The Lucky Traveler

Buddhist Temple

Hey y'all,

So I'm in Thailand.

After 2 days of exhausting travel, this trip is already off to an incredible start. Except for the Tantra workshop that starts today, I came here with no plans and no itinerary, just freewheeling it as I go along.

It's one thing to do that on home ground where I speak the language with my own vehicle to get around. It's another to do that on the other side of the world when I've never been to SE Asia before.

For a change, Facebook actually served its original purpose of connecting people to each other. I know Kip from my time in Alaska, and I haven't seen him in over 10 years.

Anyway, he saw my posts about traveling to Chiang Mai - and since he is conveniently in Chiang Mai - he reached out via FB I spent my first night in Thailand wandering around the night market with Kip and 2 new Alaskan friends - Angela and Nate, who are both taking 2 week Thai massage courses.

We ate a yummy vegan (you would have loved this, Sabby!) Thai dinner on wood plates (they even had wood straws) in a hole-in-the-wall gem of a place.

What do we eat?

I may even take a cooking class there when I'm done with my Taoist and Tantra Sex, Energy, and Ecstatic Love workshop.

Anyway, Kip and Angela are going to Laos on a Mekong River trip after she's done, and I've already been invited to join them. They mentioned interest in hearing all about this workshop, especially after I read to them the course descriptions.

Of course, I'll join them because the timing is perfect and because I can, and I'm here to have spontaneous adventures.

These are the advantages of traveling solo with no itinerary.

And I'd be an idiot not to.

Kip is one of those people that you hear about before you meet him. He's a legend among his friends. He works out of Anchorage now, but was part of a gorgeously wonderful group out of Skagway when I met him.

The people who called Skagway home were unbelievably warm and friendly, not to mention incredible fun. The year round population there is maybe 300 people in the winter, but it goes way up to more than 1500 when the summer people come back. Many of the summer people travel like lunatics in the winter before coming to Skagway to work for the summer - and they come back every year and some eventually settle down there.

My first impression of that town was pretty vivid.  A group of us from Juneau went to Skagway for a weekend of partying someplace that wasn't Juneau. The main drag of Skagway looks like a movie set of the mining days and the wild West or Wild Alaskan days.

But Mo's was the local bar that was too plain to draw in the tourists. This is where the locals went when they were done entertaining the tourist fantasy of the last Frontier.

So we hung out at Mo's and watched the locals as they let their hair down and came out of character to be themselves, drinking and smoking, etc.

Then "Get Together" by the Youngbloods comes on over the sound system and magic happened. The locals all stopped their conversations, started bopping their heads back and forth to the music, and with happy, smiling faces, sung the refrain:

"Come on, people now,

Smile on your brother,

Everybody get together,

And try to love one another

Right now."

 

And they did that with every refrain. It was surreal.

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XRbTvoxRNxM

 

Alaskans are amazing people, and some of the strongest souls I've ever known I know from my time there. However, they are not warm and fuzzy. Skagway is the outlier.

I don't know if Kip was at Mo’s that night, but he and his posse would have fit right in with bopping heads, smiling faces, and singing voices.

I didn't meet him until a few years later when one of his friends, Paul, was in my Tlingit Culture and History class and became one of my friends. His Skagway friends came to see him often in Juneau, so his friends became my friends, and that was how I got to know just how awesome Skagway folks were - and I'm sure still are.

Paul and friends had done some pretty impressive travels, but they all claimed to revere Kip as The Man when it came to high adventure. And they were only half joking.

He was not what I expected when I met him. I was expecting somebody more studly and less odd, but Kip was as awesome and joyful and free and larger-than-life as his friends described him.

He still is.

If you can imagine a Generation X Dean Moriarty of On the Road - much healthier, less drug-addled, but with the same high energy who has been everywhere, that gives a pretty accurate image of Kip. He really is a restless soul with a gypsy heart, who never met a stranger and is in constant motion.

This man has been EVERYWHERE

"Haven't you traveled all over the world?" I asked.

