One of the best things about the book tour for Dark at the Roots has been seeing who comes out of the woodwork. 
           
On the first leg of my tour, through New York, Boston, and Chicago, I ended up reconnecting with people I’ve known for 15 years or more, some of whom I hadn’t seen for ten years.  In New York, my old college roommate Kelli showed up out of the blue at the Mo Pitkins reading.  Her skin looked typically, enviably flawless.  At the Brookline Booksmith reading in Boston, my friend Faith laughed hard and loud in the audience, calling out for an encore.  Faith teaches improv to inner city public school kids in Boston, and is renowned for her Lesbian-themed musicals, like “Jesus has Two Mommies.”

In Chicago, I did an improv show at the Annoyance Theatre with Susan Messing. She is also an improv teacher and an actor.  The show was just the two of us on stage for forty-five minutes, building scenes around a single audience suggestion: SALT.  This was a daunting challenge for me.  I’m not an improviser; I consider myself more a low-brow raconteur, and that’s not necessarily how others consider me. Susan made me look good. Perhaps I shouldn’t have told that concentration camp joke.  Still, I’ve had a life-long love affair with salt, so I had a lot to say about it.  For a healthy snack, my family used to put Lawry’s salt AND soy sauce on dill pickle chips.

Also in Chicago I saw the Bill and Judy Southwick, the parents of my old friend Laura.  Laura was a shoe designer who died five years ago on a business trip to provincial mainland China.  She contracted a very rare heart virus that killed her in a matter of hours.  It was a devastating event in my life. I hadn’t seen her parents since Laura’s memorial service.  They came to my reading at the Barbra’s Bookstore in Oak Park, and it was an emotional reunion.   They have set up a terrific foundation in Laura’s name that gives grants to young people who are pursuing creative projects and careers in the arts.  Check it out online.

In Seattle, I did a real sit-down interview with Warren Etheredge – and sit down we did, for nigh on two hours.  Warren was terrific.  He asked several unusual, unexpected questions.  You can watch a clip of us here.

A lot of the book tour was spent holed up in my hotel room, being patched through to various radio stations for interviews.  This was a strange, disembodied way of talking to people.  Once I was speaking with someone who sounded like he was morbidly obese, drunk, and/or ninety-two years old with a cleft palate.  We had no idea what the other was talking about.  This went on for twenty minutes, and wasn’t altogether unpleasant.  I just pretended I was visiting my great-grandpa in jail.

For me, the radio highlights were my in-studio appearances: jabbering with the crew on the Bob Rivers Show in Seattle, the Studio 360 interview with Kurt Andersen, and a conversation with Jesse Thorn for The Sound of Young America.  I also enjoyed dropping the F-bomb and P-word on the Sirius satellite radio shows of Lisa Birnbach and Frank DeCaro.  Frank’s on OutQ, the gay channel, so naturally we discussed two of my favorite topics: bodily fluids and sequins!