And then I got very busy.

And that means there’s a lot backed up here.

So I’m just gonna spray it.

My new book, SLEEPLESS, is coming out tomorrow. In the manner typical of significant personal events, this has both taken for-fucking-ever, and totally snuck up on me out or fucking nowhere.

Writing SLEEPLESS was a tough sonofabitch. I am deeply invested in it.

Many of my readers are going to flat out hate this fucking book.

Period.

Fucking period.

Some people who want nothing to do with anything else I have ever written are going to like this book.

Fucking period again.

And that’s a little intimidating and scary. I don’t have a plan to change forever the kind of books I write, but this one is different enough to just not work for some of my regulars.

Sorry.

Anyway, it comes out tomorrow. I’m gonna try and get back here and do some whoring. But I’m still very busy with other stuff. So you may be spared the whore.

Not unrelated to SLEEPLESS, I’m going on a little tour.

Here are the places and dates:

Tuesday, January 12
7:00pm
The Poisoned Pen
4014 N Goldwater Blvd. Suite 101
Scottsdale, AZ 85251
(with T. Jefferson Parker)

Wednesday, January 20
7:00pm
BookPeople
603 North Lamar Blvd.
Austin, TX 78703

Thursday, January 21
7:00pm
Legacy Books
7300 Dallas Pkwy Ste A120
Dallas, TX 75024

Friday, January 22
6:30pm
Murder by the Book
2342 Bissonnet St.
Houston, TX  77005

Saturday, January 23
2:00 PM
Mysterious Galaxy
7051 Clairemont Mesa Blvd. Suite #302
San Diego, CA 92111

Saturday, January 30
2:00pm
Mysteries to Die For
2940 Thousand Oaks Blvd.
Thousand Oaks, CA 91362

4:00pm
Mystery Bookstore
1035 Broxton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024

Sunday, January 31
Dark Delicacies
4213 West Burbank Blvd.
Burbank, CA 91505

Hope to see you.

Oh, and THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH came out in trade paperback last week.

It’s still a book you have to pay for, but it’s cheaper than a hardback.
The library is good, too.

Marilyn Stasio at the NY Times put it on her notable books of 2009 list HERE.
And then it got a little more love from the NY Times Paperback Row feature HERE.

One of the projects that’s been keeping me so busy is the development of a TV show based on MYSTIC ARTS for HBO.
What happened was that I was lucky enough to make an acquaintance with Alan Ball a couple years back and we’d spoken about doing a film or TV project about.
More recently I asked him if he was interested in the idea of a MYSTIC ARTS TV show and he volunteered to executive produce and guru for my first foray into TV.
Hint to the TV newbie: having Alan Ball as your guru helps.
Sometimes, you just get unreasonable lucky.
Anyway, I’m writing the pilot. If it clears the many many hurdles in between script and TV show, the first season will loosely follow the plot of the book.
And then who the fuck knows what.

My DEATHLOK miniseries for Marvel has been running for a couple months now. I think issue three is due this month. It’s pretty wild and over the top. Crazy SF adventure noir. Skull faced cyborg warrior takes on the world.

The last Joe Pitt book, MY DEAD BODY, has seemed to please a few people. And I’d like to thank the people who thought is sucked for not emailing me. It’s nice to keep that bubble unburst.

There is some pending movie news regarding CAUGHT STEALING, but the producers have yet to announce the deal so I need to keep it under my hat for now.

I’m still not working on my next novel, which seems more than weird. There’s this idea that’s still building for me, and it’s nice to have other work that’s kind of subsidizing the development of the idea. But I’m getting antsy. Also, most of my work over the last several months has had at least some socially interactive component, and I’m eager to be a selfish motherfucker again and god of my own world.

For the last few weeks I’ve been neck deep in a second TV project with a writing partner. This is another deal where the powers that by have yet to spill the beans, so I can’t share details as yet. About all I can say is that it’s my partner’s idea, it’s a cop show, and we’ll know soon if the pilot will be made.

I finished all the scripts for my 12 issue run on one of Marvel’s cadillac titles, but (wait for it) they haven’t announced the details yet so…
I do know it should start running in fall of this year.

I’m not sure when the smoke is going to clear so that I can compose some actual thoughts about writing, but it is what it is what it is.
With SLEEPLESS coming out you can be pretty sure that I’ll at least be running news in that quarter.

Speaking of which, here’s the starred review that ran in KIRKUS a few weeks back (A few SPOILERS in here):

“Thirty million Americans are sleepless, and it’s killing them.
What began modestly and unobtrusively is now a pandemic—ten percent of the world’s population can’t sleep. Ever. Zombie-like, the sleepless roam nocturnal streets, desperate to fill endless hours, while their bodies—and minds—disintegrate. This disease is a death sentence, usually within a year. While there’s no known cure, symptoms can be alleviated, but only by an increasingly hard-to-get drug named Dreamer. Parker Haas, a young police officer, seems immune to the disease, but his wife Rose is dying of it. Months ago, she passed the stage where she could care for their child in the loving way she used to. Instead, she spends her diminishing time obsessively immersed in Chasm Tide, a complex doomsday video game. On the street one day, Park learns of a possible source for Dreamer, which has become central to a flourishing black market. Then he discovers a conspiracy to artificially control the Dreamer supply in order to protect an exorbitant profit margin. The world may in fact be coming to an end as so many around him insist, but Park keeps it simple. He has never seen any path but the one straight ahead, and the imperative remains what it always was. If there’s a conspiracy, his job is to investigate it. If a perpetrator, no matter how powerful, can be identified, his job is to jail the guy. A good cop does what a good cop has to do. For Park, the rest is abstraction.
A writer as skilled as Huston (The Mystic Arts of Erasing All Signs of Death, 2009, etc.) can make an apocalyptic story terrifyingly plausible. Readers prone to depression should approach with care.”