"Well, I've never been to the Philippines," Kip answered.

Jetlagged me struggled to keep up my first night. But he kept me up and running, so I didn't sleep during the day. Thus I became acclimated (sort of) to Thailand time.

I think it's an auspicious sign that my journey started with Kip.

 

Peace,

Mana

Tripping Through Wonderland and Hobo Punks - On the Road #21

Hey y'all,

Every time I think my little road-tripping book tour has hit a lull, something happens.

Way back on my first stop in Homer, a free-spirit that found his way to my Arabian Nights booth-style set up, whose roommate had listened to a story and bought a book, mentioned that he was selling "the key to art."  

And pray tell, what is your key to art?

Oh, a concoction of chocolate and mushrooms.

It had been years since I jumped down the rabbit hole. 

Since he supported my endeavors, I felt obliged (and happily so) to support his. And then I didn't use the key to art to open the door to new dimensions until last night. 

But that's okay...

My date from last week had never done mushrooms before. Since he expressed curiosity and willingness, I offered to share “the key to art” (and other dimensions) with him, excited to have somebody to share them with.

Anyway, he and I ate the magic chocolate, and walked to the park near the neighborhood of Turnagain, in Anchorage.

It wasn't long before we crossed paths with the professional, purposeful couple wearing matching jeans, matching down jackets, and matching boots purposefully striding their way back home, hunched over in joyless discomfort. 

They had had their healthful walk in the outdoors and were ready to return to where they could be at ease.

Indoors.

Then we came across the group that halloed into the dark and walked past us with their faces to the breeze and their shoulders back. It was clear that they were enjoying the cold and themselves in the cold.

After the woods, we wandered in the very pristine neighborhood of Turnagain with their artistic houses.

Thus our voyeuristic trip began as the mushrooms hit a peak.

Being from the South where most of the really nice neighborhoods were in areas that had been built a long time ago, it was something to see the expression of affluence in a city that is still growing into its personality. 

Many of the homes were showy and I couldn't get over all the huge picture windows, with tasteful lighting whether people were up and about, at home, or away.  

Looking into somebody else's world, we saw fine art displayed in tastefully decorated homes. It was as if their privileged way of life was on display to anybody who cared to look.

"Looky here! See my fabulous home! My beautiful art, luxurious furniture, and unique knick knacks. Wouldn't ya just love to live here? Aren't ya jealous?" 

It was Life as a Peepshow, now you see me, now you don't. 

Occasionally, we'd see signs of human activity, a mother dancing the boogie woogie to show off her moves to her son, her head obscured by the glass, with a bird's eye view of her gyrating torso.

We also passed houses with normal windows, as well as bushes to hide from the stares of the nosy, mushroom-tripping voyeurs like me and my date. But for the most part the houses in the neighborhood screamed:

"Here I am! I have arrived!” 

There was a car that kept creeping past us. The neighborhood watch wondered what we were up to. 

We were clearly not one of the Joneses. So were we casing the neighborhood? Looking to defile one of the virginal showpieces with our criminal intent?

Then there was the house with the huge yard, and the only thing on display was the blue room in the basement.

I overstepped the boundaries, and entered the yard to get a better look. And that’s when we got caught. 

But the guy who did was even more of an oddball in that neighborhood as we were. But he was perfect for us in the state we were in.

His name was Bradley.

He was clad in tight faded black jeans, a black Carrhart jacket, a grubby black tee shirt, camouflaged by a red and black checked scarf, a gold chain with a medallion, shiny black cowboy boots, a faded American flag bandanna wrapped around his head, and metallic pink sunglasses (it was night) perched from his ears to his crown. 

He was very compact, no taller than five foot four and he had the scratchy vocals of a skid-row drunk. 

Bradley was the lost soul younger brother living in the basement of his brother's and his brother's girlfriend's house. He smelled like an Altoid factory.

He came out of the blue basement to find out who we were and what we were about. While he was there, he indulged in a forbidden cigarette and told us about himself and how he came to be there.

