La Vista - Luis Alberto Urrea

Wastelander Prologue

2009-07-01T15:26:00.002-05:00

I was ripping out the voluminous weeds that have overwhelmed my garden since I went on the cataclysmic book tour '09 edition. My head's still spinning--literayyly. I had a harsh attack of vertigo that comes and goes since the awful/wonderful events on the road. (See postings, below.) But I was out there in my Border Angels shirt with Chayo, our youngest, otherwise known as Sheena Of The Jungle. We were thrilled to find an albino millipede. That felt like some kind of good omen.

Well, you long-time victims, er, readers, of this blog are familiar with the wastelanders. I know lots of new people are looking in on us now. So a brief word of explanation.

I wanted to come up with a form of writing--not writing but sketching--that was agile and flexible and impressionistic. I wanted a form that would lend intself to the wanderings of soul and mind, as well as to the wanderings of body and event. Had to be fast, you see. And fun. Otherwise, really, why do it? I wanted to inject Big Fun into my writing/being! Recess! Everybody--hit the monkeybars!

This style started to assert itself. Looks like poetry, but it is not poetry. Though there are some poems in it, even haiku. It looks like Kerouac's sketches, but it isn't like them. Maybe a little like Thomas Wolfe's old notebooks, but more lyrical. Maybe like Joe Ely's wonderful book, Bonfire of Roadmaps, but more intuitive. Basically, all me, for better or worse. My thoughts, my eyes, my spirit. I like to see how things start to create themes in the real world, how images surface and shadows oif plots and stories seem to connect pine trees or aspens, say, 4000 miles away from each other.

Certain readers take offense when I talk about FAMOUS PEOPLE, as if their fame is something that I am using to boost myself. Perhaps, if you take these sightings as WTF moments, you will enjoy them. Seeing a famous guy is like seeing a bear. Besides, these are the folks I work with now. My...colleagues. Think of them as cafeteria ladies and hotel doormen. Or bears.

Finally, the term "wastelander" is a synonym for "writer" and comes from the fabulously out-of-date book, Dictionary of Modern American Synonyms by Homer Hogan. I have taken it as my own, and will put it on ball caps, t-shirts and lit journals till I drop.

And on these scribbles.

So watch for it. I'll be posting part one of the new series here soon. You can read older ones in the archive of this blog...until I put 'em in book form!

Wandering time 4ever, wish U were here, I remain
Yrs., Luigi

How I Spent My Summer Vacation II: The Sequel

2009-06-15T14:29:00.002-05:00

Kathi and Sam were so funny, and the wedding was warm and full of laughter and love.

But here's where you get fooled by all the joy and cake. We were both so tired we were thinking only of home. Dragging through the last event. Delighted that all reviews (barring Kirkus and a few bloggers) had been amazingly positive. So. I had a mid-day interview with the books editor at the SF Chronicle.

Wandered down there to the Yerba Buena Gardens. He set up his tape recoredr and told me he'd seen the reviw of my book. I smiled and went into my prepared pre-paid Humble Author mode, when he stopped me. "It's not good news for you," he said. Zim-zam and bam! Tour ends on an uncomfortable note--his reviewer hates my book because I "trivialize" the border. ha ha! Joke's on me, y'all! So I thanked him (?) and staggered off.

San Francisco tried to ameliorate the let-down as only SF can. The next day, we were treated to a 40 person totally nude bicycle parade. Yes, indeed. Purdy nude, my friends. Like, shaved nude. And, as I pointed out to my next audience, a few of the gents were rising to the occasion.

OK. Here's how love wins out, though. My last gig in SF and for the tour was the loegendary Writers With Drinks. At the Make-Out Lounge in the Mission District. Perhaps not the perfect fit for me, since I barely drink. But I thought it would at least be joyous.

Yes. Yes. Joy. Yes.

Our hostess was the hilarious and brilliant trans-gendered Charlie. When people wanted pictures of us together, we told them they were our senior prom pix. I did the greatest reading in the long history of readings. Ever. Nobody can tell me different. And, when I told the audience about my forthcoming drubbing in the paper, they raised their glasses in a very loud toast: "Fuck you, San Francisco Chronicle!"

How can you not be thankful?

Wow. I can't even tell you more. It was like that. Up and down. Terrible, then exploding with light and love in ways I would only sound silly or pompous to share with you. Now, coffee. Poems. Gardening. Exercise.

And into the sacred Rockies for some peace and...oh yeah, more autographs.

Thank you from both of us. We love you all. We love you, Charlie.

XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX, L & C

How I Spent My Summer Vacation

2009-06-15T13:44:00.001-05:00

"I retire at the end of every tour. When I'm on the road, I'm gritting my teeth and putting up with hotels and sleep deprivation and upset tummy. But when I'm off the road, the road suddenly sounds like a magical idea again...It's just the nature of the beast." Eric Clapton

Not that I'm Eric Clapton. No. I am Atomiko.

Got in last night at the end of the most tiring, vexing, horrible, wonderful successful book tour I've ever experienced. Readers who come here or follow Cinderella and me on Twitter know the story. I am, frankly, too tired and too charred to tell you everything. And I developed vertigo somewhere on the road, so this keyboard is lazily spinning through space as I try to write to you. But I'll give it a bit of a go. Won't have much time--going down to Chi tomorrow for my 10,000th NPR show in the morning; doctor on Wed. to make sure I have thwarted diabetes with my superhuman physique and workout regimen; then, to make sure the life extends for another week, we go to our trainer on Thursday. Not the optimum week as far a peace and quiet go, especially because we have to drive out of here for Aspen on Friday. Poor Cinderella. After all that, she will have to return to Seattle to continue to deal with the ghastly mom-death details.

Didn't Joe Walsh sing, "I can't complain but sometimes I still do"?

Life's been good to me so far...

All right. Let's see here. One terrible sad death. One funeral. Two weddings. Two receptions. Eight (?) radio shows. Chicago, Kankakee, Naperville, Phoenix/Tempe, Philadelphia, NYC, POrtland, Seattle, San Diego, Pasadena, San Francisco, Berkeley, Menlo Park, Capitola, Napa. Sorry, Washington, DC. Sorry, Printers Row, Chicago. And sorry, Elliott Bay Books in Seattle. We did what we could. Most days had three to four events--interviews, book signings, radio shows, readings at night. By the end of the month, we were down to our last bath-tub washed clean underpants. For sale on E-Bay! No, no. Gad. Just kidding.

For fans who get mad when I mention famous types, I will say that we met a lot of really wonderful writers. Heroes and new friends. Michael Connelly was a true gent. Saw lots of beloved old pals, too. Sherman Alexie and his wife Diane were bright lights at BEA for us--big hugs and love in da house. Spied on James Patterson and James Ellroy. And that "View" lady. It's like bird-watching. Saw China Mieville across the room because he's seven feet tall and rises like an alabaster tower of awesomeness. Were lucky enough to see Amanda Palmer sing, and Neil Gaiman lurking like Lestat in the shadows. Etc. Just so you know. Much fun available to you on book tour.

