I had a speech last night at Cartwrights, next door. These are part of the bi-weekly History Dinner series. This is our fourth year. The first season I did all the talks. Now I share the load with Marshall Trimble and others and it's a beautiful thing.
Sold out crowd. Talked about growing up on a historic highway and that led to my new book, "The 66 Kid" and that led to quite a few book sales.
Cartwrights with my new pop-up bannersA great audience and a fun time was had by all, except for this one guy. He used to live in California ("I had to get out of Soviet California") and his friend brought him by selling him on the idea that I was going to talk about cars.
Uh-oh.
As I scanned the room during my talk everyone was engaged except for the Car Guy. He was looking down at his plate in disgust, even shaking his head. I tried to ignore him, but in a small room with 60 people that's hard to do. I finally just engaged him and told him not to go to sleep and he snotted off, "Who could blame me?" I just laughed and kept going.
Got a warm applause at the end and sold a case of books with compliments all around and a pocket full of twenties as I waddled out the door. A very successful night, all around, but who did I think about on the ride home? And this morning when I got up? And on the drive into work? Crazy.
The BaBrogie Law was, and is, in full effect (it's in the book). Wish I knew how to handle pricks like this, but somehow I think Jack has the right idea.
"I don't know, I don't care, and it doesn't make any difference."
—Jack Kerouac