I couldn't stop staring at him as he talked incessantly of clearing out the yard we’d just invaded.

It had been crowded with the abandoned vans, trucks, and other vehicular junk the brother’s girlfriend's deceased father left behind. 

Apparently, the dead dad had been a hoarder when he was alive, and his daughter was having a hard time letting go of her daddy's excess baggage.

"She will not get rid of the abandoned airplane parts in the back yard. This was her father's house. She has four or five houses all over. She calls me brother-in-law, but I don't see my brother getting married. He says she's the one though."

The car that had been following us for our walk redoubled its vigilance after this interaction.

I figured the neighbors must have been grateful to have the yard cleared out of the junkyard effects, even if they gritted their teeth at the presence of Bradley. 

Whoever that woman was, his brother’s girlfriend must have been really in love. Chances were, Bradley was probably very helpful.

On a professional note, an unexpected thing has happened.

I may have an opportunity to freelance an article to the Anchorage Press, so I'm interviewing people who used to be the homeless teenagers in major cities with a liberal bent across the country - who have done their fair share of squatting, hitchhiking, and train hopping. 

I found out there is a large community of hobo punks from Anchorage on out because they've found a niche here. 

They have one hell of a story, kind of nice to focus on telling the tale that belongs to other people. 

It’s been a couple of years since I've been in reporting mode, but it's a good change. 

The Press has at least nibbled on the bait, keep your fingers crossed for me. Will they bite?

I'll be back in Juneau from October 25th to November 1st when I go to the lower forty-eight. Look forward to seeing everybody...

Peace,

Montgomery

PS If you’d like to read the blog post where I met my date that I later tripped on mushrooms with, click here.

 

Let Me Just Say One Thing...AAIIGGHH!!! - On the Road #17

Angry New Yorker dude made this guy look mellow.

Hey y'all,

 I have seen the future I could have had and it just scared the shit out of me. 

I never, ever thought I would say this, but…I am - with great humility - profoundly grateful for the eight years I spent slinging booze, cussing out drunks, throwing grown men out of bars, and sighing helplessly while at the mercy of women in the throes of alcoholic switch-bitch psychosis.

But goddamn! Tonight has shown me that my time spent as a bartender were not only years not wasted, but they saved me from possibly becoming one of the people I just met at a workshop on self-publishing. 

Cool mask. Never wore one while at work.

I’ve been holed up in an accidental cabin behind the Brown Bear Saloon in Indian, Alaska. This place is a spit away from Anchorage, with its own itty-bitty town vibe. The owner of the place said he learned everything about what not to do in constructing a cabin while he was building the one I’m staying in. 

I didn’t care. I had to have it for the loft and the windows, but what he said about the wiring made me a tad nervous. One of the disadvantages of being on the road, sleeping in the Brown Beast, in hostels, in my tent, etc. is that the creative juices really start to pump and there's no place to spill them. 

Since what I'm doing does qualify as a business trip - hee-hee, haw-haw - I could write it off on my taxes to give myself that precious writer's space while fulfilling my storytelling/bookpeddling commitments in the greater Anchorage area.

Well, last night’s storytelling event at the Oasis was especially demoralizing. It’s been a while since I've hit a low, and I know it's all part of the process. But it still sucks. 

So, tonight I decided to do something different. So I went to Border's to a workshop on self-publishing.

This photo is much more stunning than the group of people I sat with.

Incidentally, Border's here in Anchorage is pretty right-on. Jess French found a way around the corporate structure to give me a reading/signing. Since the critical mass was narrowed down to those who liked to read, I had no problem approaching the people my gut instinct told me would be open to what I had, and introducing myself and what I was doing. My gut was on the ball that night. Every person/couple I picked listened to a story. All of them, except the respite provider with her client, bought a book. One couple even bought two.

But back to my self-publishing workshop story…

Since the weather's been stunning and I was on a writing roll, I almost didn't go. But I managed to finish the rough draft of a new story and headed to the workshop. I was surprised to see several people at the table. They had already started even though it was not yet the start time of six o'clock.

