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Printers Row Lit Fest Highlights

This year’s Lit Fest down in Chicago’s Printers Row was a little smaller than last year, as far as the number of exhibitors goes. The booths going up Dearborn Street did not stretch past Harrison Street, as they have in years past. And some of the booth space that did exist was taken up by an Acura dealer, a furniture maker, and a huge traveling exhibit that the Tribune trots out from the McCormick Freedom Foundation. I think the recession made it hard for bookstores to come a long way to exhibit there.

The Lit Fest is at a crossroads, I think, as many of these kinds of events are. I’m very grateful the Tribune sponsors so much of the festival, without a doubt, but is it mainly a used book fair, with a few panels and readings sprinkled in? Is it a place for writers to connect with readers, or to explore where publishing is headed? Is it always going to compete with the Chicago Blues Festival, and always take place in the rain? How does it complement or compete with Columbia College’s Story Week and the Chicago Humanities Festival? Time will tell. The name of the event was changed from “Book Fair” last year, to broaden everyone’s perception of what’s going on, and I hope it doesn’t pass away with the shrinking of the traditional publishing paradigm.

I was a participant in two events (pretty soon people are going to wonder when I’m actually going to publish something new, or whether I’m now a washed up eminence grise at 49). The first was the panel “Cubbie Blues,” with my friends from that compilation of 2008 (left to right in the photo) Rick Kaempfer, Donald Evans and Robert Goldsborough. Our main topic, within the context of why the Chicago Cubs still and always suck, was why baseball is the most literate of professional sports. We talked about baseball as a conduit for memoir (Cardboard Gods, which I just finished, is a great example of that), literature (ditto The Man with Two Arms by Billy Lombardo), and poetry. My conclusion, which no one bothered to refute, was that baseball had a monopoly on the public imagination for 60 years, until the advent of television, and baseball has so much down time, even during a game, that it allows reflection, and that allows for better writing. And the Cubs are an evergreen topic because, well, they are just so multifaceted in their losing. The stories seemingly never end.

I also sat in for part of a discussion of Get Capone with the author, Jonathan Eig, and Trib writer and WGN radio host Rick Kogan. As usual, it was riveting stuff, and Rick is probably the best interviewer in town. A mysterious transformation came over Jon, however, when during the interview he felt himself transformed into a figure from a Red Chinese propaganda poster, looking across the bountiful harvest toward a glorious future. Rick, of course, was nonplussed by this. Who wouldn’t be?

I spent the remainder of Saturday shopping, although I did take in the panel discussing mysteries and graphic novels. Some of the results of my shopping are below.

On Sunday, I had the privilege of being one of the judges at the first National Story Slam Competition, held at the Harold Washington Library. It was a terrific time. My friend Bill Hillmann has been running the Windy City Story Slam for almost three years, while at the same time other slam-type storytelling events have cropped up nationwide. So Bill managed to bring 9 champions from Oregon, Baltimore, South Carolina, Boston, and other places to compete. The winner, Nancy Donoval from Minneapolis, wove a captivating narrative about bone spurs, unicorns and regaining her virginity by proclamation by a friend (after it had been taken by force years before) that had heart, great narrative structure, humor and pain in wonderful amounts. She scored a 49.5 out of 50, so it was darn near perfect. You can read bios of all the competitors at the Story Slam website here. Nancy won the first belt from the judges, a huge gold girdle like a boxing champ can win. A second belt, given to the performer with the highest applause from the audience, was taken in a very very close competition by Chicago’s champ, Alex Bonner. The crowd of more than 200 were loud and appreciative. I’m really excited to check out more slams in the future.

So, shopping at the Lit Fest wasn’t too exciting this year. I think I was in a cheapskate frame of mind. I did buy a hardback copy of U of C Press’ The Chicagoan, but luckily it was marked down to half-price. The only other things I dived for were a few dusty paperbacks, to add to a ragtag collection I’ve somehow gotten of these titles over the years. First, I found a couple paperbacks from the “Get Smart” series, as shown below. This brings my collection of these up to five out of nine (I think). I passed on paperbacks of Chips, Man from U.N.C.L.E. and the Bobby Sherman Show.

Then, at my last stop on Sunday, I found a couple of old Dell Mysteries from the 1940s, the cool ones with the “Crime Map” on the back cover. These are pretty collectible, I guess, but I don’t want to get into all that stuff. I buy them if they amuse me, but how could anything printed with a “Crime Map” fail to amuse? I also liked the name of one of the authors, Zelda Popkin. It’s almost the same as Hellzapoppin’. Maybe she’s got a sister.