F'r example, let us examine the end of tour--San Fran Effin' Cisco. We were in rought, sad shapr, I'll admit. The funeral for grandma had been devastating, but sweet. I know Cinderella is going to piost a guest-blog here to try to answer the meny, many, many of you who wrote and tweeted us with such kindness and soul. It made us cry. Often.

What you don't always get in this career is a sense of family from your publishing house. Little, Brown and Hachette were, in every way, unfailingly generous and loving with us. From helping us with travel, to arranginmg for flowers to be delivered to us, to picking up our funeral hotel bill. They kept in contact with us all through that bad epoch. And Geoff Shandler offered me an out at any point in the tour. But WE REFUSED TO QUIT! No way, man. No. Not stopping. Tour discipline dictates that we finish. Besdies, poor grandma was so excited about Into the Beautiful North. Imagine how sad she would have been to destroy the tour. So we marched on. March or Die!

But Geoff offered to let me come home right to the last.

We got to SF after a brutal morning. Had to get up at 4:00 to catch a 6:30 flight. Uh-huh. You who know me know that was the time I used to go to bed. You don't go on book tour to sleep. Our charming escort, Alexandra (Alex! we love you!) picked us up in her 100 foot long Benz and started the Urrea marathon, going for hours anbd hours and miles and miles, from book store to radio station to book store to church hall to0 radio station to book store in every imaginable direction. I can't tell you where we went because I don't remember.

We stayed at my beloved Hotel Monaco. I have mentioned the Monaco in past blogs. I always stay there. You find The Kings of Leon or Chrissie Hynde in the lobby. But the staff knows your name, the rooms are really sweet, they have leopard-spot robes and naughty lingerie in the closets. A chihuahua mans the night desk and wags at you. And, if you're lonesome, they bring you a bowl with a goldfish. Stay there! The French restaurant next door is also excellent, and when the Mexican waiters figured out I was from Tijuana, they kept giving us extra goodies. We damaged ourselves with the food there. (Oh no--more treadmill, more sit-ups.)

In the middle of the occupation, we attended the delightful wedding of our pals Kathi Kamen Goldmark and Sam Barry. You lit fans might recognize them from The Rock Bottom Remainders.

Don't Squander Your Love

2009-06-02T22:06:00.003-05:00

I'm checking in with you, Dear Reader and Friend, from the middle of book tour. It has been a magnificent run so far, many cities and many hundreds of new amigos. But the tour is broken right now, and so are we.

It is Tuesday as I write this. On Sunday night, Cinderella's mother died. They were shocking her heart at her house as we talked to the terrified siblings on the cell phone. How perverse is life? We were in NYC's Hotel Warwick, Elvis's favorite hotel, and the hiding place of the Beatles. Living large. BEA had ended, and I had met heroes and critics and old friends--got to give big love to Sherman Alexie and his wife Diane. A wild little show at the KGB Bar. Everything you could hope for after five cities, seven or eight signings, four radio shows and even a wedding. With a couple of weeks to go. And...death.

It will never leave my mind that I spoke with "Grandma" on Friday as we trained from Philly to NY. She was giddy with the book and the tour. She had been calling all the book stores in Seattle to order the book so it would be all over town. She even figured out Twitter and this blog. If you look in the last posting's comments section, you'll see her first--and last ever-- comment.

My publisher has been so kind and generous to us. I still can't believe how good they have been to us. They got us home yesterday to get the kids, and they have helped us get airline tickets to Seattle for the awfulness. Ironically, Cinderella and I would have been there by Thursday anyway. Just a few days. But you don't always get a few days.

So events have been cancelled, and I apologize if you were looking for me out there. I know she would have wanted me to keep going, and she wouold have been mortified that her death blew this silly tour apart. So I'm going to still do selected things, in her honor. Believe it or not, we are flying to Portland tomorrow and I will do my appearance at Powell's. The publisher and the store to a lesser extent are counting on me. After the signing, we drive to Seattle. Funeral home details, and sadly no Elliott Bay Books noon appearance. But I will honor the University Bookstore gig at UW. The weekend is for the funeral--they want me to do the eulogy. I guess that's the curse of being the family writer.

We'll send the kids home Sunday and stagger on to California to honor all those events. Won't get home again till the 14th or so of June.

There are no guarantees, it's true.

We have been love-bombed by so many people, I can't even start to thank them all. Bloggers and critics, writers and Twitterers, students and agents--everyone. Thank you. We're doing our best. We're going to get through. But I'm telling you, if you love somebody, tell them now. If you're mad at them, get over it. If you miss them, write them or call them. Tomorrow might not come around in time. Love them now.

Don't squander your love.

L

So Long, See You Tomorrow

2009-05-19T12:21:00.002-05:00

Today is the official launch date of the book. We'll see what happens. You never know.

Thanks, everybody, for writing to us. Soon, the Beautiful North artcards will be sailing to you. I'll try to fill the requests as long as I can, so drop me a line w/ your address. As always, the Urrealists promise not to sell your data to spammers, porn sites, or male enhancement marketers.

We are leaving for Kankakee. Hope to see some of you there, Tuesday and Wednesday nights. Oh no--I won't see who wins American Idol! (Go, Adam.) Then back here for Anderson's Books in Naperville Thursday. After that--crack of dawn--Denver. See some of you at The Tattered Cover on Tudesday next week.

The schedule should be posted here on the new website. Wish we could all go together. Maybe for the paperback tour--we'll get an old Greyhound bus and take 40 pals with us! Everybody blogging and Twittering.

I'll be looking for you....

Swag! Merch! Goodies!

2009-05-16T14:08:00.003-05:00

Pssst! You wanna get a present from us? Send us your mail (street address) and we'll ship you a teeny tiny bit of Into the Beautiful North memorabilia. The Twitter folks are already on it.

Hit "contact," above, send me an email w/ your data. I promise not to sell it to a porn spammer.

Here Comes the Flood

2009-05-16T11:34:00.003-05:00

It's almost quiet around here this morning. Cinderella's off getting her Book Tour Hair done. I dreamed last night I dyed my hair black--Adam Lambert Fever? Oh, maybe the book tour jitters. I've put myself through book tour boot-camp with America's Top Personal Trainer, Nicki Anderson (TM, Patent Pending). My quads and my lats and my blatz and my shats are all stronger now.

And we've been preparing some merch and swag for fans--yes, there are copies of "The Magnificent Seven" for raffle. Yes, we are making a big stack of "Nayeli and Tacho's Drive-Time Playlist" of all the favorite songs of Tres Camarones and the main characters in the book. Yes, we have hand-fans made (if you've been in a tropical Mexican moviehouse, you'll recall these cardboard fans) with the logo of Tacho's "La Mano Caida" restaurant and internet cafe. We're having 500 post-cards made to give away and/or mail to fans. Thinkin' about t-shirts.

