New Day #141

Still visiting la famiglia in New Jersey. My brother showed me how to create computer animation. Suffice it to say there's a reason why I've never done it before--it's difficult and takes friggin' forever. So here's a video my brother made for a kids' song he wrote.



And, yes, the whole family is artistic. We have a saying--when an Acito opens up the fridge and that light goes on, we don't eat, we do three minutes of audition material.

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New Day #140

My Dixieland dad taught me how to play the trumpet.

If a band is looking for someone who can replicate a farting elephant, I'm your guy.

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New Day #139

While in NY to see Patti LuPone in Gypsy, my dad and I stopped in at the Marriott Marquis to have elevator races. Turns out the hotel's glass elevators are all computerized and what-not, so we had to program where we wanted to go, in which case we kept getting assigned the same one. Still, neither of us had ridden them before, so we cruised up to the 45th floor.

It felt like being shot into space in a lunar module. Or one of those pneumatic tubes at the bank.

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New Day #138

My friend Eve took me to lunch in the Trustees' Dining Room at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, which is paneled with sumptuous curly maple, has a view of the tree canopy of Central Park and serves superb food. Naturally, I got overzealous in my conversation and practically shouted the phrase "dicking around." Luckily, most everyone in the room was old enough to remember V-J Day, so I don't think they noticed.

Followed our meal with a visit to the rooftop garden, which I've also never done, checking out these spectacular Jeff Koons sculptures.

It was a beautiful way to end my tour, made even better by my Jersey reading, which drew 150 people, mostly theater geeks from the local high schools. So it all comes full circle.

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New Day #137

It's been a challenge coming up with New Things while on the road. For instance, I started the day off in New York with an interview with Sirius Radio's resident nutball Frank DeCaro, but I've been on the radio before, so I'm not sure it counts.

Then I got ninety people at my reading tonight--a first for me in New York (take that, San Francisco)--but, still, I've done plenty of readings, so is it really today's New Thing?


(And, yes, that's Joan Crawford in the window next to me.)

Of course, the hunt for something new is part of what I like best about this project, as it forces me to pay attention. Would I have noticed the clerk at the Wall Street Borders with twenty-seven earrings had I not been looking for something new? Would I have talked as long with the employee at the Union Square Barnes and Noble about his tattoo reading "Full Catastrophe Living" and how it reminds him to live his life by "going toward the tingle?"

Certainly I wouldn't have taken my niece's suggestion to sign someone else's book tonight, a copy of Manga Messiah into which I scrawled "Best Wishes, Hidenori."

As always, the best New Things were those that were unexpected--when Amanda Snarski, a young actress, showed me that my promo video was on her resume, or when an NYU student told me that he got into college by writing an essay on how he was like my alter ego, Edward Zanni.

Those are the moments that make the hunt totally worthwhile.

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New Day #136

I'm embarrassed to admit it, but I finally taught myself how to text message on my phone. Actually, let me be more precise: I tried to teach myself. Because when I typed the simple sentence "This is my first text," all these default words kept popping up. "This" became "ugh," then "thigh." (Why is "thigh" a default word?) Then "my" insisted on turning into “on,” “no,” or “noon," while "first" became "feed."

So I ended up sending the following message:

Thigh is on feed text.

Okay, it's a start.



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New Day #135

Am back in San Francisco for the aptly named Writers With Drinks. During the day I went to a reading hosted by Tamim Ansary featuring the anthology he edited about the Afghan-American experience.

Which gave me the opportunity to eat some unidentified food. Was it cheese? Was it tofu? It's so liberating putting something unknown in your mouth. (Insert dirty joke here.)

Turned out it was some sugary pistachio paste thing. And it was delicious.


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New Day #134

Had a day off in LA, so my high school bud Deb Sheldon showed up and put us up at the Sunset Towers, though I insisted we check in as Dr. and Mrs. Sheldon. She then schooled me in the art of retail therapy. So off we went to the Christian Louboutin store, where Deb sought a shoe so exquisite it made her cry. That is, after we finally found the place. It took us 45 minutes to locate the friggin' street, which, despite being clearly marked on the map, kept disappearing like Brigadoon. For the record, it's next to a drycleaners, an unlikely location for a store that sells $800 shoes.There I also learned the following:

"Nude is the new black."
"Toe cleavage is chic."
"You wear five inch heels C to B--from the car to the bar."

Deb is Pepper Pots for a living--like Gwyneth Paltrow in Ironman, she too can pick up the drycleaning and defuse a nuclear bomb in four inch heels. So she bought the very same shoes Gwnynnie wore in the movie.