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Riding the Long Tail of the eBook

Here’s an example of how quickly my brain pan cooks an egg. The Kindle has been out, what, three years now? And the iPad about a year?

Hmmm, nice little platforms, I’ve been musing. Electronic books might become a market for me sometime in the future, when I get a little footing again among the NY publishers. Then maybe, when I convince someone in NY to come out with a 20h anniversary edition of Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, we can talk about how to use this platform to deliver more of my writing.

Only, publishers aren’t going to go for a 20th anniversary edition of PCBS, not unless I’ve got another book or three in the pipeline. And when you consider that the NY pipeline has been pretty uninterested in what I’ve been writing for the past decade (with one exception), it would look like the publishing establishment is not going to be much help in me getting my books to people more directly and instantaneously.

In other words, the middleman was not going to be much help in cutting out the middleman.

Oh.

(Time passes, as I attach a drill to the mechanism of a large wall clock and make the hands spin in rapid comic fashion.)

Maybe I should do it myself.

Ding.

Actually, I can’t even really take credit for this notion of releasing my out-of-print books as ebooks. After seeing his name in a story in TimeOut Chicago, I started browsing the website of Chicago writer JA Konrath, author of the “Jack Daniels” series of mystery novels. Konrath is a complete convert to the idea of selling ebooks at the same time as real tree carcasses. Hell, he’s a convert to giving the stories away free on his website. Go ahead, read his site and his blog, and see if you don’t become convinced that the new publishing paradigm is already here.

Konrath is a very prolific writer. I’m not, to my shame and chagrin. Because my output isn’t monumental, it’s always eaten away at me that my most popular books have been out of print since 1998. What a waste, and not just monetarily. I’m a Midwestern boy, Detroit-bred, and I like the idea of being productive and being thrifty. So why should I let my old books go to waste, just because a decade ago they needed more shelf space in the warehouse?

This ebook idea has charged me up like nothing in the past year. I don’t expect much in revenue from them, I just want the people who want to read them to be able to do so, and for me to get my vig. Getting credit for the stories that spawned a hundred imitators is also a big motivator. “Little Red Riding Hood” and the rest of them often pop up on people’s websites, usually intact and credited. (“Red” is also by far the story most reprinted in Literature textbooks, FWIW.) Why people do that, I don’t know. It used to bug me a little, but now I’m grateful, for the following reason.

The original electronic files for Politically Correct Bedtime Stories, Once Upon a More Enlightened Time, and Politically Correct Holiday Stories are nowhere to be found. For all I know, they’re still on some 5″ floppy disk somewhere, but I can’t find them. I can find reams and reams of paper and floppies for book ideas that never panned out, let alone got published, but the ur-files for PCBS are missing.

I was faced with a long boring session of retyping the stories so they could be transferred to the proper types of files, until I realized that other people had already done much of this for me. Fans out there through the years have been posting the stories around the web — all I have to do is collect them and compare them to the printed versions. Howzy! No scanning, OCR, or voice software to wrestle with!

So this is a thank-you to those folks who took the time to type up my stories for me, with the intent of sharing them with the world. I intend to share them too, with a little fee added on. I’m not QUITE there yet with the idea of giving them all away. But we’ll see what the future brings.

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The Armando Galarraga Saga

Last night’s blown call by umpire Jim Joyce, which took away Armando Galarraga’s perfect game, will be talked about for years, by bitter Tiger fans crying about how their team can’t get a break, and paranoids and conspiracy fans everywhere.

But I’ve argued before that baseball is filled with human error (hell, if there’s a statistic for “Errors”. then it must be a big part of the game). I’m not too much in favor of the instant replay, though it seems to have been integrated well into the action. My heart wants Galarraga to get credit for his efforts, but my head says that it is what it is. I can’t start changing my attitude just because a Tiger was involved, and just because the umpire got the yips and got confused about THE ONLY THING HE’S GOT TO PAY ATTENTION TO WHEN HE’S WORKING ON FIRST BASE!!!!!!

Ahem. Sorry.

I was frankly impressed with both the player and the umpire this morning. How many people in public life, caught in a big mistake, just come out and say it was their fault, and that their decision will haunt them the rest of their lives? (When was the last time you heard a politician or a CEO, our national “leaders”, say such a thing, at least when it still mattered?)

And how many players showed Galarraga’s grace and character in the face of a crushing disappointment? My hat’s off to him.