See you out there.

-c

Here’s what’s currently on deck.

October 18th.MY DEAD BODY
The release party.
We have a venue change from the last few release parties.
Dave and David of Secret Headquarters are mad bastards and have opened a record store. And when I say “record store,” I’m not just revealing myself as a fusty old man who refuses to say CD store. I mean they opened a fucking record store. So, in the spirit of selling dead media, we’re having the party there.
Vacation Vinyl
4679 Hollywood Boulevard
LA, CA 90027
323-666-2111

What Will Happen:
At 7:00pm I’ll read very fucking briefly from MY DEAD BODY, the last Joe Pitt
book.
You will drink beer and whiskey (or not, that’s up to you.)
I will challenge you with trivia, and reward you with prizes.
And After: Anyone who wants to can join us as we find our way to the
Good Luck Bar.
1514 Hillhurst Ave.
Hollywood, Ca 90027
http://www.myspace.com/good_luck_bar-666-3524

October 24th.
I will be at The Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles as part of their 1st anniversary party.
2-3pm, speaking and signing.
Now, here’s the important part:
When I’m done, James Ellroy will take the stage, and when he’s done, Michael Connelly will take the stage.
The reason you come and see me is that by the time those guys show, there will be no room for you in the fucking store.
Your only hope is to sit through my schtick.
Suck it up.
The Mystery Bookstore
1036-C Broxton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
310/209-0415 or 800/821-9017

October 30th.
I’ll be signing at Dark Delicacies.
7:00pm
4213 W. Burbank
Burbank, CA 91505
John Connolly will also be signing.

October 31st.
I’ll be reading and signing at Mysteries to Die For.
12:00pm
2940 Thousand Oaks Boulevard
Thousand Oaks, California 91362
(805) 374-0084

November 7th.
In a Mystery Writers of America sponsored event, I’ll be having a lengthy conversation with someone I like.
For those of you keeping count, this is called the nice part of the job.
11:00am-2:00pm
(I know, un-fucking-godly, but I get my ass out of bed at 6am every fucking day, so stop whining.)

A Luncheon of Pulp Noir
Interview with Charlie Huston and Mystery Bookstore manager Bobby McCue.
Tom Bergin’s
840 S. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles
323-936-7151
www.tombergins.com
(Irish coffee!)

Choice of sandwiches/salad.
Open cash bar.
MWA members, $15. Guests/non-MWA members, $25.
Tom Bergin’s
840 S. Fairfax Ave.
Los Angeles
323-936-7151
www.tombergins.com

Choice of sandwiches/salad.
(Food!)
Open cash bar.
(A bar!!!)
MWA members, $15. Guests/non-MWA members, $25.
(Sorry about the money thing, the MWA gotta eat too.)

Here’s what’s currently on deck.

October 4th
The West Hollywood Book Fair.
I’ll be sharing a panel on Sunday, October 4th from noon to 12:55pm.
GHOSTS, GHOULS & GOBLINS: EXPLORING THE SUPERNATURAL IN MYSTERY FICTION
Jan Burke
Charlie Huston
Alaya Dawn Johnson
Linda O. Johnston
Moderator: Leslie Klinger
PLEASE NOTE THAT I WILL NOT BE SIGNING AFTER THE PANEL

October 10th.
The Southern Festival of Books, Nashville, TN.
I’ll be speaking on Saturday, October 10th from 4-5 p.m in the House Chambers of the Tennessee State Capitol.
Assume a reading, some talk about writing, and a Q&A session.
Signing to follow.
The SFB website is HERE.

October 24th.
I will be at The Mystery Bookstore in Los Angeles as part of their 1st anniversary party.
2-3pm, speaking and signing.
Now, here’s the important part:
When I’m done, James Ellroy will take the stage, and when he’s done, Michael Connelly will take the stage.
The reason you come and see me is that by the time those guys show, there will be no room for you in the fucking store.
Your only hope is to sit through my schtick.
Suck it up.
The Mystery Bookstore
1036-C Broxton Ave.
Los Angeles, CA 90024
310/209-0415 or 800/821-9017

Tomorrow, April 24 2009 

10:00 am

Signing at the Mystery Bookstore booth #411. 

Noon

Signing at the Vroman’s Bookstore booth.Booth #367.

That’s it.

Hope to see you there.

�

Transmission to Hamburg was accomplished via train.

And, as advertised, European train travel was swift, efficient, and pleasurable. With the added benefit that being in a ground-level conveyance moving as speeds comprehensible relative to the terrain did nothing to worsen the lingering effects of jet lag.

The sixth day of my trip and I was still lagged.

Chalk it up to a schedule that had only allowed one full night’s rest. And that night coming only because of a cancellation. Praise be the cancellation.

On deck in Hamburg: two interviews, gift shopping (saved, typically, to the final day), our last gig, and an evening on the town with Bernd.

Hamburg is Bernd’s turf. More than that, he loves the city and is passionate about its nightlife. Not is a Dude, let’s get shitfaced, see where the Beatles played and then go cruise the red light district way, but in in the way that someone wants you to see and understand something they love.

Hamburg by night with Bernd. A once in a lifetime opportunity.

That I was already dreading.

My head filled with images of how exhausted I would be by 11pm. How early my flight home would be. The unlikeliness that I would sleep on that flight. And the anticipation of that fact that I’d arrive home at “bedtime,” have an iffy shot at a full night of Zs, and need to hit the ground running the following morning with my daughter.

Gut check for an ooold man.

