Beer, Band, Books, and Baggos!

If you're in the Chicago area, you're invited to the launch party for DOUBLEBACK next Sunday. (The Bears have a bye so you have no excuse...)

Sunday Oct 11
3-6 PM
Hanson Brothers Tavern
Willow and Shermer Rds
Northbrook, IL

Hope to see you there.

Shameless Self Promotion

by Marcus Sakey

Hey folks, I hope you’ll forgive me today’s post, but I wanted to take the opportunity to talk about, well, me. More precisely, about my new book, THE AMATEURS, which will be released a week from tomorrow. It’s the story of four friends in their early thirties who aren’t happy with where they’ve ended up in life, and who undertake a risky plan to try to take everything they think they deserve.

Things do not go smoothly.

In any case, besides begging you to buy an armload of copies, I also wanted to tell you about a couple of things I’m doing to promote the novel.

The first is a contest based on a game in the book called, “Ready, Go,” essentially a question game:

"If you died today, what would you most regret? Ready, go."

I’m hosting a couple weeks of "Ready, Go" for some pretty stellar prize packages, including one worth about $750 in hardcover books, many of them signed. (For a full list, click here.)

Here's how to play:

• Every day I pose a new "Ready, Go" question on Twitter and Facebook
• To enter via Twitter, ReTweet your answer, including the tags @marcussakey and #TheAmateurs
• To enter on Facebook, visit my profile and respond
  
• Enter as often as you like. Respond on both Twitter and Facebook for double points!
• When the contest is over, I'll select three winners at random, so the more days you participate, the better your odds. Simple as that.

As a special bonus for Outfit readers, if you post an answer to the above question in the comments here, that will count as an entry too. Take that, non-Outfitters!

The second thing I wanted to tell you about is my release party in Chicago. It will be on August 6th, from 7 – 10pm, at Sheffield’s (3258 N. Sheffield), one of my favorite bars. Come by and have a drink with me, and bring your friends. The more the merrier.

Finally, my tour schedule is as finalized as it tends to get. Check out the dates here. Hope you’ll come out to see me!

Thanks again for the indulgence, and don’t forget, buying copies of THE AMATEURS has been proven to lower cholesterol, assure conviction of corrupt ex-governors, and protect baby seals.*

* These statements have not been evaluated by the FDA. Or anyone else.

Cheers!

-Marcus

Follow me on Twitter or Facebook

A trip to City Hall, another day in court, and a ride on the Brown Line

by Michael Dymmoch

Actually it was a trip to the Cook County side of the building, but City Hall is more melodic and has more of the associations I’m trying to evoke—Don Quixote and his windmills. I had to fill out a form for the Cook County Assessor, and I decided that going there would be less frustrating—or at least more interesting—than trying to get through the telephone maze. So I hopped on the El.

Where I observed that chivalry is not dead—yet. At the Washington & Wells stop, a twenty-something gentleman offered to help a young woman with her suitcase. Unfortunately, she was too busy yakking on her cell to notice. I wonder how many repetitions it will take to completely extinguish the young man’s generous impulses.

At the county building I had to take a number, but it was only five above the number being served. So I got to watch people, but not long enough to get tired of the sport. I spotted a cute man in his late teens lending moral support to his mother. His Tee-shirt said “I’d Do Me.” When my number got called, I was astonished to be helped by a pleasant, patient, super-competent woman who had me in and out in 15 minutes!

It was hard to hear what was going on in court yesterday. A large contingent of friends/family members of three accused murderers was in court to lend the defendants support. While the visitors were waiting for the case to be called, they carried on as if they were waiting at a bus stop, conversing loudly. (Easy to see that the defendants might be guilty of the ultimate breach of rules. And why.) The deputy who usually evicts children and confiscates cell phones was absent, and his replacement was a lazy-ass wuss who just glanced at the noisys and went back to doing essentially nothing. Nobody said anything about the breach of rules and etiquette until a cell phone went off and the judge threw the offender out. People who first come to court notice these things, but they don’t speak up. Maybe it’s just the way things are done. And who is a visitor to comment? By the time you’ve been around long enough to know what’s out of line, you’ve been worn down into accepting the status quo— the problem is just too big to tackle.

When I was a kid, I didn’t get why old people were so cranky—always telling us to be quiet, be respectful. Now I’m old. I get it. Most rules were made for good reasons. Old people’s impatience is because they don’t have the energy or time to deal with rule-breakers—to tune out the dissonance they cause, or to convince them to be civil. Most of us old fogies save our effort for fights we might win.

Last night I took the Brown line to Lincoln Square to attend Marcus Sakey’s launch party for Good People at The Book Cellar. (Marcus’s friends, family and fellow writers showed up—including Judy Bobalik from Indiana, and New Yorkers Rosanne and Reed Farrel Coleman. Marcus is a class act, and the party was terrific.) I got a kick out of the El trip, too.

There were three twenty-something couples waiting at the Merchandise Mart stop. Couple number 1 appeared to be casual friends—fellow students or coworkers. They conversed in a relaxed, friendly manner until the train came, then got lost in the ingress. Couple number 2 was more interesting. Both were fashion model gorgeous. The woman, in flared jeans and double tank tops, was slim and blond and clinging to her companion like a teen in the throws of romance. He looked like he was posing for a GQ ad. He didn’t push the girl away, but he never took his hands off his hips. And he seemed to more interested in being seen than in looking at her. When the train came, they stalked down the platform in search of a sparsely populated car. The third couple embraced briefly when they arrived on the platform, then stood close enough to one another to make it obvious they were together. The woman was apparently more comfortable with this than the man, but he sure didn’t act as if intimacy was a burden. I didn’t have the nerve to go up to any of them to ask what they were thinking. So I’ll do what most writers do—make up a story.