Here’s a little piece of doggerel I whipped up for the brouhaha on Bardball this morning, hoping to earn points for timeliness if not :

Nobody’s Perfect

After the call that the umpire blew,
What could Armando Galarraga do?

Drag him to court in front of a judge,
Since now his market value was smudged?

Argue some kind of liberal plot?
Threaten to meet Joyce in the parking lot?

Hire a hit man to mangle his mug?
Break down on “Oprah” to get some O-hugs?

Threaten his wife, kids, brothers and sisters?
Publish his home phone number on Twitter?

Beg ol’ Bud Selig for some Commissioner’s magic?
Hire some flacks for his story so tragic?

Buy off some pols to rewrite the rules?
Sic Milton Bradley on his family jewels?

But Armando showed character larger than fame.
He smiled, shook hands and went on with the game.

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More Unwritten Rules of Baseball

Put this up yesterday on Bardball.com. The reference to the Alex Rodriguez/Dallas Braden dustup is more than a month old, but it’s not always easy to be as timely and topical over there as we’d like. Lots of voices to corral, and egos to massage, and styles to balance. But really, Bardball gets better with every season, if I do say so myself.

Don’t congratulate a teammate by faking a high five and delivering a hard nad shot.

Don’t talk about racism except in the context of how Jackie Robinson eliminated it.

Rhapsodize about the integrity of the game, but don’t make any big deal about desperately poor Dominican 15-year-olds being drafted by shady agents and advised by “scouts.”

Don’t try and bunt against a pitcher pitching a perfect game unless, you know, you’re trying to help your team score. Like you’re paid to do.

On-field displays of excitement add too much energy and character to the game, and so must be avoided.

Don’t ever criticize a veteran teammate in the media, even when he lets down the squad. Only rookies can be criticized.

Don’t comment on the herd mentality and obsequious jocksniffery of sportswriters.

And however long you play or watch the game….

Don’t expect to like Alex Rodriguez.

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Tranformational Deaths?

A few weeks ago, we were shocked by the news that a good friend at church had woken in bed with difficulty breathing and died early on a Saturday morning. Steve was only 49, actually seven weeks younger than me. He was very active and athletic, and had a lovely wife and a teenage daughter. He was so active in in our large church that you could’ve sworn he was the guy running things.

My jaw doesn’t drop for much. But I was gobsmacked by this news.

There were many reasons why the lines at the funeral home were so long, and why 700 people (my guess) were at his funeral. I won’t list them, except to say he had great good humor, a deep sincere concern for others, the ability to motivate you to do better than you already were, and a knack for never making disagreements personal or last longer than the issue. (He worked at the Chicago Board of Trade, and we were all glad that his business partner spoke at the service, to give us SOME idea of how a humble, caring guy like Steve could do well in a selfish, cutthroat place like that.) He was just one of the best guys I knew.

After the funeral, a rather dramatic friend of ours intoned repeatedly that this was a “transformative event” for her. This gave her so much perspective on our life and mortality that she was going to make immediate changes and savor every last drop of every day’s blessing. Steve’s death was a shock to everyone, as I said, and his example was a good one to follow. But I suspect as we head into our fifties, unhappily more friends will be dying, and our habits and attitudes will remain largely unchanged.

Habits. Outlook. Generosity. Time-management. Enthusiasm. None of these transform as quickly and with such irreversibility as a sudden death. It’s flippant to think that one will easily lead to any of the others.

A few years ago, the artist Ed Paschke died of a heart attack on Thanksgiving Day at the age of 65. I knew Ed a little, after spending a couple hours interviewing him for a magazine article. He was an energetic, enthusiastic, down-to-earth guy, in love with pop culture and high art and the chance to make the art he wanted to. I remember him vividly saying how excited he was to enter to his studio every morning and “open his paint box and mess around.” This was in spite of a complicated private life that included a terminally ill wife.

After Ed’s funeral on the campus of Northwestern University, I vowed to remember Ed’s joy at getting to “open his paint box” every morning. I wanted to apply it to my own creative work. For me, unfortunately, getting started on a project is terrifying. I’d rather do most anything than settle down and “open my word box”. The only thing I’d like to do LESS than that is give up on my writing and get a regular job. (Why do most writers agonize so much over creating their work? Why can’t we take a lesson from the other arts and try to enjoy our craft?) I still have postcards of Ed’s marvelous paintings thumbtacked up around my office, reminders that I knew one of the greatest American postwar painters and that I have something to learn from him.