As I had since the mistakes of my first day in-country, I stayed off the bed. Dealt with emails. Interview time. Obligatory pre-interview coffee (I’m still having dreams about German coffee). Brain waves radiating in a dangerously high test cloud of fumes, we got to it in the library bar at the hotel.

Looong interview. But looong in a great way. One of the ones that feels like a lengthy conversation in which you are not so much the topic as you are someone with somewhat interesting things to say about many things, some of which have to do with your work. And interviewer that can naturally relieve you self-consciousness is both relaxing and dangerous. But me, there’s not much I can let slip that I’d regret the morning after. One of the advantages of having piled up a heap of next day regrets during my heavy drinking years is that I’ve little sense of shame left to myself.

One interview down, I knocked out the phone interview while gazing longingly at a bowl of onion soup on my room service tray. Food is essential on tour. Drinks come very naturally, putting your stomach around some food tends to require extra effort. The interviewer in this case seemed to have noticed that saliva was garbling my speech and cut me loose with the farewell, “Enjoy your lunch.”

Shopping.

Hate it.

Only kind i can really bear is gift shopping. But even then, shopping, blargh.

Gabi was heading out so I tagged along. A few stops on the local metro and we were in a studenty retail district. Shades of St, Marks in Manhattan. Funky boutiques, cafes, head shops, music stores, etc. Very familiar turf. Gabi and I cut each other loose, she to seek a curry wurst, I to seek gifts.

Beautiful weather, winding streets, everyone out to enjoy the clear weather as a shitty winter winds down.

Shopping doesn’t always suck.

And something about foreign currency always makes one feel a little like it’s play money. Even when you know the dollar to euro exchange rate has just taken a literally historic ass fucking, you just don’t care much. Five euro feels like it should be a bargain, even when it’s really almost eight bucks.

Math, hurt jet lagged brain. Besides, German gifts for wife and daughter are essential.

Managed to get back to the station next to our hotel without getting lost on the metro, and then got lost two blocks from the hotel.

Found the hotel.

Took a few minutes to observe the view from my window.

Spires, lots of church spires, gantry cranes of the port, construction cranes, very old buildings trussed in a manner that looked more sculptural than architectural, sharp lines of modern, post modern facets. Much like the cityscapes I’d already seen. But a better view.

And i loved it.

Fabulous sense of history and the future. An obvious concern for how very big things look when places next to one another, combined with a willingness to be adventurous about the whole thing.

I desperately wanted to not be falling asleep on my feet, or to have one more coke binge left in my heart.

But I was, and my heart used up its last coke binge years before I became a dad. Now it has better things to do.

We read at the Golden Poodle.

A waterfront rock club with a cafe on the upper floor.

Seated at the front of the room, Bernd and I read with the river on display through the window at our backs.

A modest but very full room, a beautiful chilly night, an unbeatable setting. Bernd and I were both determined to atone for Berlin, and we did. Bernd stuck to coffee, I to a couple very small Scotch and waters that did little more than lubricate my tongue.

Again, it is hard to imagine a comparable event in the States. As we wound down the club below was winding up and bass was vibrating our shoes. Patrons were heading downstairs or on to another venue to get their Friday nights in gear.

Gently buzzed, just in love with the city enough to forget what my responsibilities would be when I got home, I was being tugged to head out with Bernd.

But I did not.

A light shade of regret.

Perhaps next time. Silly thought.

It was the right call. Sleep was narcotic. The morning was a beautiful thing rather than dreadful.

Still, Hamburg, it’s like an itch I didn’t quite scratch.

The morning injected me into a Lufthansa slight to Munich, quick farewell to Gabi, and a change of planes.

My seat was broken, stuck in a semi-reclined pose. They tried to fix it. No go. Waiting for the purser, I asked if I could just move to one of the visible empty seats and was told that of course I could, or move to an empty seat in first class if I liked. On auto pilot I waved off the first class offer. No, not me, first class, don’t bother, I can just sit over here.

Not registering until I sat down that I’d blown the airplane lottery. On thirteen hour international flight, gifted with a broken seat, I passed on the apologetic first class upgrade.

Never would have happened if I hadn’t still been jet lagged.

Stayed awake the whole flight. Finished some Graham Greene and half of Richard Price’s “Lust Life.” Watched a movie, had a few glasses of wine and a few coffees. Mellowed out.

But couldn’t sleep.

Took many notes.

Thinking, man, that whole country, what a great setting for a gun fight.

-c

PS

Thanks to Heyne, Gabi, Markus, Frank, Bernd, Alexander, Christoph, Sabine, Claudia and everyone whose names I have forgot. It was lovely. You were wonderful hosts.hosts.

I was distracted by the wall.

About the time we passed the Brandenburg Gate, my head wad turned the wrong way, staring at a short strip of concrete wall, freestanding, supporting nothing but graffiti, thinking to myself, Oh shit, that’s what’s left of the wall.

The Berlin Wall featured prominently in the most dire of my childhood nightmare scenarios of a nuclear WWIII. When the shit came down, we were often assured, it would fall most heavily and immediately on Germany, both East and West.

The Soviet hammer would strike the American anvil at that point and the shock waves would blow everything else to shreds. Certain to happen before the end of the century. Count on it.

That pretty much sums up my sixteen-year-old vision of the future.

I really didn’t imagine that we had one. Which probably serves as some kind of indicator that I may be a glass-half-empty kind of guy.

And also generally wrong.

Which it’s nice to be upon occasion.

Indeed, if the world were not here, I’d have missed the surreality of walking into a hotel along Berlin Alexanderplatz in the former East Germany and into the shadow of a looming five-story tall fish tank hovering over the front desk in the middle of the atrium.

