Recently, I had my first experience as a vendor. In a sense, having been a freelance writer for most of my adult life, I’ve always been a merchant of sorts. But with my very own booth at the L.A. Times-sponsored Festival of Books, at UCLA, I was actually peddling my book the way my grandfather used to peddle his fruits and vegetables. I was actually out there meeting my public face to face. For me, it was fun, but a little scary. It was probably the same for them.
It was fun because a lot of people not only bought “Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco,” but got to tell me they’d been fans of mine since the days back when I wrote a humor column for the Times (1967-1978) or even as far back as when I reviewed movies for Los Angeles magazine (1959-1971). Then there were those who knew absolutely nothing about my writing career, but felt they knew me because of all my letters to the editor.
There were enough embarrassing moments during the course of the weekend to last me a lifetime. Essentially, they fell into two categories. The smaller of which consisted of those people who confused me with Jack Prelutsky, a writer who churns out books of amusing poetry for children. As soon as anyone started to tell me how much their kids loved my writing, I knew I was in trouble.
The second, far larger group, was made up of people who were gulled by the banner the festival organizers had hoisted above my booth. Instead of my entire title, it read simply “Conservatives Are From Mars.” Either the powers-that-be had decided to save a few bucks on printing or they had decided to make their own political statement at my expense. Whatever the case, for two entire days, liberals strolling by would give me a thumbs-up and say annoying things like, “And they should go back there” or “That explains George Bush.” If they then walked over and began thumbing through the book, spotting chapters with titles such as, “Why Dogs, Not Liberals Are Man’s Best Friend,” “Why the Left Hates Bush,” “The ACLU: The Most Obnoxious Group in America,” and “Most of the Racists in America Are Black,” they reacted as if I’d played them for suckers.
Come to think of it, that’s how Jack Prelutsky’s fans reacted. It’s not easy being me.
On the positive side, I did get to hone my debating skills. By and large, I’m happy to say, people managed to disagree with me without being disagreeable. One young Arab, however, stuck around long enough to tell me that we Jews were to blame for all the evil in the world. All of it?! I told him that, considering that there are roughly six billion people in the world and only about 14 million of them Jews, it’s yet another example of Jewish over-achievement. The wonder is that, being responsible for all that mischief, we even find time to eat and sleep.
As it happened, although the event officially ended at 5 p.m. on Sunday, for me it carried over until the next day. That’s when I received an e-mail from a lawyer who had bought my book on Saturday. It seems that he had read the book very quickly, which I took as a good sign. My mistake. He wanted me to know that he had quibbles with a couple of my essays—one in which I attacked college professors and one, rather predictably, in which I took on attorneys. However, considering that there are a hundred essays in the book, I would have expected at least a bit of praise. Instead, he wanted to let me know that he was shocked, absolutely shocked, that I hadn’t bothered listing my sources.
Sources?!
As patiently and as kindly as I could, I wrote back to say that I would have assumed that nobody who picked up a book called “Conservatives Are From Mars, Liberals Are From San Francisco,” would expect it to have footnotes. I told him the good news was that he wouldn’t be tested on the material at the end of the semester.
He then wrote back, quite annoyed, to say that Al Franken’s “Lies and the Lying Liars Who Tell Them,” unlike my book, was very well-researched.I then wrote back to explain that Harvard had asked Franken to write his polemic, offering him the services of a dozen graduate students to do his “research.” Harvard did not make me the same offer, although if they had, the truth is the only use I would have had for the Ivy Leaguers would have been to pick up the wife’s dry cleaning and clean up after our dog.
So, what did I finally come away with from my two days of laboring in the world of commerce? Two things, actually. One, nothing quite beats the high of having strangers forking over cold, hard cash for something you’ve written. And, two, if I’m going to be compared unfavorably to another writer, I rather it be Jack Prelutsky and not smug Al Franken – preferring, to put it bluntly, a Jack to a jackass.
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©2004 Burt Prelutsky
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