I’m doing some readings and such in the upcoming weeks. Sins, sports, and punk rock!
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Friday January 18, 7pm
Booksmith, 1644 Haight Street, San Francisco
Launch of a new quarterly from The Fray storytelling empire. This premier issue is titled “Busted: True Stories of Getting Caught in the Act.” Readers include Joe Loya, Steve Silberman, Kirk Read, Kate Kotler, and myself. Emcee: Fray editor/publisher Derek Powazek. My piece details the experience of smuggling a severed swordfish beak from Chile into the United States (which a few of you might have heard on Air America Radio).

Saturday January 19, 730 pm
Edinburgh Castle, 950 Geary, San Francisco
Accompanying my pal Chuck Thompson, who’s on tour for his new book, “Smile When You’re Lying: Confessions of a Rogue Travel Writer” (Holt), which is getting rave reviews:

“(Thompson) knows the score and he tallies it accurately. … A dead-on demolition job. … The book is a savagely funny act of revenge.”—The New York Times

“Consistently irreverent, Thompson is wickedly entertaining … reminiscent of Chuck Klosterman and David Foster Wallace. … Thompson asks the right questions about why we travel, how we travel and what we expect from the experience. The unvarnished reality in these pages might just make you more eager than ever to hit the road.”—San Francisco Chronicle

Books will be for sale at both events.

The Litquake festival kicks off October 6, and runs through the 13th with events all over the Bay Area. I’ll be part of the Porch Light Storytelling night on Monday October 8th at the Swedish American Hall, along with Marta Acosta, Robert Mailer Anderson, Dave Eggers, Alvin Orloff, Milta Ortiz, Frank Portman, Eric Spitznagel, and Cameron Tuttle. Tickets are $15, available at ticketweb.com or cafedunord.com. I’ll also be producing a few of the other events, so please drop by throughout the week and say howdy. There’s over 350 authors this year, and over 50 events. For more info on Litquake check out our website at www.litquake.org.

On November 10 I’ll be part of the second annual Swearing Festival at the Edinburgh Castle Literary Pub. Events include The Mass Swearing Experiment, A Most Horrible, Vile Oaths contest, The Verbal Abuse Duel, live music, and Curse Torture, sponsored by The Dick Cheney Ideas Group. This gets really packed so plan ahead. For details go to castlenews.com.

I’m an occasional guest pundit/motormouth on this new podcast produced by filmmaker Danny Plotnick and distributed by San Francisco’s KQED public radio/TV empire.
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Monday July 10, I’ll be doing a reading at Stephen Elliott’s Progressive Reading Series, at The Make-Out Room, 3225 33nd Street in San Francisco. Starts at 7 pm, $10-$20 sliding scale.

Here’s a recent S.F. Chronicle article about the series.