I took my seat and sized up the characters around me.

The guy giving the talk had self-published his book as a Print-On-Demand project. He had eyes that seemed to swim inside his sockets. 

Then there was the 50+ New York-to-Anchorage transplant. His hair was dyed black and slicked-back in a ponytail. He also had eyebrows Anton LaVey would have envied. When he introduced himself, I could just hear the tension in his voice. He was angry. Angry and frustrated that he had never been published. 

Looking around at the others as the workshop dude did his talk, I had the sense that everybody there was on the New Yorker's page. 

This was one serious, tight-assed group of people. It seemed as if this was a core writer's group that had workshops at Border's on a regular basis. 

Oh, Chicks with Bics – this night made me miss you so. We actually have fun when we get together. We laugh every time. I don't think any of these people have had a good chuckle in years.

Chicks with Bics enjoyed strawberry chocolate pizza and wine, but these ladies give off a joyful vibe.

 This was the most joyless group of intellectual idiots I've met in years. These are the kind of people who give intelligence a bad name.  

Most of the people there were in their 50’s and 60’s. I had the impression that they had lived mostly inside their minds, and hadn’t lived nearly enough in their bodies, much less the world beyond. 

Chances are, they probably wouldn't understand the value of living for the sake of enjoying yourself. 

The pursed lips, the fidgets, the jerks, and the insistence on sticking with the program – I guess they wrote and shared at these workshop? Even the workshop dude felt the need to get on with it and wrap things up with his particular talk, so the others could get going with what they wanted.

On the upside, this only took a half an hour of my life because I left as soon as workshop dude was done. No way was I going to write with these folks.

Every single one of them - male and female, young and old, plain and pretty, gay and straight – reminded me of the maxim: “You need to get laid.” Every single one of them probably needed to get laid really, really badly.

Have sex. You’ll feel better.

 The men needed to cut loose and be so obnoxious they might get 86ed from a bar. The women need to get so shnockered to end up sobbing hysterically in the ladies room of the local karaoke bar, struggling to get into their painfully tight shorts while their string bikini panties get tangled around their crotch. All the while testing the patience of the female bartender who had to babysit this embarrassment to womanhood who couldn’t remember her name, much less her address. 

It is impossible to recreate an image of that hot mess, but i was grateful and surprised to find this on pexels and pixabay.

For the record, I was the bartender in that sordid little scene, not the drunk bitch. 

But that's not the point. The point is that the people at that dismal self-publishing workshop really needed to actually have some life experiences that would inspire stories other people might actually want to read.

For instance, the workshop dude told his tale of self-publishing through a small POD publisher that charged him for their services, but got him distribution on Amazon and his one year contract. It cost him more than he made, and in one year he sold 300 copies.

“I didn't have to lift a finger to do it," he smirked.

Anyway, workshop dude with the swimming eyeballs moved on to greener pastures. He got some reviews from total strangers on the Barnes and Noble site; and a bigger small publisher (at least I believe that’s how it was) that had formerly rejected his work, has now picked up his book. He felt successful and good for him.

It all comes down to perspective. 

I received my books in early July and it's now late September. I've probably given away about 80 books, and mailed 20 (my mother said she can sell them). But I've sold just under 200 books in less than three months. I have spent way more money this way. I've also lifted many fingers, some in obscene gestures.

But the experiences I've had doing my little grass-roots book tour have been the stuff of dreams during the best of times, and the content of nightmares at their worst. Most, if not all of these vivid experiences, became the subject of my emails to you.

I don't know if I'll sell or give away all 1100 copies, but I'm sure I'll outsell 300 books in 9 more months. I'll also have more fun doing it.

Maybe I’m an optimist. Maybe I'm out of my mind. If nothing else, this DIY booktour/roadtrip has given me plenty to write home about. 

