Kage Alan Blog

My good friend, fellow author…and self-professed cougar…GA Hauser, shared her thoughts this past Monday on the West Hollywood Book Fair we attended together over the weekend.  There just wasn’t enough foul language for my taste, so I thought I’d expand on it a bit and share a few more humorous moments that came out of the event.

Where to start…  Where to start…  Oh, I did get my complimentary upgrade on the flight to LAX, so I didn’t have to sit back with the people who glared at me as they walked by while I enjoyed my cup of tea.  Screw em’.  They can stay behind the mesh curtain.  That’s what they get for not having a rich boyfriend.  I ended up watching Bad Teacher and Pirates of the Caribbean 4 during the flight.  Pirates wasn’t bad, not bad at all.  Bad Teacher should have just been called Bad Movie, though.  There wasn’t one redeeming thing about Cameron Diaz’s character, which kind of reminded me of the recent Republican debates.

GA and I met up at the hotel, had a delightful lunch, then checked in and dropped our things off in the room before heading out down the street to see where we’d be spending the following day.  She and I are like two peas in a pod, or a Blu-Ray and DVD combo, because we both believe in preparation, preparation and more preparation.  We scoped out where our table would be, where we’d be unloading the vehicle and how many steps to the porta potties.  You know, important stuff.

We turned in early after checking e-mail for our nightly ego stroking of fan letters, nude pics people send us and offers of marriage from folks who have no chance of ever being able to afford us.  Hey, we’re nice.  We don’t tell them these things.  We tell YOU these things.

Okay, let me just say that I don’t care what part of the world you’re in because 5:00am comes early in any damn country!  We were up, clean and showered, a tiny bit crabby from not being able to eat breakfast–the rules of the event stated that we had between 5am and 7am to set up our area, and if we missed that window, we might not be allowed entrance into the venue–and out to claim our space.  Space is exactly what we found.  Lots of space.  No people.  Most people didn’t arrive until after 9am.  Why?  Because they stayed in bed and grabbed a proper breakfast.  Not us.  No way.  We followed the damn rules and those SOBs weren’t denied access at all.  What a serious crock of shit!

Now, our table mate, the so-I’m-told sweet Michael Perronne, told GA that he’d bring tablecloths for us, only he was nowhere to be found until after 9am.  We’d already gone to Plan B and set the table up, which wasn’t in bad shape…or so we thought right until the folks in the next booth showed up and went to town.  Our space suddenly sucked.  It sucked bad, BUT they loaned us a tablecloth!  Our side of the booth was born.

It was then that GA informed us that she needed coffee or…  Let’s just say she needed coffee.  I walked with her to the local Starbucks, ordered a hot chocolate and saw possibly the most attractive Asian man in West Hollywood behind the counter making it.  Now, we allll know I have Pookie and Pookie owns my ass.  This means I’m allowed to look, but not look like I’m looking.  I may appreciate, but not seem like I’m appreciating.  So I was doing just that, which is when I looked over at GA.  She was staring, then looked over at me, pointed and quietly mouthed “Do you SEE this guy?  He is SO HOT!  Isn’t he right up your alley?”

Subtle.  Reaaaaaaaal subtle.

We named him Justin and we keep him in a little box inside the back our minds where we can visit once in a while for kicks.

Back to reality.  Our location at the fair was decent and only had one huge, major, slightly gargantuan hang-up; a stage.  Yes, our Fellows of the Obscenely Loud Sound System decided to blast us out of our designer silk undergarments and mess with our traffic.  Fortunately, one of the guys, Ryan, made sure for the first couple of hours that the sound was reasonable.  After that?  Balls to the walls noise and not the good kind.  Some folks may be able to write, but Lord they cannot read and read they tried.

Oh, and that sweet Michael Perronne I mentioned earlier?  He totally cockblocked me the second half of the day!  How his author Madison Martin–who really IS the sweet one–puts up with him, we’ll never know.  Anyway, I know my audience.  I have pretty good instincts about who’ll buy one of the books, especially because of the whole white/Asian relationship focus in Gaylias.  So, what does Michael do?  He bloody well sends every Asian packing in the opposite direction!  I don’t know what he said to them, but he scared the hell out of them and off they went.

We all actually ended up getting cockblocked by Book Soup–the same place GA and I did a signing with Patricia Logan two months ago–when they brought in Stephanie Powers, Meredith Baxter, Florence Henderson, Dyan Cannon and Tatum O’Neil.  GA took pics while the rest of us glared.

The best part of the day?  Besides Justin, that is?  Working with GA.  This was our third signing together and we’ve developed a shorthand that really works.  If someone walked up and wasn’t looking for comedies, I sent them to her.  If someone walked up and wasn’t crazy about eroticism or romance, she sent them to me.  I’d say 85% of the people who bought from me also ended up buying something from her, too.  When we’re in sync, we rock!

I also managed to meet another Zumaya author–they were running VERY late due to traffic–author Marshall Thorton and Facebook friend Wah Wu.  And Justin…poor, possibly dominant Asian top Justin…who will never know what he missed and not just because I’m taken, but because he can’t afford me, either.

Right, this has gone on long enough.  That’s my story, I didn’t get to write a blog post for Monday because I was traveling, so you’re getting this and a couple of short video bits I shot at the fair.

Stage 1 of Our Table at the West Hollywood Book Fair

Stage 2 of Our Table at the West Hollywood Book Fair

Cheers and hug noises!

Kage
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Kage Alan is Footloose watching, Vangelis listening author of “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to My Sexual Orientation,” “Andy Stevenson Vs. the Lord of the Loins” and the first book in a separate series, “Gaylias: Operation Thunderspell.” Can you believe he still hasn’t gone to Best Buy this week to pick up Scream 4? It’s like he…I mean I’ve come down sick again with the flu.  I really want it!  I really deserve it!  I’m gonna, gonna get it!

This entry was posted on Thursday, October 6th, 2011 at 6:45 am and is filed under Book Signings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.