Friday, May 16, 2008

The Glamour of It All





Tom Schreck













Author of TKO






TKO, A Duffy Dombrowski Mystery has been released and you know what that means--that's right, the excitement and high style of a tour to support the promotion.

That started last night for me and here's some quick notes from the road.

* It's nice landing your own means of transportation at the Hamburg NY airport. It's not easy to land a 2001 Lincoln Town Car with duct tape on the front bumper at an airport.

* I'm on the two-day trek to Southfield Mi for the famous Michigan Basset Hound Waddle. The main picnic where I am the feature author was moved indoors to the ballroom. 500 hounds in a ballroom. The bid to have your dog named in my third book is now the top or near the top item in the auction. I'm not sure if Sotheby's is running the auction.

* My three dogs Roxie, Wilbur and Riley are on the trip in the same car. An hour from home Roxie takes a leak on the back seat. Riley insists on laying his head on my thigh which gives me a cramp. Wilbur has gas.



* I start cursing at the GPS because it keeps telling me to "Keep Left". I want to get to the hotel.

* We are staying at the the Five Star "Red Roof Inn". The woman at the desk looks like she's a professional wrestler. There are lots of teenagers hanging out of the rooms.

* We have an exquisite dinner of Domino's Pizza and I drink five beers faster than I ever have in my life. I decide that my prescription for "occasional anxiety" is needed and I pour myself an Evan Williams Bourbon ($10.99 per quart) that wouldn't fit in a Hellman's mayonaise jar.

* Riley and Roxie get in a fight at 12:30 am over a synthetic bone I bought to calm them.

* At 2:46 I awake to find Roxy not eating the $5.46 Pedigree "Busy Bone". She is eating my leather wallet. I repeatedly yell the word "Fuck!" while Wilbur has a barking fit.

* At 5:16am Riley again threatens Roxy's life.

* At 6:55am I take the dog's for a walk. For some reason the other guests of the hotel don't seem very friendly. They all seem to give me a dirty look and mutter "asshole" when I walk by with the three hounds. When my wife lets me back in the room I think I hear her mutter the same thing. Though when I ask what she said she says "nothing."

* 7:42 and time to write the blog to stay in contact with my millions of fans. My wife is in the shower and Roxy is trying to join her. I'm guessing after last night Roxie has a better shot than I do.

* Soon you will read about an incident at the Canadian border involving 3 hounds, a woman and a raving lunatic having a fit.

Ahh...the big time life of an author.

6 comments:

Keith Raffel said...

Tom, thanks for your look at the glamour of a big-time author's life!

Mark Terry said...

Where and when was the Southfield, MI thing? I live pretty close to there.

Mark Combes said...

I had a kid throw up at one of my signings. I took that as a bad sign.... I thought maybe a dog would be a good sidekick to bring to events. Maybe not....

G.M. Malliet said...

Mark - as long as he didn't throw up ON the books...

Mark Combes said...

Yeah, I figured, everyone's a critic....

That's the same event where an elderly lady hit on me. Something was aligned funny that day...

Sue Ann Jaffarian said...

Once again, Tom, you have brightened my day. :)

Have a safe journey. I'd wish you an uneventful one, but then what would the rest of us have to laugh about?