the University of Arizona Cancer Center, I’ve been able to cope quite well so far despite the difficulties of treatment. Unfortunately, cancer treatment is quite expensive, and recently the ASU student insurance plan stopped covering my cost of care. The Aetna student health insurance plan provided by ASU caps the lifetime insurance benefit paid out at $300,000, which the high cost of treatment used up in less than one year.

--
NOTES


(1) The Gender Neutral Cheerboys filled the role of absurdist pep band and athletic boosters for our liberal-arts college's endearingly inept football team. Listen to the story on NPR's "Only a Game" back in 2002 (skip to about 15:00 for the story). Ari's comments to the reporter: "The first word I'd use [to describe us] is 'incompetent.' ... Pretty much, we make sure that the Carleton fans are louder than the opposing teams' fans, because a lot of the time ... the Carleton fans will actually be outnumbered by the visitors, so we still want to make that Carleton presence felt. At a school this size, it's not just these random football players you don't know, but your friends, your classmates, the people who live down the hall from you. So as incompetent as we are and as ridiculous as we may seem out there, the real reason we're out here is just to cheer on our friends and show support."


(2) I'll spare you my own rant about how how messed-up the American health care system is, but if you really want my two cents, you can read my post "The American Dream and the freelance writer." Obamacare really can't get here fast enough.

Warm beer & the metric system: A simple plan for British/American unity

Sometimes I kind of hate social networking. Other times, I find it a peerless forum for transnational dialogue, an international gathering ground and exemplary resource for cross-cultural dispute resolution. I know, I know: high-minded statement, that. Go ahead, roll your eyes. Meanwhile, Pam Mandel (a.k.a. Nerd's Eye View) and David Whitley (a.k.a. Grumpy Traveller) and I will be resolving the Very Important Matter of negotiating a British-American cross-cultural exchange and agreement. If any countries would like us to mediate dispute resolutions, we're available for a nominal fees. We'll be at Camp David next week.

This conversation happened a while back, but I've been distracted by, you know, stuff. Also, the sun was in my eyes and, uh, the ball took a bad hop off a pebble.

Anyway, the discussion/world-peace-creating starts with me, asking, on Twitter, about proper spelling and accenting of the word "resume" (the thing you submit with a job application). And then we got into the heart of the matter. The tweets below are reprinted verbatim minus the inclusion of our respective Twitter handles in the responses.

@nerdseyeview:
i like the accent. otherwise, you're just continuing after a pause.

@mrdavidwhitley:
I knew there was a reason we call it a CV rather than resumé. Less accent-based confusion.

@douglasmack:
Yeah, let's just do that. I'm in. (And while we're at it, we oughta finally start using the metric system.)

@mrdavidwhitley:
 If you can start including tax in the stated price of everything, that'd be nice too.

@mrdavidwhitley:
And play football with your feet. In return, we'll install mixer taps.

@nerdseyeview:
can we also work out something around the s/z issue and all those extra "U"s?

@mrdavidwhitley:
Certainly. I'll pop a proper dictionary in the post* for you all. (*Mail. Ach, damn, this just gets tricksier).

@douglasmack:
Fair trade all around. Also, if we cut back to 2 ice cubes per drink, will you please give us at least 1? Thx.

@mrdavidwhitley:
Done. And if we put our beers in the fridge, can you make yours taste of something?

@nerdseyeview:
if we can resolve the ice issue, the three of us should go to camp david next and settle the middle east.

@nerdseyeview:
now david, did i not take you to a place that has REAL BEER? i'm wounded.

@mrdavidwhitley:
OK, OK. Make the *cheese* taste of something.

@mrdavidwhitley:
 Also, we promise to install air conditioning if you'll let us open a window every now and then.

@douglasmack:
Pam, the man has a point about USA beer *in general.* But we're working on it. And keep it out of the fridge!

@nerdseyeview:
i think we're making some good progress, but i won't let a brit lecture me on "cuisine".

@douglasmack:
AC, windows. Deal. Also, we'll teach you to make a proper doughnut if you'll teach us to make a proper scone.

@douglasmack: [in response to @nerdseyeview's comment about Brits and "cuisine"]
Quite. I was just about to get to this "full English breakfast" business ... ;)

@nerdseyeview:
oh, i DO like a good scone. rather.

@mrdavidwhitley:
All the world's problems should be solved like this. Proper bacon in return for more than one breakfast option?

@douglasmack:
Someone call the Nobel committee. Okay, you're in charge of bacon, we're in charge of WARM toast.

@mrdavidwhitley:
Also, we'll stop ruining fish with batter if you promise to discover the 'vegetable'.

@douglasmack:
Done, but we might offer you some tips re: preparing "the vegetable"--canned mashed peas don't count!

@nerdseyeview:
 i'm really unclear on which US you visited, david. are you sure you actually left britain?

@mrdavidwhitley:
The southern US. I think the vegetables may have been obscured by the freeways and parking lots.