We're arranging for the tour to be a Twitter-fest: I'm hoping Cinderella and whatever Twitteroos present will keep up a running record of each gig--and we hope to use the twits to run some of the raffles. (It's the First Inaugural Tweet-Up Tour, for those of you who follow: never tried before. My small addition to the Twit alternative history being brought into the world 140 characters at a time.) Twitta Hatas don't "get it," but I always tell long-time fans of the blogs here that Twitter is a continuation of "The Wastelander's Notebooks," one of the most popular features of this website. I can't think of a better, more immediate way to peek into a writer's mind/soul/lunchbox. So, I guess, it's a way for us to whisper secrets, enjoy pillow-talk, laugh, share notebooks and journals. It's the phone call at midnight I might have made to you when we were 16--before we were respectable and married and too sleepy to play Leonard Cohen and Shawn Phillips songs over the phone.

A Tweet-Up is when Twitter folks meet face-to-face. I'm hoping to have at least one meet us at each gig. I also hope readers of this blog will come--a Blog-Up? Ugh... That sounds like stomach flu. "Mom! Chayo just blogged-up!" Anyway, if you want to follow the scribbles and the jottings, you can always see it all: Twitter.com/Urrealism. Join us!

I will "Wasteland" the trip as best I can on here, too. We'll have a teeny tiny notebook computer w/ us.

So. I'm not ready, but I never am. The clock runs out and we'll have to leave, ready or not. As the saying goes, "No choice, no problem."

So far, Into the Beautiful North has gotten generous, sometimes ecstatic, reviews. Except for Kirkus reviews--which often ahs the same guy review my books. Anonymously. It's easy to drygulch a cowboy when you have a mask over your face! I would take the review to heart and mend my bad-writer ways, except the review is full of crap. I do listen--though paying too much attention to reviews good or bad will drive you crazy.

One of my Twitter pals calls the book Into the Tweetiful North. Ha ha ha! Or, as my Mexican readers say it: Ja, ja, ja!

First stop: Kankakee, Illinois. May 19/20. Why? Because the book ends in Kankakee, and we have a long sweet history with that fine town. (I wrote a NY Times piece about them once.)

May 21: Anderson's Books in Naperville, IL. Home town, locals coming. We'll adjourn to a pub afterwards so I can say hey.

The next day, we leave for Denver. The Holy Rocky Mountains! Home of my Eternal Soul! The Bella Luna gang is having a wedding! And afterwards, The Tattered Cover. May 26, 7:30. B there or B square.

Tempe, AZ the next day...and on and on. Updates here.

I'll be looking for you.

Hope you win the raffle.

XXX, OOO, XXX
Ludwig Aethelbert Urias

Review

2009-05-09T10:30:00.002-05:00

Into the Beautiful North got a nice review in the Chicago Tribune this morning. Saw it before I had coffee--didn't need coffee anymore. The reviewer (the thoughtful Alan Cheuse) wants a sequel. Hmm. I like it. Good idea, Alan.

Anyway, here's the tiny URL, if you're interested:

http://bit.ly/M4LaS

Illinature

2009-05-05T16:25:00.002-05:00

(I dedicate this blog to my twiiter-pal, bermudaonion, who has a neighborhood bullfrog they call Jeremiah. Twitter.com/bermudaonion.)

You know the joke they tell un us in Illinois? "It makes you ill and it annoys you." Of course, you'd better be an insider to tell it--Chicagoans at least will give you a good trimmin' for cracking wise about their region. Sometimes, Illinois makes me ill--but not right now. Spring. It's a big green festival on Cinco de Mayo. Nature is bustin' loose.

I've been out there for two days, pulling weeds. Stocking up on my vitamin D and reasserting those ab-crunches. Mostly, it's quiet time for me to ponder things. Any gardener in Illinois knows the secret of the place: our rich black earth longs to become prairie and forest again, and it tries every chance it gets. That prairie, man--it's sneaky. It'll come into your back yard while you sleep and start an insurrection. The prairie can't figure out when we moved in, and it can't figure out how soon we're going to leave. We put all these boxes in its way, and run our metal buffaloes around on the black roads and just mess up the big bluestem and the thistle's day.

My lawn is pocked with hundreds of dandelions. Neighbors stop by to announce that they have lawn services that squirt "natural" and "green" pesticides and herbicides on their yards. I say to the finger-length earthworm I just woke up, "Can you believe that happy crappy?" Natural herbicides? The truth is, the lawn is what's unnatural. Let's face it--Illinois wasn't designed to be covered in green pool table felt. What's natural is those bright yellow dandelions. And here I am, grunting and pulling, removing the festive flowers so my lawn will look like it farted out of a machine. Any child knows that dandelions beat grass, but we adults like ORDER.

Now, I do not live in the woords. I no longer live in my beloved Rockies; I have left the mystical Sonoran desert; I no longer wander among drowsing gators in the Lousiaiana swamps. Yet...and still...we are inundated in nature right here. My trees have a seasonal woodpecker that gives them a serious workout. Sounds like a kid's machine-guy: ratta-ratta-ratta-ratta. We have the world's fattest possum and a quarrelsome Manos Family of coons that maraud at night. Our owl hangs in the tree outside my upstairs bathroom and whoots when I'm peeing--voyeur. The street has a redtail hawk that moves in around May and starts to remove squirrels and rabbits. I thought chipmunks were cool before I had tulip bulbs for them to detsroy.

We live about three miles from 75th St., with its prairie paths and open space--deer. About five miles from us in another direction is the semi-pristine forest owned by the Girl Scouts--deer. A mile from us is a golf course, forest preserve, and railroad right of way--deer. My old neighbors in Boulder would laugh at deer enthusiasm; how many gardens vanished overnight thanks to those damned mulies? When I first moved to Boulder, I was awakened by the sound of prowlers coming in my bedroom window--it was only deer, eating plums off the bush. Deer! Plums! I was up all night scribbling about it. I didn't know the real world was so...real.

According to the tracks, we have foxes and coyotes that sneal through on certain evenings. I keep the cat on my bed at night. All that, and dendelions. But long-time readers of my blog will know that I am most in love with our semi-wild, deeply paranoid, neighborhood turkey. It's weirdly love-lorn: it sits for long moments with its beak touching the front of our Honda, asking it, "Gurk? Gurk? Gurk?" It screams for me to come outsoide, and when I do, it hides behind our van and frets, "Whug? Whuuug?" Sometimes, it sees me coming, runs full sped to me, hits the brakes, and runs away. In good weather, I am always gratified that it shows deep interest in what we're watching on our TV. It pauses at our glass door and peers inside and seems to be insulting our chihuahua.