Someone with an expertise in designing Vegas attraction had obviously been consulted. How else to explain the elevator rising through the center of the aquarium?

Hallo, Berlin.

Markus and Bernd displayed singular enthusiasm for the hotel and aquarium, insisting that I get a room with an interior view. I preferred a room with an exterior view where I might see, I don’t know, Berlin perhaps. Sadly, there was nothing available. Interior view.

I’d become aware on the flight from Munich that jet lag had not been entirely washed away. Latent waves were still pounding the shore. Hit by one of these waves as I entered my room, I was not reassured by the aquarium dominated view out the floor to ceiling windows. I was certain I saw divers in there. I approached the window to dispel the mild hallucination, but it was not to be. For there were indeed divers in there. Cleaning the interior? Feeding the fish? Enjoying a swim? Big ticket tourists on a special dive pack vacation?

I closed the drapes.

I was mildly restored by the presence of hard liquor in the mini bar. My two previous hotels has featured only beer and wine. All very good, but where the rubber hits the road you feel a bit more secure where you know there is a solid drink near at hand.

I teased at the cap of the tiny bottle of Jack Daniels, whispered to it, “I’ll be seeing you later.”

Gabi and Markus were waiting in the lobby. Lunch was on deck. Bernd had mysteriously decided to stay in. “Mysterious” in the sense that Bernd is aggressively social and loves good food. Nonetheless, we embarked without him.

We ate Japanese/Korean. When in Berlin, do as the Berliners.

The old neighborhood seemed very much untouched by reunification. GDR apartment blocks and eroded infrastructure were in great evidence. Berlin is a dead broke city. So broke that economic apocalypse in the rest of the world is greeted by a nonchalant shrug of the shoulders. Been there, done that.

Still, broke cities have low rents, and that usually brings in the artists. Berlin has a bit of the edge of civilized New York feel to it. Whichever neighborhood gentrification has pushed the artists to in NYC, there’s some of that in the air of Berlin. Especially in the border of old West and East.

Rag tag commerce and art mixed with sex, drugs and alcohol.

I needed a nap before interviews. I’d have liked to have joined Markus on a river tour of the city, but a wave had knocked my feet out and I knew coherence would be hard to muster without sleep.

I slept, blacked out really, dreamt, I think, of fish.

There were interviews, mated with coffee, I ate something in my room. Caressed the JD. And it was time to read.

Bernd appeared in the lobby with feminine company. Thus solving the mystery of why he didn’t want to go out during the afternoon.

And we began our brief stroll to Kaffe Burger. A brief stroll that was extended by the fact that none of us really knew where we were going, and Mukus’ sudden need for a slice of pizza.

We arrived late. I hate being late. But I had people from my publisher with me, so I could comfortably blame them.

Kaffe Burger, a holdover from the good old days of East German artist hangouts that evoked the Weimar. At least they did in James Bond movies.

Anyway, it’d the kind of place that looks vulnerable to a sudden foreboding chill when a dark man in a leather trench coat comes in and asks for your papers.

The only foreboding chill I experienced was the one that came when Gabi told me they wanted to wait for an hour or so and see if more people showed up.

An hour, a vast chasm of time to cross on jet lag seas.

I understood her point. A small venue, there was still more than ample elbow room. Still, I was dismayed. I’d already started my up-for-the-game whiskey. With an extra hour of pre-game to get through, I’d surely need another. At which point my judgement would become unsound. In strange city, perilously exhausted, facing an “intimate” audience, it would take very little for me to misstep.

Fortunately I had Bernd, a man who, by his own admission, did not drink very much. He would anchor me.

How sad to learn that the the pint glass in his hand was fill with vodka and Red Bull.

Bernd, oh Bernd, still I am disappointed.

Initially it was just flat and mistimed. We were off, pushing our jokes, sloppy in the readings. The audience was self conscious. Awry. It didn’t get really interesting until I tried to include one of Markus’ translators in the proceedings. She’d been introduced to me earlier in the evening, at which time Markus had informed me that she translated “porn” for him. He was being funny, she actually translated a few naughty books along with many other titles. Still, it was too good not to use. And had I not been in the midst of my second one too many drink, I might have swung it.
Instead, in the midst of discussing the chapter titled “Regarding Your Mother’s Pussy,” I improvized.

“Wait, we have a porn editor here we can consult with. Connie? Hey, where’s Connie? Connie edits porn.”
Evoking a weak titter or two, cut off by a voice from the audience.
“Be careful. I am Connie’s husband.”

Not said in play, I assure you.

It wasn’t the implied threat that dismayed me so much, nor the scale of the man (borderline huge), in fact, a little inside voice piped up and muttered, “Cool, a bar fight in East Berlin, let’s do it!” What really bothered me was the idea that I’d suddenly become the Ugly American. Drunken unknown writer, high on his own ego, traveling on his German publisher’s dime, making vulgar wise cracks at the expense of one of his hosts.

The act of apologizing from stage is awkward.

What air there was in the event went out.

Bernd reinflated things a bit with a strong rally, I kicked in some dead relative humor that seemed to help, and we managed to get through a short program without having any bottles thrown at us.

I opted not to join Bernd and his friend at a local music club, or Markus and his friends at another bar. Gabi found me a can and sent me to the hotel.

Where, with curtains still drawn tight against the fish, I ordered a hamburger from room service, and kept my promise to that bottle of JD.

Berlin, I’ll do better next time.

Next Stop: HAMBURG

-c

A couple appearances in the works with details TBA: 

On Sunday, July 12 I’ll be speaking at the American Library Associations annual conference in Chicago.
The conference is open to non-ALA member, but it is quite pricy.
Specific details of my appearance to come.  