Two-Hour Tourist: Portland

My first impression of Portland, when I was there a few days ago to read at Powell's, was this: Portland is satisfyingly Portland, in the same way that Rome is satisfyingly Rome. Except that where Rome has its gelaterias; its ancient ruins; its manic drivers; its Gucci-wearing, impeccably coiffed, effortlessly glamorous passersby, Portland has its brew pubs; its green space; its fixed-gear bikes; its stripe-wearing, elaborately tattooed, calculatedly disheveled citizens.

There was a sad lack of flannel and beards at my reading,
though. Photo by Jessica Spiegel of WhyGo Italy.

I didn't have much time to be a tourist and see the sites, just a few hours. But it's not a big city, and I had a ringer to show me around, my awesome friend Celeste Brash, Lonely Planet guidebook writer, blogger extraordinaire, and all-purpose good company. She picked me up from the train station and said that she was working on a downtown Portland walking tour for an upcoming Lonely Planet book. Would I like to walk the route with her as she planned it out? Um, yes. Please.

I won't list everything we did and I won't reveal the particular walking route—obviously, I don't want to poach her guidebook material. But if and when you head to Portland, do go find the latest Lonely Planet and follow her suggestions. The itinerary really does make for an excellent introduction to the city, hitting the waterfront, downtown, and the three major food groups: beer, caffeine, and grease.

In the spirit of my earlier Two-Hour Tourist post, about Chicago, here's my own suggested list of things to do if you only have two hours in Portland.

First of all, get downtown. The Max light rail is your best way into the city from the airport, and to connect to various points around the city. It's always better to spend a limited amount of time exploring on foot and getting a snapshot of a particular area than trying to hop around the city by train or bus or car, seeing things only for a few fleeting moments. So: downtown.

Start your tour with some fortifications and a glimpse of a true stereotype-fulfilling Portland-ness at Voodoo Doughnuts. The line can be long—Celeste and I were there on a Friday around 3pm, and even then the queue ran out the door—but the time passes quickly because the scene offers some stellar free entertainment. There's the people-watching which is extraordinary—lots of the aforementioned stripe-wearing, elaborately tattooed, calculatedly disheveled citizens, plus all manner of other people whose attire and hairdos makes mild-mannered Midwesterners instinctively mutter, “That's interesting.” There's also the rotating case of doughnuts (like the rotating case that displays pies in an old-school diner), which include your standard raised glazed rings but also others covered in Fruit Loops or topped with bacon or filled with mango. There's a voodoo doll doughnut, naturally—a Long John with little appendages and filled with something red, served with a pretzel stick in lieu of a needle—and another called the Cock and Balls (not kidding and not asking for any more details). Throughout Portland, you see signs and bumper stickers that say, “Keep Portland Weird,” and Voodoo Doughnuts seems like the standard-bearer for that weirdness—and just to be clear, I love it so for that very reason.

And how are the doughnuts? Oh, right. Good question. They're outstanding: pillowy and not overly greasy or cloyingly sweet. If they'd been part of the Doughnut Quest a couple of years ago, I suspect they would have placed just behind the Doughnut Plant in terms of pure deliciousness. Plus, you know, style points for the performance-art bizarreness of the menu and a certain portion of the staff and clientele.

Moving on. Your appetite sated, waddle over to Gov. Tom McCall Waterfront Park for a stroll along the Willamette River. Sit on a bench and watch the parade of passersby. (Actually, what you should do is get your doughnuts to go and then eat in the park. I can think of no finer introduction to a city; in fact, without even planning it, when I'm in a new place, I somehow always find myself in a park eating a pastry.)

After you've gotten your fill of nature, wander back into downtown, through Pioneer Square—a public space that functions as the living room of the city—and end up at Powell's. You know Powell's, yes? The huge bookstore? It's … well, yes, huge. Enchantingly so, like an endless magical forest of books. They shelve both new and used books together, so there's a wonderful mix of literature from various eras, like at the library. Seriously, it's mesmerizing, the way the rooms and shelves and books just go on forever. The travel section alone is the size of many small bookstores (and since you asked, my book is in the “Travel memoirs—Europe” section …).

Your time is probably getting short now, so move along to one last stop. If you live in a major American city, you've probably noticed that food trucks are becoming, officially, A Thing. I don't just mean hotdog carts and jingle-blaring vans from which sketchy-looking dudes sell melting Bomb Pops. I mean mobile kitchens proffering actual food, restaurant-worthy food. Anyway, in Portland, food trucks are a genuinely big deal, more than just a passing trend. They're ubiquitous, and there are even some places around the city where there are five six or a dozen or more parked more or less permanently on an otherwise vacant lot, forming a food court far more eclectic and affordable and delicious than anything you'll find at even the most offbeat mall. I got some delicious tacos for $1.50 each, after considering other trucks proffering burgers and Indian curries and pad thai and crepes and—not making this up—escargot and foie gras. Yeah. From a food cart.

It's a weird and wonderful place, Portland. Truly.

Easy Rider Meets Werewolf In a PBS Station Lobby (a true story)

My sister and I are sitting in a PBS television station lobby in Tacoma, Washington. It's very 1970s. Wood paneling. Blaring television (PBS, natch). Regional magazines on the coffee table. It's ideally nondescript; it feels like it should be a dentist's office in a Coen brothers movie. To one side of the room, four or five employees are having a low-key meeting about programming.