Don't forget to check out www.juneaumusic.com for all your social butterfly needs.  And while I'm plugging Jason's site, I'll plug myself. "Ella Bandita and other stories," is sold at Rainy Day Books and Hearthside Books for 10 bucks. I'll be in town for a few days in October. Call me and I'll sign it for you. 

By the way, would anybody like to review my book for the local paper? 

Peace,

Montgomery

PS My oh my! How self-publishing has changed since 2005. Much of this story is now outdated to the point of unrecognizable. But it’s fascinating to see how Amazon was a player in the Self-Publishing World even then. And Border’s has been out of business for years. I’m still sad about that.

PPS I have less than 150 copies of the original 1100 left. So, in all I did pretty well.

PPPS If you’d like to read the blog post about my times at the Brown Bear Saloon, click here.

I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry... On-the-Road Loneliness Nobody Talks About - On the Road #15

Hey y’all,

I wanted to show off. At the time, I wanted nothing more than to entertain my audience of friends and family.

Strangely enough, that is what I regret the most about the email journal I kept of my DIY booktour/roadtrip in 2005-2006.

That yearlong odyssey was one of the most incredible experiences of my life. That doesn’t mean it was easy. I only wrote home about the fun stuff, and therefore, I wasn’t being fully honest.

I never wrote about the loneliness. Those long stretches of desolation only came out in hints here and there that only the very perceptive picked up on.

I was so lonesome a sensation of grayness permeated everything.

Isolation has a relentless quality. 

From what I remember of that trip, there were many chunks of time when I was so lonesome a sensation of grayness permeated everything.

After the excitement of the first weeks wore off, and as summer gave way to autumn, the other travelers had gone home. That’s when I realized that in the “us vs. them” mentality of most Alaskan small towns, I was one of “them.”

Even though at that time in my life, I had lived in Juneau/Douglas for enough years that I had earned my Alaskan spurs, I was not an integral part of the places I passed through in the Interior 

I sold books pretty consistently. Since I had several hundred books in the back of the Beast, I was always “ON.”

Alaskans are very big on community. Contributing to the village is a core value of this state in a way that is lacking in many others.

Travelers and vagabonds don’t invest themselves in the communities they visit. We’re there for our own experience. If we’re cool and awesome about that, we come and go without impact, and are always welcome to come back.

Travelers are there for their own experience.

 The locals were very nice. People talked to me readily at the bar or the coffee house, and seemed curious about this journey I was on. But nobody invited me home for any dinner, nor to any potlucks that happen as the darkness comes and the summer goes. 

I could hardly blame them. Even in my chats with people, I couldn’t connect with them any more than they could connect with me. The locals were settled and on home ground, while I was on the road.

Constant motion does something to a person.

A few months later, when I would be in Colorado, a college friend told me that I seemed very ungrounded. She was right. It was impossible to stay grounded when all I had to do was pack up the Beast and move on, and that created a here-today-gone-tomorrow mentality.

I remember when the switch flipped in my mind. It was around the 3-month mark.

After that, the only people I could relate to were other travelers looking for the next place to live. Although they were filled with excitement and a sense of adventure (which for me, was like cool water while dying of thirst in the desert), they were as unsettled as I was.

I learned to make the most of every genuine connection, however brief. Every chat and every conversation gave me the nourishment I needed to stay somewhat tethered to humanity, and kept the relentless grayness at bay, and for that sliver of time, I felt relief.

I can’t believe this is my life I’m living. I am so blessed.

And then something would shift. The next adventure would begin, and I was off on another limb of this odyssey. I would be so excited I would forget the loneliness. All I could think was:

“I can’t believe this is my life that I’m living. I am so blessed.” 

Peace,

Montgomery

 

PS: This post is from memory, written now about the DIY booktour/roadtrip I was on for a year during 2005-2006. To see the previous post, Lazy Hiking and Positive Omens, click here.

Lazy Hiking and Positive Omens - On the Road #14

Hey y'all,

Honest...I think I wouldn't be keeping a journal if I wasn't sending it to fifty people. It's weird, but even though I have little to say this week, I feel compelled to write anyway. 