I’ll be attending and speaking at the Southern Festival of Books in Nashville Tennessee. �
Dates are 10/9-10/11.
Specific details of my appearance to come. 

The Mystery Writers of America’s Southern California chapter has invited me to speak in Los Angeles on Saturday, November 7th.
Format for the engagement will be “A conversation with…”  Bobby McCue of The Mystery Bookstore will serve as my interrorgator and co-conversationalist.
The event will be open to non-MWA members, but there may be an admission fee.
Specific details of my appearance to come.

Awoke to silence.

Lost hour.

Blackout curtains drawn.

No voice of jet lag in my head.

11:00 am local.

Awake. Well rested. Hungry. Sane.

Hello, Munich.

Munich on a sunny morning after a good night’s rest is so far beyond stunning as to be nearly comical.

From the aspect of an ignorant American who failed to read a single word about the country before boarding a plane for his first visit, it is easy to arrive with the impression of two Germanys.

Germany number one is featured in WWII movies.
Germany number two is featured in BMW and Mercedes commercials.

One knows, because one is not an utter idiot, that neither impression is accurate, but one hasn’t done anything to educate oneself about what the actual modern country is actually like, and so one touches down subconsciously expecting a cold machine-like, ultra modern megalopolis stretching from border to border, broken only by the swooping curves of the autobahn, upon which, one is has been reliably informed, there is no speed limit at all.

The alternative expectation of bombed out buildings and tank husks seems unlikely as one has also been reliable informed that WWII ended some time ago.

It’s not an expectation that rises to the level of awareness until one is wandering, clear eyed for the fist time in days, down a winding street where the ultra modern rubs against the old world in an unbalanced but still pleasing arrangement.

Oh, yes, here I am, in Germany. A place I know nothing about. How did that happen, me knowing nothing about this country? Odd. I thought I was educated.

A hidden platz behind the New Town Hall, lolling in the sun with my paper and coffee, a trio playing jazz somewhere on a side street, the woman next to me, nervous about an impending visit to the dentist, making conversation through her limping English and my ten words of German.

Me thinking, man, this is a great setting for a gun fight.

Segue to being introduced to Bernd Begeman.

Iconoclast is an overused word. And for all I know Bernd is a cliche of Germany: an amalgam of chanteuse, pop culture geek, humorist, intellectual, alt-cool taste maker and all around bon vivant. Picture Oscar Wilde and Lenny Bruce’s love child spawning with the equally illegitimate offspring of Elvis and John Waters, with Brigit Bardot providing the egg for that spermfest.

But to my eyes Bernd is a unique gem. Deeply flawed, and all the more precious.

Decked out in a suit with a style label that read: Scorsese Movie, Averna on the rocks with a lemon in his hand, Bernd took the stage with me in a Munich night club for the second reading of the tour.

To clarify, there is a nightclub/literary culture in Germany. A subcategory of cool. One attends readings in clubs, drinks coffee and or booze, then goes out for music, dinner, drugs, etc. There is no current parallel in America. Poetry slams are extreme niche and essentially theater. The reading culture in Germany is widespread, general, and involves people reading from works intended for the printed page.

Odd.

And cool.

If you like that kind of thing.

It helps to like that kind of thing if you’re accustomed to reading for fifteen minutes in front of half a dozen people, most of them staff, at a strip mall Borders. Contrast that experience with a rock venue audience of fifty to sixty politely attentive people who remain focused on the talking heads on stage for nearly two hours.

It’s another country, I’m telling you.

Alternating readings in English and German, Bernd and I managed not to get drunk, to stay amusing, and to get off stage before the energy in the room flagged.

Polished showman that he is, Bernd managed the evening perfectly, right up to and including his vocalizing on “Thank God I’m a Country Boy.”

A good time was, I believe, had by all.

The following night would find us in a small bar in the former East Berlin, having had too much to drink, flailing to keep our audience of a dozen half engaged.

But in Munich, we were tiny literary rock stars.

For a night.

NEXT STOP: Berlin.

-c

My schedule for the ‘09 LA Times Festival of Books: 

Saturday, April 25th 

8:30 am
Riding the Vroman’s Bookstore Mystery Bus to the fest.

Details on the bus are HERE. 

10:00 am
Signing at the Mystery Bookstore booth #411. 

Noon
Signing at the Vroman’s Bookstore booth.
Booth number unknown, but it will be in the Festival map.  

That’s it.

Hope to see you there.�

A cancellation in Bochum gave me a more or less free day in Munich.

Dropped at a business hotel on the edge of both downtown proper and the historic old town, I took one look at my bed, recognized that it would swallow me whole if I let it, and hit the street.

Sunglasses, not so big in Germany it seems. At least not on mid-gray days in March. Could be that I spent the last fourteen years of my life in New York and Los Angeles, but it seems odd to see so many exposed eyeballs.

Jet lag hissed a warning that I was making a spectacle of myself with my dark spectacles.

You’ll be spotted as an outsider for sure, man. Ground up, drained, made into blood sausage and shipped to Cologne. Where do you think they get that stuff?”

I took off my sun glasses, tucked my map and my copy of the Herald Tribune in my jacket, and tried not to look American.

The moderate sleaze that tends to adhere to areas surrounding large rail stations was well represented. Cheap tourist goods, fast food, arcades, call shops, German-equivalent pawn brokers, liquor stores, but all rather more clean than in America.

Plus more tiny cars.

And bicycles. With their own special lanes on the sidewalks. Charming until you realize all the nasty looks you’re getting are because you’re walking in the verdamnt bike lane.

And suddenly, jet lag fugue, open eyes and find myself in prewar Munich.

Close cobbled street, Gothic spires, and a plaza dedicated to all things wurst and bier.Jet lag demanded food.