I write poems about the turkey, though it doesn't care:
hello wild turkey
you wander the neighborhood
talking to yourself

Or:
wild turkey in yard
was never deeply impressed
the provost called me

I put the turkey in my new novel! (Into the Beautiful North, out May 19--MAKES A GREAT GIFT, ahem.) When you see a post-card with a deeply paranoid turkey mentioned, that's him!

Ah, blessings, blessings everywhere. It's all writing. All of it. Writing is dandelions, waiting for that puff of air to spread the blossoming. My butt is muddy and my fingers black, my back hurts and my abs are achin'.

And I write.

I'm A Publicatin' Fool

2009-05-01T17:22:00.008-05:00

We had a great experience this week. In rain--Illinois is getting Seattle weather...looks like 14 days of rain around here--we had to drive down to Lebanon, Indiana to the Hachette warehouse to sign hardcovers of Into the Beautiful North. This is a treat reserved for few authors, and I was thrilled to get into that club. I was not thrilled to get up at 5:00, though. Nor to hit the road by 6:00 and toddle off in weather and Chicagoland traffic. But we hit it and quit it, in the timeless words of George Cilnton and P-Funk. We booked on down toward Indiana and coffeed-up at a Starbucks, then promptly sped past the I-65 turnoff toward Indianapolis.

(These are stacks of the new book! Pretty!)

So, here's what you have to do--you have to go to a shipping warehouse for a major publisher. If you love books and also movies like Star Trek--DUUUUDE. First of all, it's a thing of wonder, that building. We were placed aboard a golf cart, and we drove through the vastness of stacks and forklifts and ramps and chutes and pallets and books, books, books, books. The whole building is intelligent, and spends the day talking to itself via computers. A muttering, fussy building the size of the Mexican town in my novel! (OK, maybe not Trek. Maybe it's more like a mid-60s James Bond movie--where ninjas will break through the roof and try to blow up Blofeld and SMERSH.)

We went to a workroom at the far end of the maze, where two huge cart-loaded mountains of books awaited me. 2,000 copies. It was funny to see how this operation worked: we had four people unloading the carts and stacking books on the table; one person sat next to me, opening the books and putting the cover flap on the title page and passing the books to me; a women names Jesusa beside me taking the books and pulling the flap out; a woman named Mickie taking the books from jesusa and putting them in boxes. It was a clatch! Poor Cinderella, watched. And watched. And watched--I signed for five hours. (C edits to add: She wiped the sweat from my brow, took pictures and made wry quips)

Afterwards, we posed for pix in front of the pile--looking like hunters that had just brought down an elephant. I signed books for the employees. Then our hosts took us through the entire building to see how these books get from the publisher to you. It was astonishing.

They took me to a room where every Little, Brown first edition ever published is stored. Yes, Hawthorne. Yes, Louisa May Alcott. Did I want to steal? Ohhhh yeah. I got to sign the wall where some of the authors write their names. Michael Connelly, Preston & Child, my ol' compadre Sherman Alexie. The folks there asked for a cartoon, so I drew one on the wall. Just like high school. Except in high school, I was drawing sheep on bosoms and bellies. A wonderful job, if you can get it.

Three hours down; five hours there; three hours back. A marathon. I learned how cool twitter really is on the drive, by the way. I twitted about the purple trees along I-65, and somebody twitted me back with the botanical info about the trees!

Whew. My hand was sore. But the book is gorgeous. I can't attest to what's written inside the book, mind you. I did my best. What else can you do? So far, the response has been awesome--except Kirkus Review, who said you expect more of me than a lame-ass book like this. I reject that. But you will be the judges.

(This is me with the awesome Hachette crew of Doug, Alicia, and Kim. Thanks guys!)

Book tour is starting soon. We'll kick off in Kankakee, Illinois. (If you've read the book, or if you're going to read the book, you'll know why.) Then here, at Anderson's Books in Naperville. Then, all hell breaks loose. I'll try to keep you updated here. But if you want to come along, be with us on the road, in the readings, in the radio station studios, in the hotels, you're just going to have to bite the bullet and join us on twitter.

www.twitter.com/Urrealism

AS always, wish you were here.
XXX, L

Los Angeles Time Festival of Books

2009-04-27T16:28:00.003-05:00

The thing about the LATfob, as the twitterers call it, is that you always get a coffee cup. This was my third cup acquisition, so I'm feeling like an old hand. After several visits, and severeal appearances in the LAT op-ed, it's still weird to get there and know everybody working there looks at you and wonders who the hell you are. You can't blame them--they have Michael J. Fox and Clive Barker hanging around. Alyssa Milano! Dude, it's L.A.! All us writers form a wall of protoplasm in the green room, grunting our way through coffee and free pastry. I was dying, though, listening to the obscure drop the famous people name-bombs. "John Cusak said to me--and I LOVE that guy!--blah blah blah." That sort of thing.

My own fame-dog name-bomb? Uh. I was hanging around to say hi to T.C. Boyle, but he didn't show. Is that being a fame-whore? I'm not sure. Like, if the famous guy isn't there, if you're just creepin' in the shadows, are you still name-dropping? I enjoyed meeting Leslie, publisher of the awesome new HOMEBOY journal, and I wandered around w/ ol' Tucson pal Tom Miller, looking for our coffee cups. We went from room to room. Where are those confounded cups! Then we found them, and we had to sign for them. A writer w/ no NAME TAG (very important universal validation) grabbed a cup and was chased down and had the cup removed from his grasp. To save face, he announced to all watchers: "Hey, no prob, man! It's not like I don't have lots of coffee cups at home!"

Miller gave me a copy of his Border Literature Map, with all the names on it. "Yours isn't there," he said. "And fuck you! Make your own map!!" Yeah, Tom! Off he went, cup in hand.

I was staying at the Angeleno. You'd like the Angeleno--it's the old Holiday Inn "where Sunset and the 405 meet." All retro-decked out w/ art and cool gewgaws and an insanely friendly staff. (When I got back to the hotel after my appearacnce, the staff called "High fives!" and high-fived me.) Everywhere I went, authors eyed each other wondering if the other guy was a Pulitzer winner or had a hit novel about Nazi sex orgies and death. But without the NAME TAGs, it was impossible to tell. And, since we're writers, our eyes are shot, so nobody could make out what the name-tags said.

You'd hear, "Well...I wrote the biography of Eugene Debbs currently being discussed on NPR...." Can't put that in a laminate on a cord around your neck.

My event was wonderful. We had a great time. The publisher had arranged to send advance copies of Into the Beautiful North, so the audience actually saw the hardcovers before I did. I still don't have one. The line was long--I signed a lot of books. All copies of the new one sold.

Thank you, L.A. Thank you, fans and supporters. The big love came out, and I was fed and
uplifted by you all.

XXX, L
PS How do you like this new website design?

Artisas y Amigos!