For those of you who live in Alaska, ignore this if you like, because we experience cool shit like this all the time. This is more for those who live elsewhere. 

I love lazy hiking. Sitting on my duff whenever I feel like, zoning out until I feel like getting up and moving again. 

It's the peak of autumn right now, and the colors are breathtaking. Staying last weekend in Denali, I couldn't find my camera before going on a hike; but I looked at the cloudy, rainy skies and figured it wasn't that important, so I left without it.

Of course, lots of special Kodak moments happened.

"Etch it in your brain," my inner voice said. "That way you can take it with you when you die." 

That's very nice, but I still wish I had my camera with me. Even if I can recall the image vividly at will, my bragging rights have been severely stunted.     

There had been a group of fitness-junkie hikers that zoomed up to the overlook and back, while I puttered along and sat on my ass regularly. They said the view was "awesome," and nothing else.

But they didn't have a squirrel flirting with them from branches three feet above their heads, trying to seduce some snacks out of them. I did. And that's the kind of thing that happens when you do lazy hiking. 

I continued on up even though the fog was totally socked in and it looked as if I wouldn't be getting any "awesome" views. But I saw at least five flocks of migrating (after asking around, I decided they were cranes) birds flying above me as they made their way to their winter homes. 

Whatever they were, it was impossible to miss them, because their purring birdcalls could be heard for quite a few minutes before I actually saw them. 

I had also seen a flock of cranes (they definitely were) flying above me in Fairbanks. And I saw folded cranes in Gulliver's - who is carrying my book - and in the College Coffeehouse - where I did my last minute storytelling.

My time in Fairbanks was effortless.  

Cranes are definitely a "thing" in my life, whether they're made out of feathers or paper. What can you expect from a woman who folded a thousand cranes and put most of them up on her wall? 

But back to my hike. I made it up to the overlook and there was a ridge trail continuing on. Once at the top of the hill, I hiked the ridgeline. The undulating ease of the ridge is the hikers reward for getting there. 

The mountainsides were stunning with the red, gold, and fiery colors, and the deep green spruce speckled throughout. The fog kept coming in and going out, and eventually, the rainy skies cleared up. 

The views alone were enough to make me regret my camera. And that was before I saw the sheep. 

Going the extra distance was worth it. A quarter mile up the ridgeline, I saw a horned head poking around a rock staring at me, and a smaller head joined hers. 

Looking to the right, I saw a young Dall ram - his horns hadn't curved all the way around yet - poking along the stray plants munching away. He gave me a bored glance and kept chewing. 

The mama sheep and her young were just a little more nervous. They were also right on the trail, so I gave them time and space to move, which they did hesitantly, eyeing me all the while. 

I watched the sheep, the lamb, and the ram for a while, cursing myself the whole time for not searching more diligently for my camera. They practically posed for me, and there was nothing but my memory to remember them by.  

I passed them and sat on a rock that gives that "top of the mountain" feeling and just soaked in the space around me. After a few minutes of sitting on my duff, I head footsteps behind me and turned to see yet another Dall sheep coming up the trail and she stopped about six feet away from me.

We just stared at each other for a few minutes. Maybe if I'd stayed still, she would have strolled right past me, but as soon as I moved, she scurried to the side and around me to join her group.

Now that was cool. 

Between the flocks of cranes and the sheep, I took the whole day as a sign that things were looking up and a breakthrough had happened on my book tour. 

Maybe I'm a superstitious ninny.

But this week, I heard from the Anchorage Press that they are featuring my last storytelling at Organic Oasis, instead of just putting it in the calendar. And book sales have been steady. Maybe that's only a coincidence.

Either way, I still love lazy hiking. 

By the way, many thanks to Jason Caputo for featuring my journal entries on his website, www.juneaumusic.com. Don't forget to check out the site regularly for info on what is happening in Juneau musically and artistically.

Besides some of the links are cool, but beware the infinite David Hasselhoff crotch shot. Unless of course, you like narcissism...and David Hasselhoff. 