I have something to learn from my friend Steve’s death, too. But will these events –CAN they — be transformational? My steamship’s been chugging along for many years, and making turns takes a long time. I’d LIKE to make changes for the better. I’m very grateful to have known Steve and Ed, and appreciate the lessons that their lives might contain. But am I really going to change from this? Is there much hope that a generally crabby, reluctant, unprolific egotist like me can improve from knowing better men? I keep wanting to experience an earthquake, a lightning bolt, a Scrooge-like epiphany that will crack my carapace and power me through the next three decades of my life.

But Scrooge was fiction, and transformations like that reek of madness. Real change takes time, and great effort, and an informed sympathy about what people are really able to do, all the while dodging the easy cop-outs of “I’m only human” and fatalistic shrugs of “Eh, whaddya gonna do?”

Maybe I should be thankful at least that the lessons have wormed their way into my consciousness somehow. I’ve been around a lot of good examples in my life. Steve, Ed, my father and brothers, my father-in-law, my English Lit teacher in high school, my counselor in college. Lessons can be gleaned from all of them. The trick, as it is throughout all our lives as adults, is to gain an honest idea of where it is you want to go. Short of an epiphany on THAT, real internal change is hard work.

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RIP Ernie Harwell

Now the Tigers’ voice has been quieted.
He saw teams that won, and fans that rioted.
He saw a man play in the bigs after jail.
He saw a boy pitching tell his baseball a tale.
He saw a flawed man win 31 games,
The careers of good men go up in flames.
He watched a beloved ballpark decay
And the City of Wheels fall by the way.
Yet he knew in the end it was only a game.
God’s plan ignores things like money and fame.
A bat’s just a branch, a mitt is just leather.
Baseball’s true worth is bringing people together.

Some night, when a hit curves decidedly foul,
We’ll hear a faint voice with a sweet Georgia drawl,
Say, chuckling with fathomless love for it all,
“A man from Paradise just caught that ball.”

For a transcript of the Dodgers’ Vin Scully last night, as he reminisced about Ernie, visit the Sons of Steve Garvey blog.

Ernie, we’ll miss you.

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Go Out and Get “Get Capone”

Jonathan Eig has just released his new book, Get Capone: The Secret Plot that Captured America’s Most Wanted Gangster. By all accounts (check the advance reviews at the website), it is a terrific read, bringing alive a slice of Chicago history as vivid as a razor across the throat.

Jon allowed me to read a couple of passages early on, but I can’t wait to read the entire book. I also can’t wait to see him on The Daily Show at the end of the week.

Go out and get this book. IPhone users might also like to buy his app, Chicago Gangland Tours, which will allow you to find places in town connected with more than 600 historical facts. Makes me want to go buy an iPhone right now, just to cruise the city.

Jon allowed me to submit some questions for my column **cough cough** at True/Slant, exploring the role Chicago itself played in Capone’s rise and meteoric fall. You can find it by clicking here.

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Sexy New Poem on Bardball

Well, I don’t know if the poem is sexy, but it’s about sex.

And I don’t know if having sex in the men’s bathroom at Comiskey Park on Opening Day is sexy — in fact, it sounds like a nightmare, and a great an STD and a visit to 26th and California — but it did inspire a poem. It’s up today on Bardball.

South Side Fireworks, Inside

On Opening Day at the Cell,
Amidst the ravening horde,
The men’s room witnessed a tryst ‘twixt
A South Side lady and lord.

All the prudes and official blue-noses
Who by this action were floored
Should think of the White Sox’s condition
And be grateful that somebody scored.

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The Year of Beer

It was only about a year ago that my ever-lovin’ wife put the bug in my ear to take up my former hobby of homebrewing. it was something I picked up in college, and kept pursuing off and on until we moved into a house with a small kitchen and a filthy basement, which left me with no reliable place to brew. Another reason I stopped was that I was doing a lot of wet, intensive work to produce six packs which would then be mostly used as hostess gifts. Gifts that were never opened in front of us.

Hours of time and effort tossed down the hospitality hole.

But last summer I invested in a 2.5 gallon aluminum keg and a CO2 priming system, which we keep filled and chilled in the fridge out at the cottage. Now golden malt nectar is available 24/7 during the summer, and the only people who get to drink it are those I like well enough to invite there. A perfect situation.