2009-04-27T10:04:00.008-05:00

We're having a pre-release party with (and for) our good friends at the Ragdale Foundation and La Casa Norte. If you're in the Chicago area, please come and celebrate with us. Good food, good friends and good causes! (And an early copy of the book before the official release date!)

I believe Ragdale is one of the most precious resources for writers and artists in the country and everyone involved with the Foundation is so passionate about the work they support. They've only recently introduced me to La Casa Norte and I'm hoping it is the beginning of a very fruitful relationship. I love what they are doing for at-risk youth and families.

For more information on the Ragdale Foundation, here, and for La Casa Norte, here.

Looking forward to seeing you there!

This I Believe

2009-04-23T16:14:00.001-05:00

My episode of NPR's "This I Believe" aired today. If you'd like to give it a listen, you can find it here:

http://tinyurl.com/c7hI82

New Poem

2009-04-20T16:42:00.003-05:00

(Join us on Twitter.com/Urrealism.)

Valley of the Palms

When people tell me their problems, I think
of Maria: wasn't every girl named Maria
in Mexico then? Bt this one lived
for a time at a high desert rancho in Valle
de Las Palmas, a place of cattle, thin horses,
scorpions, baby owls in cages, rattlesnakes caught
by the orphan boys who slept locked in pens
so they couldn't sneak out and raid the beds
of girls locked in their own pens ten feet
from the boys.

If a fire ever came through...but God was merciful. Was He not?
No fires. Just orphans. Just work. Just fried pork skins
and indigenous gods washed out of the hills in floods: fat
bellied women crouching with jaguar screams on their faces
carved in the local gray stone. Just missionaries
making popcorn and bringing thrown-out clothes.
The endless uproar of orphans.
The voices like a tide of laughter and insults.
The rusty clank of evening cowbells.
And Maria.

Never smiling. Maria.
Off to the side. Staring.
Maria who would take my hand and walk with me but who
would not look at me. Maria six years old. Scabby knees.
Somber as a priestess in that burned orange sunset in her valley
on her rancho with these strangers.

And I asked. I had to ask. I always asked--the poet needing to know
the secrets of the valley. Looking for notes, looking for stories, I asked
Why is Maria so serious all the time? Why does Maria
not smile or play?
And the adults said, Well, her father
worked in bad cantinas in Tijuana and Mexicali.
Her father took her from bar to bar, where he made her work.
He made her work in these bars where strippers made love to animals.
In these bars where strippers made love to animals, her father made love to her
for money and had men make love to her for money every night.
Every night she cries in her bunk and she does not smile in the day
and she does not play.

Maria walked around the rancho holding my hand.
It was spring. The little yellow flowers exploded from the dirt like skyrockets.
Every wind smelled of cows and horses and dust moved like smoke in the roads.
We sat on a wall. She twisted my finger. I said, "Maria.
Do you want me to pick you a flower?"
Dusk was coming, purple through the valley. Crows
like black glitter fell upon the dead trees. No water in the river, just
a buried Ford station wagon. Cows shuffled home with orphan boys
poking them with sticks.

"It will be dark soon," she said.
And, "Do you love me?"

We didn't look at each other once.

"Of course," I said.

"Say it."

"I love you."

"Yes, then.
Give me
many
flowers."

The Book Video Is Up!

2009-04-18T19:40:00.006-05:00

Holy moley!! Just stumbled across this on YouTube. Check out the book trailer for Into the Beautiful North and leave a comment.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9D4g0k3E7Q4

This is so strange .... a book video? Who'da thunk it???

My Life in High Fashion

2009-04-18T15:08:00.002-05:00

Hmm. Let's see. Elle magazine. Ah, yes--skinny women in underwear! And, some more underwear. And some kind of teddy deal with lace fringe, and--OH! Undewear. No, wait, maybe that's a bathing suit. (Whoa--I didn't know they made girdles anymore...with those clips for nylons...brings back memories, ahem.) When, suddenly, we spring to PAGE 166! The section called "TRUST US."

They say, of Into the Beautiful North, "Heartbreakingly, Urrea relates the quixotic quest of a young shopgirl to find a few men up north to rescue her man-depleted town--Magnificent Seven style--from marauding bad guys."

Thanks, Elle. Especially for that nasty long-line girdle. I mean, for that kind and generous review.

URREA Alert!

2009-04-17T15:23:00.001-05:00

I was snooping around Twitter.com, and I saw a lot of URREAs on there! Urreas I never met or heard of! And my niece Iris! Urreas in New Jersey. Urreas everywhere! So I thought, just for an experiment, we ought to start hooking up and following each other. Eh? Are you listening, cousins, uncles, aunts, offspring? Twitter.com/Urrealism.

I Love Lawrence

2009-04-17T11:48:00.002-05:00

Thank you, Kansas! I had a great time at KU, with the warm people of Lawrence.

As the plane flew down from Chicago, I stared at the vast quilt of prairie and plains--the patches of corn, soy, wheat, oats stitched together by threadworks of windbreaks. Dirt paths. County roads. You'd see thin creeks with cottonwoods break the geometry with a welcome scribble of wildness. And as we came down toward Kansas City, the regularity of the immense farmlands was revealed to be filled with hidden secrets and surprises. Gulleys were full of chokecherries and trees. Ponds and creeks and little bogs revealed themselves. It seemed a good metaphor for the state and for the region and for the plains: we assume regularity and flatness, but the depths and curves are full of joyous secrets--and some not so joyous, but rich indeed. Proving again that God is the better poet.

So my new pal DaMaris Hill picked me up in her hot Jaguar, and we enjoyed the drive to Lawrence. Then, the bell sounded and I was off! Off to the races! 197 speaking events between noon and ten p.m.! And hey--if Kansas has a mountain, it looks like KU is built upoon it! I know, because I ran up and down the hill about 19 times! So my trainer Nicki will be happy I left bloody footprints all over the campus!

Seriously, the classes were great, the meetings with young warriors who have gone to the border and done humanitarian/witness work at great risk were amazing, the faculty were kind and welcoming and funny, the food was good, the hotel was interesting. I tried to twitter about it: it was a wee bit Twilight-Zoney in that Marriott. The woman at the desk seemed to be reeling with some profound dread--she watched me trot in and out between meals and gigs as if she had her finger on a red Homeland Security alarm button. I think I was really scary to her, BUT I DIDN'T KNOW WHY. Also, along with the genuinely friendly Kansans (everybody I met, even the people deeply upset by illegal immigration, were nice--I didn't get hollered at once, which was rare...OK, wait--I got hollered at by my beloved faculty members who were trying to keep my nine hours with the fans tendencies in check because we had to get to the hoedown at the Provost's showplace house--but that was friendly hollering), there were a few groups of haunted people I was immediately in love with and wanted to follow around. There was a woman who was very very heavy and who could apparently barely breathe who dragged outside to smoke and then struggled back inside again. Then there was a woman on a walker with oxygen and her friend, who was also very heavy but in blck shorts. And they wanted to know where Wal-Mart was, and also where Applebee's was. As always, on the road, I want to know them. I want to know their secrets. I want to go shopping with them and eat lunch with them. I want to pet their dogs.