Peace,

Montgomery 

This excerpt from my DIY booktour/roadtrip in 2005/2006 was one of my favorites. I don’t know if the juneaumusic.com site is still active with or without David Hasselhoff’s crotch shot. But my email journal ended up being my first blog during the infancy phase of blogging. Andrea, who was on my email list, forwarded it on to Jason and that’s how it all began. If you’d like to see the previous letter in this journal, click here.

I LOOOOOOOOOVVVVVVE FAIRBANKS!!!!!! - On the Road #13

Hey y'all,

I Love Fairbanks. I love it, love it, love it!!!!!

Let's color this email happy, baby!

(No color fonts in SquareSpace, unfortunately, hence the colors in the photo.)

Just when it seemed as if I was burrowed in the vat of discouragement, eating bitterness for breakfast, I came to Fairbanks. Never mind the drive up with the fall colors lighting up the tundra - that was beautiful! - but at Fairbanks, I arrived.

Granted my trip was not just sneers, you're-weird-looks, and other unpleasant run-ins - I have met so many wonderful, supportive, and amazing people at every stop...but in Fairbanks - at least from the college side of town to Ester, it wasn't just random individuals here and there, but packs of people in general. We all know that there's safety...and strength in numbers.

And coming here on the tail end of the Alaska Fair was just what my spirit needed to keep going.

I could feel from the first that Fairbanks would be different. At Gulliver's - awesome bookstore! - I ran into an acquaintance I met in Juneau - several of those up here - and was bellyaching about the trip and the difficulties of selling my own work, and myself, etc. when a friend of his sat down and after hearing what I was doing, offered to buy a book.

That night, I was at a dinner party in Ester when Jen, an artist I'd met in Girdwood, suggested that I go by this coffeehouse and if they didn't have anything scheduled, ask to do a storytelling there. Sure enough, one night was open, so I managed to set something up at the last minute. She also challenged me to "creatively visualize" a hundred people waiting in line to buy my book.

"If you do that every day for a month, I promise you, things will happen."

On the same day, I was at Gulliver's again, waiting for my turn for free computer usage when the manager came by and said they'd take five books to start out.

I also sold three more to acquaintances that I ran into and a stranger I'd just met.

The next night, I had a couple of groups, Jen's friends and people that I met at the hostel show up for the storytelling - one man bought five books, a Japanese lady bought two, and yet another bought one. Better yet, Ethan, a high school English teacher bought one and asked permission to photocopy it, so he could teach it.

"I love your book!" said Kliff, a drummer who is a friend of a friend. And apparently, he has raved about it to everybody he knows, because the Ethan the teacher was a friend of his.

At the Pub that night, I sold two more. I also met a radio dj who wants to interview me when I come back to town - because of course I will!!! - and one of the women who bought a book and was at Jen's dinner party - is a natural at marketing and is already cooking up ideas for a dinner party with a story segment in between courses. I had been wanting a venue to do "Ella Bandita" as a combo dinner theatre/tableside storytelling, and here Sarah was just handing it to me.

"Fairbanks is a place where a lot of people are trying to create something," said Jay, a musician who lived in Juneau briefly a few years ago. "So people really try to support each other here."

Jen said her art has just taken off since she moved here. Her friend Heather, who makes hats does quite well at the Farmer's Market.

I don't know what it is about this town, but after weeks of people's walls, boundaries, suspicion, and all other forms of attitude, the feeling of openness, generosity, and support was like the nectar of the gods. I sold twenty books in a few days without even trying and I have a posse in less than a week.

Hope everybody has patience with my bragging rights, but hell, this was long overdue.

Did I mention that I love Fairbanks?

Montgomery

This is from the DIY booktour/roadtrip I took in 2005-2006. This stop was one of my most joyful, and I still have cherished memories from that time. The DJ ended up being a total dud in the long run, fyi.

If you’d like to read the previous On the Road post that strongly contributed to the relief of this journal entry, click here.