Stomach rejected bier and wurst.Don’t know why.Mumbled German in a bakery rewarded me with a teutonic croissant.

Buttery and heavy.

Good.

Wind blew, almost blew me over, blew my brain sideways.

Calculated hours since actual food had been consumed.Lost count.Sleep?

No idea.

Sidewalk cafe. Menu.

Jet lag whisper.

You don’t know what this says. Don’t pretend. And don’t ask too many questions. They hate questions. Just order a bier. You know how to do that.

I ordered a beer.

Pils.

It goes down and it stays down.

Having mastered the fine art of ordering German croissants, I ordered one of those. Looked at my paper. Relaxed. Fell asleep with my eyes open. Reasoned it was a good time to go take a nap.

Did I get lost?

Hard to say. I remember a toy store, and I have German toys and books for my daughter that suggest I was in one, but I can’t be certain I didn’t rob a day care while blacked out.

At 7pm Markus called to ask if I was ready to have dinner and see Munich nightlife. I was not.

At 7:05pm Gabi called to ask if I was ready to have dinner and see Munich nightlife. I was not.

Thankfully, neither tried too hard to encourage me otherwise.

Fought sleep for an hour, too early.

Put on boots, went for a walk in the railway sleaze.

Casinos and girly shows called to me.

Come on in, you’re not going to sleep anyway. Imagine the particularly odd flavors of desperate loneliness to be found in German gambling dens and strip clubs.

My jet lag bared its fangs, crouched over my walking corpse.

He’s mine!

Jet lag won.

Hotel restaurant dinner.

I could have killed someone with the heft of those potato dumplings.

Back to room, Scotch in stomach, glass of impossibly heavy Italian red in hand.

Pay TV. Will “Hancock” be better in English or German? Will it matter? No. Just something to make noise while I keep myself awake another hour.

Pay TV screen in German. Recognize a request that I enter my zimmernummer.

417.

BANG!

BANGBANGBANG!

Instant BANGING on my TV. Three channels of nonstop German hotel porn, running like a goddamn faucet, on my TV. Eye searing in it’s banality. Flesh covered machines fucking. In close up.

I turn off the TV.

Having been only half successful in my quest to watch “Hancock” in German.

-c

NEXT STOP: Munich Day II

Coming into Cologne, Gabi and our driver Michael began talking in German. Gabi had asked a question and information was being relayed in the most efficient manner possible, their shared native tongue. Plus they thought I’d passed out again.

I hadn’t. I was in fugue state. Drifting in and out. Trying to adapt to the scale of European cars. Small to tiny. A svelte BMW station wagon qualifying as a behemoth on the autobahn.

I asked Gabi what they were talking about.

She told me a building had collapsed a few days earlier. A big new building with apparent design flaws that caused it to collapse into the underground that ran below. It was national news. Michael was filling her in on the local details.

Fugue.

I drifted away.

Cologne became the place I had blood sausage and tried to accommodate the idea of a ten day city-wide literary festival, at which obscure American writers could draw an audience of 400.

Then I received an email containing a link to an article titled “The Mystic Arts of Emergency Informatics.”

And sitting at my desk, jet lag returned.

Fugue.

Next Stop (after the detour): Munich

-c

Six flights and one train ride transported me from Los Angeles to Dusseldorf to Munich to Berlin to Hamburg and back to Los Angeles, with changes at Munich again and Chicago.

Stir in a long car ride from Dusseldorf to Cologne, and any number of cab rides to and from various ports of entry, hotels, and reading venues.

And the whammy.

What’s the time difference between California and Germany?

With DST (praise god it’s good for something) the time difference is a mere eight hours.

An eight hour time difference requires a strategy. One has to board that flight with a sleep plan. Mine was simple. Stay awake from LA to Chicago, then take a pill that generally renders me comatose, and, because I find it all but impossible to sleep on any flight, pour whiskey on it. Sleep from Chicago to Dusseldorf, and arrive not entirely out of whack with the local clock having just woken up for my touchdown in the early AM.

Plans are meant to be shattered by the gods of jet lag.

And thus was mine.

Despite having to prop my eyelids open the first leg of my trip, I found no combination of sleep aids and free business class booze was up to the task of knocking me out.

I steadfastly remained reclined in my seat, but it wasn’t to be.

Too bleary to read, to resilient to watch the remake of “The Day the Earth Stood Still”, I remained dimly conscious as I slipped inexorably into strange realms of perception.

By the time I touched down and met Gabi Beusker from Heyne, and our driver Michael from Lit Cologne, I was projecting waves of surreality. I’d become my own door of perception, and I was wide fucking open.

To achieve a similar state of being in college, I’d had to resort to twenty-four hour acid trips and the come-down waves that kept me up anther twelve. True, I wasn’t perceiving illusory connections between god and cheese cake when I arrived in Germany, but I felt otherwise exactly as if I’d ingested something that had recently been harvested from a cactus or a bed of mold.

There are only so many ways to deal with such a state.

Sleep.
Coffee.
Alcohol.

I made a bid to use all three.

Bad call.

Alternating naps with tiny cups of intense German coffee, meant to revive my mind for quick burst of babble in an interview suite, spiked with bottles of minibar pilsner, meant to knock the caffeine sideways long enough for another nap, was the strategy of desperation.

By the time I was driven to the Cologne police station (don’t get too excited, it was the crime venue for the literary festival), I was being supported only by the awareness that if I could keep my feet for two more hours I could retreat to a bed without throbbing engines outside the windows.

Thank god for Frank Goosen.

Frank was my tag team partner. Novelist, humorist, critic, spoken word artist, and champion of all things Bochem.