I'm waiting for a producer will come out to get me--they've invited me to be on one of their shows to talk about my book. I rehearse my stock answers in my head, over and over.

A guy walks into the lobby, a guy who definitely doesn't fit your standard public broadcasting archetype. He's your classic Harley Davidson rider, wearing a denim vest with a Harley logo and the word HAWKS on the back; on his legs are black leather riding spats. He is a presence.

The meeting falls silent. My sister and I eye him, wondering what's about to happen. One of the employees in the meeting finally pipes up, her voice pert and professional and irrepressibly Church Lady-like. "Are you here for one of the shows?" she asks.

Thus begins one of the most amazing conversations I have heard in my life.

"I'm looking for the editorial department," he brays. I wonder what his complaint is. I wonder if he's packing heat. I wonder if the upholstery on my chair might, just maybe, conveniently, be made of Kevlar.

"I need to drop off some video," he continues. "I just shot a video of an actual werewolf!"

Silence.

What do you say to that?

Answer: You let the guy continue.

"Seriously," he says. "I know you think I'm crazy, but you've gotta see this, you're gonna freak out, man. And I got footage of a mother sasquatch nursing a baby. I ain't even kidding! We gotta get this on the air right now--people are gonna flip!"

Church Lady: "Well."

Pause. Everyone blinks a dozen times. My sister and I nearly bite through our lips to avoid making a sound.

For real: What do you say to that?

Church Lady continues, finally: "Well, you can drop it off here and we can give it to the program director."

"ARE YOU FREAKING KIDDING ME? No, man, this is too important! I can't just leave my video. I gotta explain some things, tell you what's going on. And just trust me, as soon as you see this, you're gonna flip and put it right on the air."

"Well, the program director is busy right now and ..." Church Lady looks around to her colleagues for help, but they are all still dumbstruck.

She's trying her very best not to sound too patronizing, not to laugh, not to tell him he's crazy, not to tell him that the station is, you know, PBS, and not exactly the sort of venue for werewolf footage, even if it is the real deal.

"Aw, you're KILLING me!," the guy says. "I got a werewolf on camera! An honest-to-God werewolf! I wanted you guys to have it--I'm not gonna go to Seattle and give it to 4 or something. It's all for you. A werewolf! I'll wait for the program director." He sits down emphatically, sending his message. "Go get him out here."

"Well, I'm sorry, I ... I just can't. He's busy. But there's a form that you can fill out for dropping off video."

"For real? This is legit, man! A freaking werewolf on tape! Okay, okay, where's the form? I've gotta write down some long stuff about what you're seeing and what to look for and stuff."

He's not angry, not really--just deeply disappointed, let down by the world, incredulous, unable to fathom that no one believes him. A freakin' werewolf, I ain't lying.

He gets to work. Some ten minutes later, when the PBS producer calls me back, the werewolf hunter is still hunched over the desk, sribbling furiously.

When I return to the lobby after filming the show, he is gone. I wish I'd given him my card. I wish I'd asked him to show me the footage right then and there.

It's the kind of story that you know is great--not the werewolf per se, I mean, but the guy. He's so earnest, almost adorably so, kid-like in his sincerity, in his efforts to make us believe. What's his story? Is he the type who spends hours in the woods looking for this sort of thing, an amateur cryptozoologist on a Harley?

You know there's more of a story there. Gotta be.

Scenes from a book launch party (+ the reviews are in!)

And then one day you wake up and realize that you have not only written a book but the book is now available everywhere and is, like, official, which makes you a real, legit author.

Oh. Man. 

So. The book is here, as of April 3rd! (Available everywhere, including IndieBound, my favorite indie stores, Amazon, and B&N ... just sayin'.) And various people have been saying various nice things about it. Like:

“An amusing and a wonderful read.” - Arthur Frommer
(on the radio show Rudy Maxa's World; listen to his full glowing review here.)

“Refreshing in its intelligence, candor, good-humored self-deprecation, and insightful redemption of the much-maligned tourist, Mack’s account is a trail-reblazing testament to the transformative power of travel in the modern world, and to the enduring richness of those well-trod places where authenticity, history, culture, and fame compose their own never-ending narratives.”
- National Geographic Traveler

“A genial companion for the armchair traveler.”  - Kirkus Reviews

For more coverage, including yours truly on Minnesota Public Radio, my television debut on KARE 11, and interviews in the Detroit Free Press, MSNBC.com, World Hum, and various other places, check out the Press & Praise section of the book site.

And I had a book launch party! Nearly two hundred people (!!) packed into Honey in Northeast Minneapolis. I read a scene about being stalked by creepy Mozart-costumed guys in Vienna and then did an authentic old-school slide show. All while wearing that seersucker suit you may have seen in my book trailer. Photos by my pal career break guru Kirk Horsted: 

Despite what it looks like, I am not rapping in this photo, I am about to start a slide show.
Question for discussion, though: Should my rapper stage name be D-Mack or Seersucka? Please advise.