Now that I’m back with the wort-and-sparge crowd, it feels like the whole world is becoming top-fermented. A terrific microbrewery opened only two blocks away, in a converted auto body shop. Half Acre Brewing is only available in Chicago, but they make some stunning brews, especially their lager and Daisy Cutter Pale Ale.

Last night I got to experience a little bit of beer-nerd Valhalla in a brewery tour of the Goose Island Brewery. Head brewer John J Hall went into some very fine detail in explaining basic brewing, plus the tireless research and experimentation of its brewmaster (and friend of mine) Greg Hall (no relation). Goose Island has trotted out some marvelous Belgian-style beers in the past four years, which seems to be the latest trend, but John Hall told us that Greg has been working with them for more than 15 years. My tour group paid great attention to the minutiae of the brewing process, even as we drank large quantities of Green Line, Matilda and Pepe Nero, a saisson style beer made with black peppercorns. And just this afternoon, said wife and I made a special trip to grab a bottle of Bourbon County Stout, which is aged in bourbon casks from the Van Winkle Distillery. The big problem now is finding a special time to open these up. (I think the Blackhawks defeating the Predators might qualify.)

And in a few weeks, my buddy Jim Powers will be launching the special event, BEERHOPTACULAR, a weekend fest of microbrews, home brewing, tasting and all in all heavenly jolliness. It’ll be at the Aragon Ballroom in Chicago June 4 and 5. Brewers from all over the nation will be there, so come on down.

I first learned homebrewing while working at Henry Ford’s Greenfield Village, where a lot of us in the Crafts Department were indeed crafty, hands-on people. It struck me then, and still strikes me now, that making your own beer is empowering, economical, entrepreneurial, and ecologically sound. (After examining the carbon footprint of their beers, Goose Island decided to launch its Green Line Pale Ale. It’s served only in kegs to cut down on energy, and they hope to keep buying materials that are closer and closer to Chicago. To this end, they’re talking with farmers in Wisconsin into growing barley and hops, to eliminate shipping from Oregon, Montana and Europe.)

Can we help save the planet by drinking local beer and making our own home brew? I’ve heard stupider ideas, and I was going to be drinking anyway, so it’s worth a try.

I hearby coin and copyright the term LOCABIBING. You’re welcome.

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“Parade’s” Paycheck Parade

This is hardly earth-shattering news, and not very timely besides, but last week Parade Magazine published its annual celebration of pecuniary envy, “What People Earn”. This gives us, amid all the ads for weight loss systems and USMC-themed Hummel-like figurines, the chance to line up what Tiger Woods makes with the take-home of a janitor in Billings, Mt., and a circuit court judge in Kalamazoo.

Now, I was always taught that it was rude to ask people what they earn. In some circles (like among Europeans), it’s actually bad form to try to maintain a conversation by talking about something as boring as a job–a person should have (or try to cultivate) better conversational skills using more intriguing methods of interpersonal exchange. So I guess instead of dissing Parade for being nosy, boring, and banal, I should thank it for asking the questions people want to know.

Then again, screw it. I’ll thank them when Walter Scott answers the reader question: “What does Courtney Cox think of man’s basic nature? Is there really an objective division between good and evil, or are our souls the active battleground of good and evil, as the Manichaeists believe?”

The results of Parade‘s crack reporters’ research shows that, by gosh, just as you might think, there’s a huge range of dollar amounts for everyone listed. Tiger Woods, $100 million. A pastor in Wichita, $5,800. US Army dog handler, $30K. The 25-year-old CEO of Facebook, $3 billion.

Sure, I believe that guy’s worth $3 billion. Until the next big computer fad comes out, and he’s left to scrounge nickels like the guys from Napster, MySpace, and Netscape.

Seeing Parade in the Sunday paper always makes my skin crawl (True headline from this week’s online edition: “Lisa Kudrow Says It’s Important to Keep History Alive!”). But this paycheck issue is always extra-creepy, for a number of reasons:

* It’s plain nauseating to think that Glenn Beck made $23 million last year (which is a low guess anyway, since Forbes estimates it was closer to $32 mil.), because that’s just not a world I want to live in. Ditto Jay Leno bringing in $32 mil.

* There is a forced camaraderie and false connection implied by lining up everyone’s picture on an equal grid, so that Johnny Depp and a nursing home worker look like fellow students in a high school yearbook. Sorry, Johnny Depp seems like a likeable down-to-earth megastar, but he lives on a different planet. And on that planet, he owns four houses and lives with a French model. Nothing against Seymour, Tenn., but Johnny Depp is not popping in for a BBQ anytime soon, no matter how friendly the people seem.