This is why Chayo (patent pending) is such a boon for me. My li'l one just walks up to folks and inserts herself in their lives. If they have dogs, fuggedabouditt. She's on the case. I mentioned before that she somehow took mental control over tables full of supermodels in Hollywood, and when we left the joint, all these blonde love-bombs waved and shouted, "BYE, CHAYO!" Hmm. I know who the star in this family is.

The even itself was well-attended. Seemed like a full house to me. 300? I think it was something like that. My friend, the poet and reverend Michael Poage showed up! Yay. After e-mailing each other for ages, we finally met. Though meeting for the first time at the men's room does not, necessarily, affect the quality of the encounter.

Lots of laughs, lots of love. Big love. In fact, it was all love. And, in spite of the press for time, and the time-rangers who kept me aware of the clock, I managed to sign all the books people had, and chatter a little buit, and shake hands and hug and take the usual few Senior Prom snapshots. And off! Again! To the provost's house! Yummy snacks! Mo' talk! Mo' questions! I answered, by my official iPhone app Author's Answer Calculator, 951.8 questions in ten hours!

Finally, as steam started to leak from my ears, Marta my new English department Chair (I join the faculty of every college I visit, it seems) dragged me away from good people and took me to the hotel. She really did--she actually stopped a young woman part-way through ehr question (that's the ".8" on my questions calculator). Someone had asked me if I was tired, and I said, "I'm asleep right now. I'm sleepwalking. I am answering you in a dream." (I'd only slept two hurs the night before--that pre-trip insomnia.) So I was walking sideways when I got to the room. Managed to call Cinderella before passing out.

The next morning was gorgeous. Big prairie winds. Birds in the trees. Coffee and banana in front of the paranoid Marriott, with the same lovely woman watching me from behind the desk.

Nate picked me up and we had a fine literary drive back to KC.

So thanks, good people of Kansas. I hope I can return to see you again. You have a kind and handsome state, you have a stunningly beautiful campus in Lawrence, and there were some young ladies doing excellent hula-hoop maneuvers outside Henry's bar--and that's something I don't get to see on every trip. Just brace yourselves--next time I'm bringing my daughter. Get your dogs, cats, cows, buffaloes, horses, donkeys, pigs, chickens, peacocks, snakes, frogs, crawfish, goats, sheep, llamas, canaries ready.

Oh, and your super-models.

XXX, L

Gracias

2009-04-13T14:37:00.002-05:00

"Love will lead us, she will lead us...." --Live

Thanks to all the kind people who have commented, twitted, written e-mails about Pasadena/Easter/immigration/working out/Kansas/the garden. Kindness is everywhere.

Thanks to the rain that has charged the chrysanthemums and made them explode.

Thanks to our trainer, Nicki Anderson--even my sweatpants are too big.

Thanks to Mary Oliver for her new book, and Charles Wright for his new book, and to Robertr Sullivan for his generous and amazing new Thoreau book. Thanks to Thoreau.

Thanks to books.

Thanks to Prince for plugging in his guitar and taking his Jimi/Santana/Funkadelic pill on his new CD.

Thanks to the wild turkey that refuses to leave our block and chases off the squirrels--I'd rather have the turkey eat the bird seed, yo!

Thanks to Little,Brown for making Into the Beautiful North so insanely beautiful--I can't wait till you hold it in your hands.

Thanks to the readers, bookstore owners, book reps, book buyers and Twitterers who are saying such good things about it.

Thanks to Luis Mandoki for filming The Hummingbird's Daughter.

Thanks to the chickadees, cardinals, robins, juncos, mourning doves already starting to haunt my garden.

Thanks to the Border patrol who taught me new ways to write.

Thanks to the human rescuers who take water to the dying in the desert.

Thanks to my cat--she never fails to bring comfort in sad hours.

Thanks to my memories, even the bad ones: no poetry without memory.

Thanks to poetry.

Thanks to lost loves, many of whom find me on the internet and I try to live up to the love you once tried to give me when I was panicky as a skunk trapped in a kitchen. I am sending you flowers.

Thanks to skunks.

Thanks for this day; thanks for Easter; thanks for Spring; thanks for my family; thanks for my ass-kicking iPod with all the kickin' tunes; thanks, thanks, thanks.

The greatest form of prayer is one word: THANKS.

"It's all right, all right, it's all right--she moves in mysterious ways...." U2

I'm gone like c oool breeze, baby. See you out there in America.
L

I Used to Call it "Eastern"

2009-04-12T13:59:00.002-05:00

Life begins again at Easter/Passover/The Equinox. Out there in the chilly sun of Illinois, enjoying our black earth. Picking up a juicy half pound of winter dog poo with Chayo. Picking dead sticks and old maple leaves out of our slaughtered garden. The squirrel somehow got a squirrel SWAT team up on the tall bird feeder and managed to bring it down. Did they use evil squirrel ninja tricks? Grappling hooks?

Under our happily decomposing logs (I'm a sucker for soft decomp logs), the slugs and millipedes are waking up. Snails slightly larger than this period. We reset all the edging stones to delineate the border of the coming joy of grunt-work as we prepare the flower bed for my next experiment in landscaping. (What if borders were only the edges of gardens?) (If I were King!) My garden usually looks like an explosion in a cheap florist's shop. But I'm getting better. Got my anti-rabbit pepper spray to save this year's sprouts. My old friends, the columbines, are already coming up and looking around. Bulbs are popping like the cameras of paparazzi.

So much coming--I recorded my episode of NPR's "This I Believe" this week. I don't know when it's airing, but I'm honored to be among the last guests, ever. (In fact, I was the last one recorded. How cool is that?)

I'll be on my way to Kansas on Wednesday.

The usual unease and terror of going to talk about immigration again. I hate immigration. I am sick of death and anger and rape and fear and violence and rage and insults and death and death and death. This is not where I want my soul to reside. Not anymore. Yeah--I was a fire-breather. I liked the Mad Max vibe. And now?