Running the program, he made sure that our audience (400 people I was told), did not boo me off the stage for excessive displays of lethargy.

I don’t speak a word of German past bier, but he had me cracking up.

This is a funny fucker.

So I don’t hold it against him at all that following the gig I was not deposited in my bed by angels, but was instead dragged to a hoff brau.

Blood sausage.

Do I need to go further?

Look, let’s be honest, it’s good stuff. Yummy, creamy texture with a nice crispy skin, all those onions and apples on the plate, non-stop Cologne-style beer service, but blood sausage and beer after being awake for forty hours is a challenge to the soul.

I rose to it. Make no doubt. But I’m certain the effort shaved a year off my life.

Markus Naegele, my editor at Heyne, he had the steak and fries. Me and the girls at the table, we all had blood sausage.

Markus, you’re a sissy.

There may have been another beer from the minibar when I got back to my room. I don’t recall. Nor do I care to.

Was that a show about young Hitler on the TV, or did I dream it?

NEXT STOP: Munich

-c

Yeah, I’m going.
Very soon.Like this weekend.For a five city book tour.
Big in Germany.
Go figure.
Must be the covers.   

Anyway, most of my itinerary is in German, but this is what I know:

March 16th Cologne
8:00 pm: reading at Polizeipraesidium Kalk, Walter-Pauli-Ring 2-4

March 17th Bochum
8:00 pm: reading at Riff Halle, Konrad-Adenauer-Platz 3

March 18th Munich
8:00 pm: reading at Ampere, Zellstr. 4

March 19th Berlin
8:00 pm: reading at Kaffee Burger, Torstr. 58/60

March 20th Hamburg
9:00 pm: reading at Golden Pudel Club, Am St. Pauli Fischmarkt 27

Hope to see you out there.

WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 18TH AT 7PM.

I WILL BE READING FROM “THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH” AT STORIES BOOKS

1716 SUNSET BLVDLA, CA 90026 213-413-3733

This is kind of special to me because Stories is my actual local indie bookstore. There are only three indie bookstores left in the universe, look it up, and one of them is in walking distance of my home. How cool. Oh, crap, while I was writing this another indie went down. Quick, while you can still see one of these things in the wild, come to Stories.

Will there be booze? Come now, what are we, children? Do we ask such questions in times such as these? No, we take it for granted that the soothing balm of alcohol will be supplied. And it will.

Will there be trivia? Probably not. That’s a Secret HQ deal. Miss it and you got to wait for the next one.

But I could weaken.

Yes, there could be trivia.

Who knows?

A jesus fuckload, man, let me tell you. 

More sage and experienced comic book hands likely guffawed up their sleeves when I mentioned casually that I thought one of the pleasures of this years New York geekgasm would be economic apocalypse-inspired  lighter attendance. 

Color me brown, for asshole.

I only made the gig for Saturday, but by 11:45am when I popped the seal, it was wall to wall face paint, mouth breathing, cosplay, wildly inappropriate use of spandex, flashback inducing mayhem in there.

If there had been a proper bar, I would have been drinking it.

Seriously, there are events for which the hip flask was invented. Why I don’t have Comic Con programmed in as one of them, alongside late night showings of Conan the Barbarian and bus rides of longer than five minutes, is beyond me.

In greater seriousness, Comic Con is essentially a late night screening of Conan the Barbarian grafted to a cross country bus trip.

It’s gloriously comic, redolent of genuine emotion, has lots of chain mail, reminds you of your youth, is utterly exhausting and physically uncomfortable, provides thrills you’d all but forgot existed, and by the midpoint all you can smell are the urinals.

There were a lot of fucking people at this thing. And no matter how much I bad-vibed them, they would not get out of my fucking way as I tried to get a better look at the 357 points of articulation Captain Christopher Pike Menagerie doll I wanted to see.

OK, I can here it from the back rows, “Charlie, why the fuck were you even there?”

Point taken. I don’t have a Joe Pitt book out this month, nor do I have a comic book on the shelves. So I guess I was just kind of pimping myself in a generic manner.

But, for those of you who care, I do have more comic book work in the pipeline.

As previously mentioned, I’ve completed a miniseries for Marvel. Seven issues. Classic ’70s character. Out of continuity. No, I still can’t say who it is. Marvel is keeping the lid down until they feel the prime tease moment is upon them. Art is done for three and a half issues, so something should break soon.

I’m also signed up to do a year on a Marvel monthly. First, get it out of the way, I will not be returning to Moon Knight. Second, I cannot say what title I will be working on. Marvel super secret go hush hush, sweet Charlie or we break your little toes for starters. BUt I will risk going so far as to say it’s a major Marvel monthly. Thus properly hyping, and using the requisite alliteration. Can I say more? No, I’ve said too much as it is. Don’t ask me again, I might weaken. No, no, I mustn’t. You will have to be strong for both of us.

So yes, in closing, it seems a ticket to the con is not a luxury item. It is a necessity nigh on to food, shelter and clothing. And, in sooth, who am I to argue with that. In fact, in makes a kind of sense. You can fill more than a day at one of those things. Bring your own lunch and set a budget on for your compulsive buying reflex and it comes out to some pretty cheap entertainment. Visual stimulus galore, like minded folks, panels, films, and a chance to press flesh with icons of the field thrown in for the price of admission. I should have know it would be packed.

Sign of the times.

See ya next year,

-c

No, that’s not a picture of me telling people who showed up at the Writers on Writing panel what I thought of them. 

True, I was not at the panel as scheduled, but I was genuinely unwell.   

And no, it was not a Comic Con hangover.  