* The strained equivalences are reinforced by use of the first person plural throughout the article. “How We’re Making It Work.” As best as we can, thanks, though the cost of living is a lot different in South Dakota than in suburban Maryland, and people like Kanye West are making it work because they can afford lots of handlers and lawyers to keep them out of trouble when they get drunk and abuse people.

* It forces me to consider scenarios in which I’m working in a menial job in a flyspeck town. Fate may be capricious, of course, and it’s a longshot that it would happen, but what if an old “Twilight Zone” storyline came true, and you woke up one morning with your body switched with a complete stranger’s? And why should you have people across America learn that you make crap wages?

* It hurts my head to imagine the reality behind some of the people’s occupations and stated income. A modern dancer in Murray, Utah, earning $32,000? There’s a modern dancer in Murray, Utah? And she makes a living wage? Weird, baby.

* And I hate it because it’s so transparently shoddy, for all the above reasons, and so illuminates the problem of ranking articles like this, whether published by Forbes or Inc. or Jack & Jill. While trying to pass as important sociologically and even anthropologically, they are always merely one editor’s idea of an interesting topic, fleshed out under deadline with questionable methods. How did Parade find the retail salesperson in Kreamer, Pa., and why did she tell them she only made $8200 last year? And what conclusions can be made from a call that certainly was made randomly? And I hate myself for getting sucked into articles like this, too.

And then there’s a long, long argument to be made about whether a person’s income is in any way reflective of the worth they add to society, and the growing chasm between the wealth of the richest and the poorest in America, but those are for another time. Most of the people in the article aren’t too concerned that the average CEO makes 300 times what his average worker makes. They’re probably just happy to have their pictures in the paper.

And heavens, that’s enough time spent on THAT magazine. Sorry for wasting your time on it.

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My Trip to C2E2: Adventures in Jiggle City

So I went to my first comic convention on Friday, the C2E2 down at McCormick Place. I went dressed as my favorite character: the middle-aged scribbler with writer’s block who is on the hunt for work. And if I do say so, my impersonation was seamless.

It was a fun way to spend the afternoon. I almost brought my daughter, but I’m glad I didn’t, which I’ll explain later. It was about what I expected, times 5. Lots of crazy pop culture going on. Publishers trotting out their star creators and titles. Indies trying to grab someone’s attention (If zombies are popular, and the Wizard of OZ is a perennial AND in the public domain, what could be better than….ZOMBIE SCOTTIE: TOTO’S REVENGE!!). Retailers from all over the Midwest trying to unload their stock to serious collectors. Numerous corset makers (well, I admit, I didn’t really see those coming, and wished I hadn’t seen them at all). And lots of fanboys and fangirls grabbing up free samples of everything.

I’m almost completely over any qualms telling people that I’m pitching a graphic novel idea. With the popularity of comic movies and TV shows, R.Crumb’s Bible adaptation and other inroads into bookstores, the slow invasion of comics into “acceptable” culture may finally be declared a victory. Then again, when I mentioned my trip to the convention later in the weekend, a writer friend of mine asked, with the slightest archness in his voice, “Do you have an ….. affinity for those kinds of things?” It was a bit of a conversation killer, but I did admire this playwright’s ability to choose just the proper word.

But besides defending myself from insinuations like these, and any and all comments about it from my mother, what’s the downside to it? If my project breaks through, it could have tremendous upside: Regular writing work, quick turnaround, an active fanbase, the chance to do something way out of the ordinary once I earn a publisher’s trust. Compare it to the state of “regular” publishing today, and I’ll take it. Or rather, there’s no reason NOT to take it, since comics aren’t so stigmatized and set apart anymore, at least when it comes to dollars and cents. A “regular” publisher could care less if your previous book was a collection of bawdy anagrams that slandered the Pope and the Freemasons, as long as that collection made money.

The deal hasn’t come through yet anyway, so this is premature to write about. Keeping my fingers crossed.

The thing that struck me the hardest at the con–and what made me glad my 12-year-old daughter didn’t come along this year–was the sheer amount of cleavage and jiggling on display. Especially in Artist Alley, where scribblers sat to meet with fans and get a little spending money from prints, quick sketches, and homemade chapbooks, there was cheesecake everywhere. I didn’t have any big problem with it, and I’m sure it drove traffic to the individual’s booth, but it was quite a lot all the same.