Just think: I have been writing about this particular shit-storm since 1992. I have punched my foul-union dues-card over and over. I have seen human blood, I have seen human insides, I have had guns pointed at me, I have cried like a baby, I have been in floods, fires, Mexican jail, Mexican hospitals, Border Patrol stations, trucks, caves, under bushes, in children's prison, in orphanages, in smuggler villages, among the undocumented, among the prostitutes, the junkies, the cholos, the cops, the street gangs, the murderers, the torturers, the guards, the pastors, the criminals, the glue sniffers, the punks, the gay activists, the gay victims, among the Border Patrol agents, in their homes, drinking beer with DEA, talking to FBI, smelling dead human, hanging with Mexican immigration cops, being watched by narcos in the desert, hiking, running, car crash with Mexican drug smugglers, years in the Tijuana garbage dump, being conned by waves of Hollywood fast-talkers, doing medical exams with American doctors in plywood shacks, feeding the poor, washing feet, crapping my guts out, eating cooked garbage, sitting in fancy rooms with fancy pols talking fancy lies, in consulates, in lawyers' offices, in newsrooms, in TV studios, on CNN, on MSNBC, on NPR, on "This American Life," in churches, among minutemen, among missionaries, among activists, among communists, among far-right Republicans, among Mormons, among Obamites, with Rush Limbaugh's cousins, among Chicanos, at 100 colleges, on Conservative talk radio, talking to rock stars, at BEA, on the web, on my blog, on Twitter, in newspapers, in the classroom, in books...talking about FREAKIN' IMMIGRATION. Trying to give the low-down on the border!

IT NEVER GOT ANY BETTER.

I'm tired. Tired of it. It's spring. It's time for flowers. But they found eight new skeletons in Arizona. But the dead keep walking. But they're beheading people in Juarez and Tijuana. But my Border Patrol contacts are under more deadly assault. But, but, but....

I just hope the good people of Kansas don't feel like yelling at me. I am especially tired of being yelled at. I have lost my shell. I am all raw soul now. The dead have dismantled me.

Still...we put that fairy castle in the garden, hoping a toad will move in. My daughter doesn't yet know anything about evil. So we give thanks this Easter. Give thanks for the cold sun of April.

And I give thanks for you.

XXXOOOXXX,
Ludwig

25 Things I Love About Pasadena

2009-04-07T18:34:00.002-05:00

1. Every single person we met on the street or in shops or restaurants and at the big event was incredibly warm and friendly.

2. The librarians rock!

3. The library is amazing.

4. Vroman's Bookstore.

5. The mayor!

6. Raul and the Salinas family and their kids and friends.

7. Palm trees.

8. The new convention center is a marvel.

9. Inside the convention center, they have these inflatable white stars that look like jellyfish until the lights come on and the air warms and expands and they swell up.

10. Across the street from the convention center is a fancy grocery store that I can't remember the name of that is so deluxe and delish that I wish I could shop there every day. And they make good coffee, too. And see #1--nice people in there.

11. The astounding Virgen de Guadalupe tile portrait in the Mijares restaurant.

12. Mijares.

13. The town is very pretty.

14. Sunshine!

15. I do NOT in ANY WAY love the semi-nude Englishwomen all around the hotel pool!

16. Fountains in courtyards.

17. The Latino community and history and culture.

18. The mountains.

19. The clouds on the mountains like little cowboy hats.

20. The Pasadena PIO!

21. All my new Yaqui friends who came to say hello.

22. When they had a meeting to discuss The Hummingbird's Daughter, a hummingbird flew into the room.

23. Right before one of the moderators of talks about The Hummingbird's Daughter got the phone call to ask her to do it, her copy of the book flew off her shelf and fell on the floor.

24. The students and faculty at Pasadena Community College.

25. The hip-hop kids in their gangsta outfits in the elevator at the mall with us were hysterically funny--and they knew it. See #1.

I could write more.

Gracias, Pasadena. I'll see you soon on the Into the Beautiful North tour at Vroman's! We want to move out there and settle in....

Loyally, L

Update for Cafe Observer

2009-04-07T09:13:00.001-05:00

I did stay in a Pasadena hotel. (Comment on last blog.) The Sheraton, room 213. Like I said. It was nice, too. We'll be back!

Pasadena

2009-04-06T20:09:00.002-05:00

Orale, vatos y rucas! QUE ONDA, homeys, weesas, locos y chuntaros! AJUA, Banda! Wow, I'm in a raza mood after our visit to Pasadena and the tasty reception the city threw for us at Mijares restaurante. The mayor offered to buy us margaritas, but somebody else had already beat him to the punch!

If you watched our Twitter feed, you saw pithy notes about the whole trip. But, briefly: we flew west last Wednesday (Cinderella, Megan, Chayo et moi). We hit LAX in the leftover daze from getting up too early in Chi cold and landing in early morning (time travel) in LA heat! Sun! We were pale as Edward Cullen! (That's a cheesy plug for Little, Brown books--brownie points. Oops. A pun. Darn it.) Got to Hertz and found our car--one of those really tiny Chevy deals that looks like a 1941 panel truck that got zapped by a UFO's shrink-ray. We toodled off in the putter-wagon. Got checked in to our Santa Monica hotel. Hit the bricks, checking it out. Drove the girls into Hollywood. My agent amigo Mike invited us to the Chateau Marmont so Megan could see somebody famous. This was my obsession: find Meggy a star to sneer at.

I did not expect Chayo, the Urrea Goodwill Ambassador, to join the various supermodels at their tables and schmooze. I don't know what angle she was working, but perhaps the little one was hoping to be discovered. Meanwhile, the iMac commercial guy--you know, the guy from Die Hard 4--Megan knew his name--was at the next table. OMG! THAT'S LIKE SO TOTALLY HIM. Meg was, I think, bored by our movie talk, and started playing games on my cell phone. Had that dark shades and icy face only a 17 year old girl could have. The iDude got up and walked behind her and leaned over her shoulder to see what she was doing. She never noticed! Meg could have kissed the Mac-Daddy if she'd turned her head.

All in all, a great movie-slut afternoon. Satiated, we went back to the hotel. Up in the morning to walk Santa Monica. Miles of shops and shops and coffee shops and shops and, well, shops. We went out of the pier, and Chayo rode her first roller-coaster. Four times. Trooper of the year. We rode the ferris wheel. We watched seals steal fish off fishermen's hooks. I taught Chayo how to feed pigeons and seagulls. She vanished under an undulating mound of birds. Good thing her mom didn't see that.

Seriously put in four or five good miles of walking. Then drove to Pasadena. Still, being the barbarous wad of man-meat that I am, I uncoiled my two oiled pythons and did my muscle workout when we got back to the room. The skin squealed for mercy as it stretched over my smoking magnum sixguns! Room 213 of the Sheridan was a terrifying riot of manhood--the women cowered.

In the morning, Cinderella got up and went to the treadmill. I slept. Yes I did.

Pool! Couldn't keep the girlies out of the pool! Hot sun and Brit tourists in bizarre open-legged squat poses with bikinis much too small. I observed as a poet might, noting piquant yet tender images and pondering the fleeting moment of life we are given, evanescent and lace-winged. I did not notice jiggling buttocks nor thongs.

Somehow, we managed to walk another two miles.

Yes, Olympic triathlete that I am, I hit the treadmill that night.

