The Dog Days Of August...

...didn't seem to affect a true bad-ass like Bob Gibson, who pitched the only no-hitter of his Hall of Fame career on August 14, 1971, blanking the Pirates 11-0 and striking out 10 Bucs (and driving in three Cardinal runs) in the process.

For us mere mortals, however, August has a way of collecting dues that we'd neglected to pay earlier. Which, in a nutshell, is why there hasn't been a new update on this blog in two weeks — I've just been too damn cheesed from two and a half months of hitting the promo trail hard (and too far behind in my regular work and correspondence) to write much. But I'm starting to get my second (or eighth) wind, so I thought I'd check in and share a few things.

My Seattle and North Carolina Big Hair & Plastic Grass visits were both quite successful and a lot of fun. It probably wasn't the wisest move to book Seattle events in early July, i.e. the most beautiful time of year in the Jet City, or North Carolina events in late July, i.e. the must humid and miserable time of year in the south. And yet, a lot of very enthusiastic folks showed up in both cities to hear me read, buy copies of the book, and share their own memories of baseball in the 1970s. A hearty tip of the Monsanto Toupée goes out to all of those awesome people who came by and said hey, as well as to Andrew McKeag, Scotty Giampino, Ben London and Kurt Bloch for saving my ass when it looked like my party at Seattle's Feedback Lounge was gonna fall through due to lack of DJs and/or DJ equipment, and to the Oscar Gambles for delivering a most righteous blast of '70s hard rock at my Slim's party in Raleigh. And of course, a big thanks to Barbara Mitchell and Erik & Robin Sugg for hosting me in Seattle and Raleigh, respectively.

I do have a few more BH&PG events coming up: I'll be reading at the Jan Larsen Art gallery in Brooklyn on Thursday, September 2nd as part of Gelf Magazine's Varsity Letters Series, and I'll be reading in San Francisco on Friday, October 8 at the Hemlock Tavern as the Litquake Festival presents: It's All Over But The Crying — A Night Of Authors On Sports. And I'm still thinking of pulling together one more L.A. event before the season's over. To everyone who sent me "Come to Portland/Austin/Denver/Boston/DC etc" messages, I thank you for your encouragement and enthusiasm — I really wish I could have just jumped in a convertible and spent the summer traveling from town to town hawking BH&PG out of the trunk. Well, there's always next year...

Oh yeah — also wanted to alert you all to a very cool write-up of BH&PG from Ben Platt at MLB.com. While some sportswriters have been less than receptive to the book, Mr. Platt interviewed me over a fine lunch at Pizza Buona a few weeks back, and he really seemed to share my enthusiasm for '70s baseball and understand what I was trying to do with Big Hair & Plastic Grass. Much obliged, Mr. Platt...

And now, back to our regular programming...

Comments

[Bruce Markusen]

Dan,

The "Oscar Gambles?" Did not know that there was such a band!

[Dan E]

Bruce — they're actually a (very cool) band called the Static Minds, who briefly renamed themselves (and donned afro wigs and learned a bunch of '70s hard rock tunes) for their performance at my Slim's party. They were awesome!