Some guys were clever about it. One artist was peddling a calendar of original art that combined pin-up girls with classic movie monsters, with corny sentiments like “Blinded by Science!” as Frankenstein’s monster and a lab tech in a short white coat dodged lightning bolts from the lab equipment. Others just took famous characters and drew them a little more R-rated, like Catwoman lounging dishabille, apparently after a particular humid caper. And one person had a portfolio explicitly marked “Not For Kids”, which had Betty and Veronica doing all sorts of nasty things they don’t teach at Riverdale High. (The creators of Archie Comics had a strong presence at this fair–how would they react if that portfolio turned up? Is it just wink-wink, nudge-nudge time, or are there serious copyright issues involved?)

One artist friend of mine was attending, and told the story about a collector who, after a few months of correspondence, got up the nerve to ask for a drawing of a famous national newscaster, depicted as a hamster. Oh, and naked, of course.

These kinds of stories never floated around Book Expo America, but frankly, I don’t care. If the comic geeks will have me, I’ll have them.

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Tigers Opening Day 2010

I’d been battling allergies for a couple of weeks and was completely drained of energy. On the night before, I played host to a book signing and stayed out til midnight with the literary types singing karaoke at a lesbian bar.

So, what was the best thing to do to stay healthy? Of course! Wake up at 5 AM and drive to Detroit for the Tigers Home Opener!

I’ve now been to more Opening Days at Comerica Park than I ever did at Tiger Stadium. I wish that weren’t the case, but I never was into skipping school, and generally had a good excuse not to go during college years. Then I moved to Chicago and tried to pretend I didn’t care. Now, it’s too late for the Stadium, which was finally and completely knocked down last summer. But Old Comiskey’s gone too, and Yankee Stadium. Those fights are done, time to get on with living.

It was an overcast day, temperature at game time was 38. But my friend Gary sold me one of his very sweet upper deck seats that looked right up the first base line.

The wind was minimal, the company was good, and the Tigers beat the Indians 5-3. (One thing I wish they’d do is STOP singing “God Bless America” during the seventh inning stretch. Come on, guys, just quit it. It’s depressing and pompous and no one connects it with 9/11 anymore.)

Ernie Harwell wasn’t there, for the first time since 1960 (minus his lost year when former GM Bo Schembechler fired him). Ernie is suffering from pancreatic cancer, and probably won’t make it to see Opening Day 2011. Once again, a reminder that time marches on.

It was a crazy scene in the streets after the game. I haven’t seen so many people completely shitfaced in a long, long time. Not just 20-yr-olds, but people in their 40s and 50s, who oughta know their limits by now. They were being dragged around by their friends like it was “Weekend at Bernie’s” time, literally vomiting and pissing their pants. Someone in our group speculated that it might show the economy is doing better, which would put people in a better mood. Then again, he thought it might show the economy is in worse shape, and people are cutting loose in frustration. I don’t know which is true, but watching some idiot take a swing at a cop in full daylight was more than a little pathetic. Every big public event doesn’t HAVE to turn into Mardi Gras, does it?

After the game and a little beer reception, a bunch of us headed to the Polish Village Cafe on Yemans, a terrific place in Hamtramck. (I also now know more Polish restaurants in Detroit than I do in Chicago–sad but true! I still intend to drag my kids out to one soon, just to tick off that box.)

Then we grabbed a couple beers at Skipper’s Hamtown Bar on Conant, which is run by a truly great innkeeper and has a fridge stocked with all things good, including Bell’s Two-Hearted Ale, possibly my favorite malt beverage. Skipper is an old neighborhood guy who knows all the politicians and went to school with half of them. It’s a warm, friendly place full of crazy Detroit people. Anyone who doubts that the city will survive should hang out there for a night and listen to the patrons and their love of the Motor City.

One of my favorite reasons for going to Detroit is crashing at the house of my friends Gary and Vicki. They live in Indian Village, in a beautiful house designed by a young Albert Kahn, the famed industrial architect. Indian Village is a beautiful neighborhood that reeks of the class and money that Detroit enjoyed in the first quarter of the last century. (Surrounding it is some pretty rough terrain, let alone wasteland, but enough has been written about that lately.) It is truly striking to see the remnants of that era and realize how much money the car makers were bringing to the city then. Now, you can buy a 5000 sq ft house in Indian Village for the low six figures. Or even less, although many speculators swooped in during the housing collapse.