When I asked Deb how they felt, she told me "that's not the point."

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New Day #133

With the continuing death of independent bookstores, an author spends a lot of time on book tour visiting shopping malls.



Well, there are malls and then there's the Grove. I'd say it's like Disneyland for shopping, but Disneyland is already the Disneyland of shopping. Each store in this outdoor shopping experience is designed in a different kitschy period style: Tuscan villa, Art Deco, New Orleans style.The Abercrombie and Fitch is a Georgian town hall, complete with live models.

From there I went to the Americana, which recreates an old-fashioned town square, but with added improvements like the dancing water fountain and round-the-clock Sinatra music. It just opened this week and already there's a waiting list for the condos, which begs the question of why so many people want to live in a shopping mall?

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New Day #132

I'm in LA, where I took a little time off from signing stock (aka "the stock races") to perform some creative vandalism.

Note the glamorous location.






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New Day #131

Today I said "no." As someone who can't really relax unless everyone is happy, this is HUGE.

It'd been a long day--flying into Seattle last night at 11 PM, out the door at 10 AM to visit stores, including (but not limited to) my new best friends Fran at the Seattle Mystery Bookshop and Erin at Barnes and Noble, where, if you type in Attack of the Theater People, up pops my book and that other frolicsome farce, Mein Kampf.

Who knew Mein Kampf was German for "Jazz Hands?"

Anyway, went straight to doing a book singing with pianist Rich Gray at Elliott Bay Book Company. No one got hurt, so a good time was had by all, but I was wiped afterwards. So, when my friends asked me if I wanted to go out for a drink, I did something I never do, and said "no."

Instead, I went back to my SUITE at the Alexis Hotel, ordered room service and sat in front of the fireplace.



SWEEEEET.

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New Day #130

Does having something happen twice that's never happened to you twice count as a New Thing? In this case, I think so. Because, for the first time in my life, I've had my identity stolen AGAIN.

You may recall that someone purporting to be me called Powells.com, claiming I'd been stabbed. Well, I'm lounging poolside at the aptly named InnDulge (courtesy of my friends, the owners), when I get a phone call informing me that the Faux Marco has struck again, this time at A Great Good Place for Books. Apparently, my car had been impounded with my wallet and cell phone. Would the store please wire money?

The owner, Kathleen Caldwell, got on the phone and informed the imposter she knew it wasn't me, to which, get this, he began to argue.

Say what you want, you've got to admire his chutzpah.

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New Day #129

I'm in Palm Springs, where I sat on a panel at the book festival about the gay influence on straight culture. Which means I got to hang out with a whole bunch of hilarious gay writers, including (from right to left) Eddie Shapiro, author of Queens to the Kingdom, Joel Derfner , author of Swish, and Christopher Rice, author of a whole lotta bestselling books.

We all had such a good time we decided we should have our own gay version of The View called Look, Bitch.

That said, I decided that meeting new people doesn't necessarily count as a New Thing, so I made sure to go to Jamba Juice and have a Berry Fulfilling smoothie, which I found Berry Embarrassing to order.

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New Day #128

Would've posted this earlier, but the San Francisco airport doesn't have free wi-fi, which is just another sign of this city's rejection of its iconoclastic past. Even the Haight feels commodified, as if Disney had created Hippie Street, USA. Ever since I arrived here, I've been asking everyone I meet what I can do for my What's New project and the answers have been too disappointingly conventional to mention.

True, I did do something new last night by reading at my friend Kathleen Caldwell’s cozy store in Oakland, A Great Good Place for Books. Kathleen’s a kindred spirit, so I know she won’t mind when I say that I mistakenly stole a copy of How I Paid for College, which I mistook as my own.

And today, while signing stock at the Mission Bay Borders, a store surrounded by million dollar condos, I met a clerk who is a surviving member of the infamous avant-garde performance troupe The Cockettes:



Best of all, however, was when I got in the taxi to go the airport and discovered that my cab driver is a notary public ordained Universal Life Church minister ready to perform marriages and absolve sins.



He charges two bucks a sin, though he’s hoping for some of the “high-priced sins.” I paid him two dollars for a blessing (actually, the publisher did—thank you Doubleday/Broadway) and he blessed my mission to encourage people to be their most audacious selves. I was so grateful to encounter a hold-out from San Francisco’s subversive past that I gave him the stolen copy of How I Paid for College.

It seemed like a truly San Franciscan thing to do.

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