My unwellness was related to a sudden 5 am influx of douche bags down the hall at my hotel.  Loud douche bags.  Really fucking loud douche bags.  Douche bags who reduced me to four hours of sleep when I was already verging on total exhaustion.  

Enter dehydration, enter crippling waves of nausea.  

Exit Charlie from Comic Con. 

Oh, dear sweet Comic Con, you always treat me best. 

Hey, everybody who came and saw me and shook hands or dug the Vampires, Zombies and Werewolves panel, you all made my fucking day.   

I’ll have more to say about how wrong I was about attendance being off this year after I get some sleep. 

-c

Find the story behind the picture at Bookspot Central.

The plus side of planetary economic doom is that it may reduce attendance at this weekend’s New York Comic Con.  Not exactly the upbeat story of the week, but it may make this year’s event a little sweeter for the attendees.  I will be there.  I have girded my loins as befits a veteran of these campaigns.  I’ve mapped the nearest bars, toughened my visual cortex by doing Google image searches on fat barbarian, hairy princess, and manga furry porn.  I know someone will throw something at me that I’m not expecting.  I didn’t get into this business thinking I could get out unscarred, but I’m as ready as I will ever be.  Like Luke after Dagobah, like Macchio after Mr. Miyagi, like Kwai Chang after he snatched the pebble from Master Po’s hand, I am prepared.Do your worst NYCC, I can take it. Find me fighting the good fight these places: 

Saturday, February 7

New York Comic Con

Jacob K. Javits Center

655 West 34th Street

New York, NY

5pm-6pm Signing at Autograph Area table #6

Giving away copies of ALREADY DEAD

6:30-7:30 PM 

The Vampire, Werewolf, and Zombie Round Table

Room 1A21

 Moderator: Dr. Arnold T. Blumberg, Curator of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, co-author Zombiemania Panelists: Charlie Huston, comic artist Ben Templesmith, and Andrew Hershberger, Registrar of Geppi’s Entertainment Museum, co-author Zombiemania, JC Vaughn, Michael Furno, and Caitlin Kittredge.

Sunday, February 8

12:15 PM - 1:15 PM

Writers on Writing: Books, Comics, TV, Movies, and Games panel

 Panelists: Charlie Huston, Thomas E. Sniegoski, Peter David, Michael Spradlin, Jeaniene Frost, Amber Benson

Room 1A14

Please note date change.  

 WEDNESDAY FEBRUARY 18TH AT 7PM.

I WILL BE READING FROM “THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH”

AT STORIES BOOKS

1716 SUNSET BLVDLA, CA 90026

213-413-3733

This is kind of special to me because Stories is my actual local indie bookstore.  There are only three indie bookstores left in the universe, look it up, and one of them is in walking distance of my home.  How cool.  Oh, crap, while I was writing this another indie went down.  Quick, while you can still see one of these things in the wild, come to Stories.

Will there be booze? Come now, what are we, children?  Do we ask such questions in times such as these? No, we take it for granted that the soothing balm of alcohol will be supplied.  And it will.  However, breaking with tradition, I may supply an alternative form of sippin’ liquor.  Man nor woman lives by bourbon alone.

Will there be trivia? Probably not.  That’s a Secret HQ deal.  Miss it and you got to wait for the next one.But I could weaken.Yes, there could be trivia. 

Who knows?

Before taking herbal health supplements meant to bolster your immune system when you fly.  Doing so may draw attention to the fact that some contain mild stimulants and should not be taken just before bed.  Most especially when one has been drink-whipped by the local alcoholics from Amazon the night before, double most especially when one has a flight at o-seven-crack-of-my-ass the following morn.  Do not seek a cohesion of thoughts in this post.  Charlie tired.  Charlie’s brain ravaged by an ill advised combination of gin, red wine, grappa and bourbon.  Why do Amazon people hate Charlie so?  Why do they not say, “No, Charlie!  Put grappa down!  Hot!  Hot!”?  That is what Charlie does when his child attempts to pick up something mortally dangerous.  But Charlie does not lay all blame at feet of Amazon.  Random House sales reps also not have best interests of Charlie’s liver at heart.  Not listen when Charlie say, “So late, so late.  Sleepy bye bye.”  No, mean Random House sales reps say, “One more round, jocko.  Mr. man talks a big game about his hollow leg, but now he’s trying to weasel out.  Pin him down and pour bourbon down his gullet until he chokes!  Bwah-ha-ha-ha.”  Grrr, make Charlie mad, if Charlie not sooo tired.  Next time Amazon and Random House try and show Charlie good time, Charlie say, “No!  Leave Charlie alone!  Hot!  Hot!”  And Charlie go back to hotel room and watch Beverly Hill Chihuahua and go sleepy bye bye at reasonable hour.    Thank you, Daphne, John, Vicky and Keith, Lynette, Dave, Terry, Jeff and Kristen.  Thank you Seattle Mystery Bookstore.  Thank you Third Place Books.  Thank you Seattle.   See you all in about a year, after I recover. -c�

The old man turned the trick, as he always does, at last night release party for THE MYSTIC ARTS OF ERASING ALL SIGNS OF DEATH.  Backed up with a taste of the High Life, the feller got the job done.  However, my thanks for a fine evening extend beyond the whisky and beer that lent flavor to the event.  They stretch to all the folks who came by to grab a book, say hi, and join us for a beverage.  They stretch even further to the Davids, for again opening the door to their shop SECRET HEADQUARTERS and making us feel at home.  Seriously, people, we do this once or twice a year, and it’s always a great fucking time.  If you live in the area, come and join us for the next one.  In the meantime, I’ll be in Pasadena tonight at Vroman’s (695 E. Colorado Blvd., Pasadena, CA)for a 7pm reading and signing.  Hope to see you there. �