We embarrassed yet thrilled Megan by buying as map to the stars' homes and invading Hollywood again. We were on a mission. Ozzy's house! Where Ozzy doesn't live anymore! But Christina does! Tom Cruise's driveway! The house where Superman was shot! (Girls: huh?) Bruce Springsteen's private winding road! Oh, oh! Gene Simmons's front gate! We were almost done when we saw...wait for it...we saw...hang on now...we saw K-FED! In a Mercedes! Like, all backward baseball cap and jammin hip-hop megabass! Go, go, go, go, go, Daddy, gooooo! Chase K-Fed! GOOOOO!

Uh, then what happened. Um. I spoke at the local community college, and we had a really happy time. Except one quivering-with-rage Mexican yoiung lady who wanted to fight because I had dissed the Virgin of Guadalupe. "What book did you read?" I asked. "YOUR BOOK!" I said, "I didn't write whatever you read!" She said, "Yes you did!" I asked, "How much of the book did you read?" She said, "Well, I didn't read it, but our teacher showed us one page!" Wow. This was so weird I simply smiled at her and said: "Whaaaaat?"

One of the young men had me sign his copy, then he showed up at the next gig and had me sign it again--but this time in the back. He told me to write: NOT YOU AGAIN! So I did.

Cindy and I went to a lovely supper at local lawyer/superstar Raul Salinas's MANSE. Let's not even kid ourselves, that homeboy lives large, and I was thrilled to be invited, but Chayo was even more thrilled because she got to swim in their pool. A nice group of local pols and lawyers and readers gathered, and we talked into the evening about Teresita and the Hummingbird's Daughter. Sitting in front of his back yard fireplace. Just a fine, fine gathering.

We LEAPED from bed in the morning! Yes, we did. Honest! Teresita's great-grand daughter, Sylvia, was meeting us for lunch and sharing of stories and secrets before the Pasadena One City/One Book celebration. It was our first meeting. I wasn't expecting a movie star. Muy guapa, mi prima. She brought us many pictures and many family secrets and legends for Book II. It was big love all around.

We all went to the convention center--there was a fancy marquee, and a red carpet, and a mariachi group outside. Banners and big posters. We went inside to a ballet folklorico. Chayo said, "Daddy--all this for you?" I wanted to say somethimg cosmic like, "It is all for Teresita." But I was more like Hell yeah. Sylvia's familia came. Librarians came. Urreas from Clifton-Morenci came. My dear old pal Elia Esparza and her beau, the actor Miguel Najera came. There were between 600 and 700 people in attendance. Pretty stunning, when you think about it.

I introduced Sylvia to the audience, and she rose to the occasion--you could feel all the cosmic folks straining to touch her. Whew! The mystery is still with us.

Well, the event went well. Lots of laughs, anyway. I could hear Chayo hooting and laughing--I even heard Megan laugh. Probably because I looked so gargantuan on the Jumbotron TV screens. It's pretty ghastly, when you feel like your face already looks like a boiled hamhock, to have one on each side of you bigger than a Hummer. I could constantly see, in my peripheral vision, two giant mutant me's coming from either side to eat me.

I sat onstage with our Librarian Goddess, Jan, and we chatted.

An unexpected standing O at the end. Gracias. You really didn't have to do that.

The signing line was over 100 people long. I have to report the best thing that may have ever happened on book event tours: six different Yaqui people or families thanked me for telling their story. I was so happy. That's where it's at, right there. Sylvia seemed happy, and my yaqui brothers and sisters were happy. What more can you ask for? (Except a margarita from the mayor!)

At Mijares, the second bizarre and uncomfortable moment, though. Man, I got scolded in Pasadena! A crew of "concerned women" waited till all the fans had left and I was clearly trying to go to bed so we could leave for the airport this morning at 5:30. "If you had used language like what is in your book in my house, you would have gotten smacked in the mouth!" the head Taliban said. I was tired, cranky, and astounded this person had sat through the event, sat through the long long signing, then come across town and waited through the entire reception to attack. I said, "My book isn't about your house. It's about somebody else's house." She said, "I am extremely uncomfortable with your choices as a writer." I said, "Who told you that your comfort was my responsibility?" (I was thinking: get your Sherman Alexie on, Luis!) I found out later that the book had been banned! Yes. From high schools. Duh. They could have called me, and I would have suggested it was never intended for a high school audience.

We said a sad farewell to all our new Pasadena friends, kissed Sylvia good-night, went back to our room where I brooded. Why is it that 700 people tell you they love you and your work, but one angry girl and four women who look like they just smelled a fresh cat turd as they stare at you can pierce your heart? Well, I don't know.

It's all in a day's work. I sought God, and God came. Even when I used naughty language.

We dragged out of bed today at 5:00. Crawled to the putter-truck a half hour later. And have spent the day in the plane, coming from brilliant sun and heat to fresh snow. No K-Fed, dawg! No iMac commercial Die Hard dude! Just us. Our cat. And early bed.

Still, being the Visgoth warrior prince that I am, driven by my superhuman genetics, I mounted the treadmill tonight and squirted blood out of my eyes before writing this note to you.

And yes, damn it! I cried while watching "Marley and Me" on the plane. All right? Are you happy now!!!

XXX, Luigi--El Santo de Cabora and Shit-Talker

Pasadena Or Bust!

2009-03-31T21:08:00.003-05:00

Here we come, Pasadena! Thank you for selecting The Hummingbird's Daughter as you all-city read! We're almost packed. I have pictures for you in my bag. And, as Teresita would have it, we're meeting her familia in California for some history/story sharing. I'm also bringing you Huila's rebozo. Women like to touch it. Men...not so much! See you soon. If you catch us in the bookstore or on the street, say hello.

Love,
Luis and the Family Stone

Catch us on Twitter.com/Urrealism

Snow

2009-03-28T12:28:00.002-05:00

Snow's coming again. All that western torment that dumnped on Colorado and drowned North Dakota is finally staggering into Illinois. Ill Annoyed. Our lilacs and our crocuses are going to be shocked to freeze tonight. Small garden tragedies. Small purple and orange bursts of hope under returning white. But sooner or later, spring will win out. Then I'll be complaining about the summer heat.

Many nice people have been writing from California, in advance of our visit to Pasadena for their One City/One Book events. I look forward to the trip--and not just to get away from the snow! You know, when I lived in So Cal, I was a poor boy and would have cut off a leg to escape. Now that I've frozen my butt off since 1982, and am not such a po' boy anymore, So Cal looks great to me! I want to stand on the beach barefoot on Christmas Day! I want to spray faux frost in my windows again! Soap flake snow sounds good as I creak down the AARP highway!

Cinderella and the girls and I will pack up and fly to CA on Wednesday. I'll look for you out there. We are, at the urging of my publisher, maintaining a Twitter record of all the adventures and misadventures. So, as always, if you want to check in with the touring, I can always be found at Twitter.com/Urrealism. Tweet me!

Thanks for your support, and I can't wait for you to read Into the Beautiful North. It'll be out in English and Spanish--and in audio--in May.

In the inimitable words of Chuck Berry: I'm gone like a cool breeze.
XXX, L