When I was young, my dad kept a boat on the Detroit River, and occasionally we visited people’s houses in elegant, old-school neighborhoods like Indian Village and Grayhaven, which had a canal and boathouses for each of the properties. Hanging around near Belle Isle brings back those memories. Just looking down Gary’s street, with the spring trees barely stopping the sunshine, you can see the Detroit River rushing by, same as always. We ate breakfast Saturday morning at a pancake breakfast at the Jefferson Avenue Presbyterian Church, a gorgeous old place with friendly people.

Visiting Detroit almost always brings back large waves of nostalgic feelings and memories. This year, it didn’t. Maybe I was too tired. Maybe the final demolition of Tiger Stadium somehow stuck one last nail in that coffin. I’ve been doing a lot of reading about what the future may hold for Detroit, how Mayor Bing is hoping to relocate people away from blighted areas so the city provide services to a dispersed and shrinking population, how “decay porn” is attracting the notice of all the news organizations around the world. Figuring out where the place will end up is a confusing business.

It’s much easier just to weigh the Tigers chances for the World Series, now that they’ve lost Granderson, Polanco and Rodney.

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Calling all REAL men: Come out to the Book Cellar Thursday!

This Thursday night, April 8, will be “Guys Night” at the Book Cellar in Lincoln Square. There’ll be lots of scratching, spitting, and thinking about sex every 7 seconds.

And if you can’t find your own way to the Nonfiction Section, don’t ask any of us to ask for directions! Burp!

I’ll be the humble host of this night of readings, which will feature:

Jonathan Eig, reading from his about-to-be released blockbuster, Get Capone.

Bryan Gruley, reading excerpts from his further-down-the-road-to-be-released sequel to Starvation Lake, entitled The Hanging Tree. Hockey, northern Michigan, egg pie, MURDER–the works!

Peter Schilling, author of a book that’s by-god in the store, The End of Baseball, a fictional account of Bill Veeck’s attempt to field a major-league team in 1944 with all Negro League players.

And to make everything even muy mas macho, I’ll read a few poems from Bardball and throw around words like mackinaw, ingot, and smelt. Come on out at 7:00 and support your local indie bookstore!

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Cast a Spell on Me

Last Friday I had the honor of once again being a judge for a citywide spelling bee, hosted at St. James Lutheran School. My competition was in the morning, consisting of fifth through eighth graders from the public schools in Chicago. We started out with 63 spellers and ended up with one winner who will head the the national bee in Washington in June. (The afternoon competition was among the private school students, who will also send a champeen (sp?) to Washington.)

This was probably my fourth time being a judge, and I absolutely love it. (I posted on it last year, if you’d like to read it. I put a lot of cool vocab words in it.) I may have to turn down the assignment in the future, b/c my hearing is just getting too screwy to be relied upon. Luckily I didn’t have to monitor the spelling, just give out the definitions, languages of origin, and sample sentences when asked. Also, it was pretty clear when a student spelled it wrong, usually a transposition or a false assumption that an “f” sound was spelled with an “f”.

What was astounding, however, was how many students spelled things RIGHT! In the first round, out of all 63, I think 4 kids went down. Next round, maybe 3. It was beginning to look like we’d be there all day. Still, it took us 3 hours to finally get a winner. The kids were so poised and so smart, my heart went out to every one of them. They were all great sports, too. While I saw some disappointed faces, there were no tears or anger or frustration when someone missed a word. They were happy to compete (and to have a half-day off school).

Some people argue that spelling bees are a waste of time (count on the Tribune’s Eric Zorn to go off on it this spring). Certainly, the ability to spell is not a measure of intelligence, more like a unique hard-wiring that some people have to a greater or lesser degree. But I think spelling bees are useful at least for the fact that the kids prepare for it and then need the poise and self-assurance to approach the Mike of Doom. And a love of words, how they’re built and what they mean should be something to encourage in this era of glyphs, emoticons and twitter shorthand.

And where else are you going to pronounce and define a word like pickelhaube? You know you want to. (Scroll down for a picture of one, after which you’ll slap your forehead and say, “THAT’S what that’s called?”)

Words from the bee to use in everyday life, for all us vocab fetishists:

Podsnappery: insular complacency and blinkered self-satisfaction. (from the behavior or outlook characteristic of Dickens’s Mr. Podsnap in Our Mutual Friend)

whilom: one-time; former

moiety: one of two (approximately) equal parts

psittacism: speech or writing that appears mechanical or repetitive in the manner of a parrot (from the Latin word psittaci, or parrots!)

And here it is, your moment of Pickelhaube: