Left Coast was a fanboy's dream

Got home last night from New Mexico, where Kel and I attended Left Coast Crime, the annual mystery conference that this year filled La Fonda in Santa Fe.

Thanks again to the organizers for asking me to be Toastmaster for the event. I still feel bad that TSA confiscated those toasters I packed, and I was unable to supply any toast. But we seemed to make do with booze.

As Toastmaster, I was allowed to get up on stage before 400-plus people and make a complete ass of myself (as usual), and the conference paid my travel and lodging expenses, including a beautiful suite with a balcony and a fruit basket. Also, people kept buying me drinks. I had a very, very good time.

Some highlights:

--At the banquet, I sat with Martin Cruz Smith, one of my favorite authors. We talked about books and mutual friends and his wife was charming and I'm sure I was a drooling idiot the whole time. When I recognized him on stage for his Lifetime Achievement Award, I publicly professed my love for the man. A first for me.

--I shook hands with Brian Garfield, another favorite, and told him that his novel "Hopscotch" was one of the few I kept when we recently gave our personal library to charity and moved to the beach. He liked that.

--Laurie R. King lives here in Santa Cruz County, so I gave her a "howdy neighbor" at a terrific party we attended the first night. Katharine Neville (author of "The Eight") hosted a whole herd of us, including guest of honor Margaret Coel and Watson award winner Craig Johnson. Our pal Joe Badal drove us to the party, which allowed me to pour down all the wine I liked without endangering the general public. Thanks, Joe.

--I interviewed New Mexico author Steven Havill, another GOH, in front of a few hundred people, and we had a good time. Steven is a born storyteller who didn't need much prompting.

--Kel and I dined with one of our favorite people in the world, the ever-hilarious Bill Fitzhugh, who brought along his elegant 84-year-old mother and his wonderful sister (who lives in Albuquerque). Our dinner lasted hours, and I couldn't eat for laughing and telling stories. Fitzhugh did not shoot any spitwads at anyone this time because his mother made him behave.

--I was chatting in the lobby with Gar Anthony Haywood when film director Spike Lee happened by. (This sort of thing happens at La Fonda.) Gar had met Spike before, so he chatted with him briefly while I kept a stupid grin on my face. (I'm not saying Spike is a tiny man, but I'm glad Gar and I were sitting down.)

--Our after-hours poker games at these conferences are the funniest places on Earth, thanks to wisecrackers like Fitzhugh, Parnell Hall, Chris Goff and John Billheimer. I can't disclose specifics, but if any of those people ever again make a noise like a buzzing housefly, I will immediately wet my pants.

Feel free to share your own Left Coast highlights in the "comments" section.

Driving While Ironic

Police say a man arrested for driving-while-intoxicated is the owner of an Albuquerque, NM, driving school.

The man apparently crashed his car earlier this month in the neighboring city of Rio Rancho. Police said he couldn't perform any of the field sobriety tests. And two breath tests showed him at four times the legal alcohol limit.

Full story here.

Lessons learned

The used SUV we bought for our sons came with a lugnut-style lock on the rear-mounted spare tire. But no key.

A special type of star-shaped key was needed to unscrew the lock. We couldn't find a matching one anywhere. I tried auto parts stores, hardware stores, tire shops. Nobody could help. The advice I universally got was to hammer a socket onto the chrome lugnut lock, then ratchet them both off. I tried this several times, buying expensive jumbo sockets each time, and could never get it to work. I showed the lock to friends with power tools. I hit it with a hammer. I tried anything to avoid an expensive trip to the locksmith.

This went on for months and months. Always, somewhere in the back of my mind, was my losing battle with this lock. If I forgot about it, the car promptly got a flat, which required a full emergency rescue and served as a reminder that the spare was useless as long as that lock was in the way.

Finally, I broke down. Yesterday, teeth clenched against the expected expense, we took the car to a locksmith. The locksmith used an expansion socket, which is tapered inside, and had the lock off of there in minutes. The cost? Eight bucks.

I'd spent three times that much on sockets that I subsequently ruined with a hammer. Not to mention the hundreds of dollars spent on antacids and headache remedies and booze. All trying to avoid that expensive trip to the locksmith. Duh.

Two lessons here that we've all heard before, but bear repeating:

1) Use the right tool for the job.

2) Leave it to the experts.

It's much easier to write a check than to jury-rig a solution that probably won't work and may result in personal injury. Often, the experts don't cost as much as we fear. Besides, you can make up the cost with savings on booze.

Primp my bride

A comic cliché that goes back at least to the early days of Dagwood and Blondie: The husband pacing impatiently while his wife takes her good sweet time getting ready for a night on the town.

As with so many clichés, this one’s got some basis in fact. Women have much more to do to get ready, which means men end up with more time to watch the clock and get ulcers.

Proof comes from Great Britain, where a survey finds that women spend three times longer getting ready for a night out. On average, the study found, women spend an hour and a half preparing for a night out, including taking a shower, doing their hair, applying makeup and polishing nails.

Over a lifetime, this adds up to 3,276 hours (or 136 DAYS) spent on primping and preening.

“The figures come as no surprise considering the pressure that today’s women are under just to make themselves look good,” said Heather Boden of the body wash brand Skinbliss, which commissioned the research.

Women are bombarded with images from advertising and media, telling them what constitutes beauty and what products they must buy right now to reach that pinnacle. They’re made to feel that they must invest time and effort into looking their best.

Men, on the other hand, assume they look fine, even when they are covered in actual soil.

If you don’t believe this double-standard exists, try this experiment. Put any woman in front of a large mirror in a well-lit room. She immediately will examine her reflection for flaws. She will get depressed over every bump and wrinkle. She will sigh. She will decide her clothes are hopelessly out of fashion. She will decide to go shopping.

Put a man in front of the same mirror, and he’ll start flexing his biceps, saying to himself, “Looking good.” This is true whether the man is a fit young Adonis or a middle-aged bald guy with the physique of a toad.

(The British survey didn’t differentiate between single vs. married, but I’m guessing the answers were quite different. People who are “on the market” invest more time in looking and smelling their best, just in case they meet that special someone, whereas a married person can feel fully primped as long as he or she is not wearing fresh baby spit-up.)

A typical man can get ready for any occasion in the length of time it takes a woman to decide “does this purse go with these shoes?” Then the man is forced to sit around in his uncomfortable dress-up clothes, getting increasingly anxious, while the woman does her hair and her makeup and changes outfits seven times. By the time she is finally ready, the man has rumpled his clothes, consumed too many pre-party drinks and is fast asleep in front of the TV. He then must spring awake and tuck in his shirttail and smooth down the dagwoods in his hair and drive like a bat out of hell so they can reach the special occasion before all the food is gone.

Plus, the reeling, half-awake man must remember to tell the woman how beautiful she looks. If he knows what’s good for him.

Otherwise, he may find himself asking: Does this purse look good upside my head?

Cutting costs

INTERNAL MEMO
To: Members of the Household
From: Chief Financial Officer

Nationwide, the economy’s in real trouble, and that’s reflected here at local headquarters. Costs are rising and income isn’t keeping up. High gasoline and food prices have taken their toll, and inflation is now spreading to other areas, such as tires and waistlines. It’s time to tighten our collective belts so we can survive these hard times without resorting to layoffs that could affect the whole family.

The following cost-cutting measures will be in force until further notice:

1) Out-of-control inflation at the supermarket means we must rely on simpler foods, such as those purchased at discount stores for less than a dollar. Think ramen noodles. Yum.

We’ll be looking for foods we can make from scratch. Yes, this is more time-consuming, but we’ll have plenty of time to cook now that we’ve canceled all fun activities. (See item 5).

We’ll also keep a lower inventory of food on hand. If you get hungry enough, maybe you’ll finally consume those canned goods that have sat in the back of the pantry since 1993.

2) Utility costs are on the rise, and we can all do our part by keeping lights turned off and using less air-conditioning. Sweating is good for you. And reading in low light builds up your eye muscles.

3) We’ll cut spending on extravagances such as new school clothes. You kids only want to wear your old, ratty clothes anyway, and now you’ll get that opportunity. If colors are faded or you’re tired of the patterns, we’ll dye all your clothes black and tell everyone you’re “Goth” or "emo.” You’ll have to act angry and/or sad all the time, but that shouldn’t be difficult now that we’re poor.

4) School supplies will be provided by household members who have access to corporate office-supply closets and who can exercise the venerated “five-finger discount.” Students should pay special attention to the combinations of nearby lockers.

5) Entertainment costs must be contained. Why pay full price for “The Dark Knight” when you can watch perfectly fine old movies such as “The Ghost and Mr. Chicken” on TV for free? Better yet, curl up with a book from the library.

Dining out is verboten, effective immediately. Public liquor consumption should be confined to “happy hour.” Private alcohol consumption may increase during these hard economic times, resulting in deferred costs, such as detox and/or rehab.

6) Houseplants cost water and time and provide little in return. The ingrates. Starting now, houseplants will gradually be replaced by herbs and other edible plants, such as wheat.

7) Lawn and garbage services will be suspended, replaced by the newest member of our household team, Sweetums the goat. I hope you all will join me in welcoming Sweetums aboard, but keep your distance because she bites.

8) Other so-called “pets” are put on notice that they need to start pulling their weight around here. Otherwise, they run the risk of becoming “lunch.”

9) Transportation costs simply must come down. Car trips will be restricted to those that are absolutely necessary. Household members who need additional travel should undertake it at their own expense. Or use alternative methods such as hitchhiking. This is why God gave you thumbs, people.

That is all for now. If the recession deepens, additional cutbacks may be required. But if we all pitch in and help contain costs, perhaps we won’t have to sell the children to a passing carnival.

Thank you.

Mysterious meetings

Though I've been off the circuit lately, I love mystery conventions, where fans and authors come together for serious discussions of the genre, networking and booze.

The calendar is chock-full of such events, all over the globe, so it’s possible, if you attend enough of them, to maintain a year-round hangover.

The fans at mystery conventions use up their vacation leave and spend their own money to travel to distant hotel bars in search of their favorite authors. They’re not as wacky as science fiction fans -- no plastic pointy ears or speaking in Klingon -- but they’re just as fervent, and they really know mysteries. A fixture at these conferences is a mystery trivia contest, and the readers always beat the writers.

For us authors, who spend so much time working alone, it’s a special treat to meet people who’ve read our books, especially if they liked them or at least show the common courtesy to keep their opinions to themselves. But it’s always a little embarrassing when you meet a fan who knows more about your books than you do.

Fan: I just read your novel, and really liked it.

Author: Thanks. That’s so nice to hear.

Fan: I had a question about one thing in the plot. Do you mind?

Author (chuckling): Bring it on.

Fan: In the beginning of that book, you have the killer escape through the bathroom window, but later when the detective is investigating Hubert’s death, he determines the window was too small for a human to climb through--

Author (behind frozen smile): I wrote a book about someone named Hubert?

Fan (confused): Your first novel? The one about the hitman? The guy who--

Author: A hitman?

Fan, really confused now, checks author’s name tag to make sure he’s got the right one. Begins to suspect author may be an impostor.

Author: Oh, look! A bartender!

How is it possible that the fan’s more familiar with the book than the author is? For one thing, the fan read it more recently. It might be a book written years ago, and lots of authors (including me) rarely go back and read our old stuff because it’s too painful. The characters in those books are like distant friends whose names we can barely remember. Plot points and telling details are long-forgotten.

(Some authors seem better at remembering their plotlines than others. Perhaps a heightened capacity for forgetfulness would explain why some write the same book over and over. Not that I'm naming any names.)

Usually, authors are caught up in the throes of a new tale. The current cast of characters fills our heads, which is why it’s a good thing everyone wears name tags at these conferences.

There’s more to the conferences than fans and authors jawing over drinks, of course. Informative panels, inspiring speakers, book promotion, industry gossip and after-hours poker make these excursions educational and tax-deductible. (OK, the poker’s not tax-deductible, but it’s often educational.)

The “face time” contributes to a sense of community, and that makes it worth enduring the occasional awkward encounter.

I’ve found a new way to handle questions about things in my own books that I can’t remember. I answer in Klingon.

Practicing self-amuse at work

Every job, no matter how challenging, has its ho-hum moments.

One sign of personal growth is successfully finding ways to deal with the everyday ennui, the humdrum, the rut.

Some people focus on life outside the workplace. Others burrow through boredom by remembering the bottom line. But the happiest workers are those who find ways to turn the tables on tedium and amuse themselves on the job.

Some Fun Tips for Beating Boredom at Work

1. Take frequent breaks. Lunch breaks, coffee breaks, bathroom breaks, smoke breaks, they all add up. Play your cards right, and you can spend your whole shift on break.

2. Get some exercise. Just because you're at work doesn't mean you can't keep fit. Try taking long walks around your workplace. As long as you look purposeful and carry a clipboard, your boss will think you're busy.

3. Develop a hobby. You've got all those paper clips right there. Why not build something? Doodling can be great fun. You've always wanted to learn to whistle an entire opera.

4. Set records for your personal bests. How many times can you clear your throat before you're threatened by a coworker? How many trips to the water cooler can you squeeze into a single day? Be creative. This is how people make it into the Guinness Book of Records.

5. Yak on the phone. Everyone loves an employee with good phone manners. Practice on your friends and relatives!

6. Staredowns with customers.

7. "Gaslight" your boss -- do things that'll make him think he's losing his mind. Every time he leaves his office, sneak in and rearrange his desktop items. Leave fake phone messages. Repeat everything he says. Ask him frequently if he feels ill.

8. Two words: Elevator races.

9. Trespass into your coworkers' cubicle space. See how far you can encroach before they complain.

10. Make xerographic copies of your body parts. An oldie, but always entertaining, especially if you're the simple-minded sort.

11. Hoard office supplies. Why do you think your desk has drawers?

12. Follow customers or colleagues around, mimicking their every movement. Always a hoot.

13. Chatting with coworkers can be entertaining, especially if you make a practice of interrupting them at every opportunity.

14. Flirting can be fun, right up to the moment you're called in for sexual harassment. But hey, even that's a variation in the routine, right?

15. Liquid lunch. Afternoons breeze by when you're boozy.

16. The Internet contains a million distractions, not all of which have to do with pornography. There's also gambling!

17. Gossip makes a great escape from boredom. You can get colleagues going for each others' throats while you sit back and smirk. It's like creating your own soap opera!

18. Going on job interviews. If you practice the above techniques enough, you'll almost certainly get out of that boring job and into the lines at the unemployment office.

Have fun!

Laboring over the perfect party

Ah, Labor Day weekend. Summer's last hurrah. For many Americans, that means it's time to party.

Cookouts to mark the passing of summer have become an annual ritual. We gather around open fires and drink native beverages and tell the stories of our people. Then, as night falls, we stumble into the pool and nearly drown and 911 is called, and the tribe has a new story to recount next year.

If you're planning a party for Labor Day weekend, it's not too late to make it the social event of the season. You can turn your home into a showplace for socializing, a place where your guests will feel welcome and well-fed and entertained.

The key is proper preparation. You want your party to appear fun and effortless, and that means working your butt off ahead of time. Make lists. Stockpile food and ice. Clear away clutter and make sure your house is spotless.

No one will notice -- they'll be too busy falling drunkenly into the pool -- but you'll feel better about yourself and your home and that will make you a better host, one who's relaxed and ready for any eventuality.

But where to begin? Social events are delicate creatures that must be nourished with the right mix of people, food, drink and chlorine. Here are some suggestions:

TIPS FOR HOSTING SUCCESSFUL PARTIES

--You can never have too much ice.

--The same goes for beer.

--Prepare just the right amount of food. You want to have enough so that nobody goes away hungry, but you also don't want them to stay all night. And you don't want a lot of stuff left over. Leftovers can be deadly, particularly potato salad.

--Your tasty dishes can be arranged elegantly on platters and the whole table can be decorated with fresh flowers and aromatic candles. If you take this Martha Stewart approach, you will find that your guests fall into three categories: 1) Those who appreciate how much effort you put into the food and who wouldn't dream of messing up the arrangement by actually eating any of it. 2) Those who recognize how much effort went into it and who hate you for it. 3) Those (mostly guys) who don't notice the effort and wade into the food up to their elbows.

--Go get more ice.

--Spend the days before the party making your house clean and tidy. When you're finished, your home will be sparkling and inviting. Unfortunately, you will be too exhausted to enjoy your own party. And your guests will wreck the place, so you can start all over again.

--More beer.

--If your party is outdoors, make sure there's enough shade available. This may require renting a canopy or large tent. Nothing like the aroma of mildewing canvas to give the proper "air" to a gathering.

--Lively conversation is the key to a successful party. Plan ahead so you'll have spontaneous, non-controversial topics that will keep conversation flowing and drunken fistfights to a minimum. Topics to avoid: Politics, religion, divorce, Microsoft, how much effort went into the food, your guests' sexual habits.

--Did we mention ice?

--Should drunken fistfights erupt, the competent host acts as referee, calming angry guests and getting everyone fresh drinks. If they insist on brawling, the host might try shocking them out of their aggressive mode by pushing them into the pool. Refreshingly cold water can be a welcome distraction when things get out of hand. If that doesn't work, the host should dial 911 from his cellular phone while sprinting away to safety.

--One final tip: Guests like to feel they're helping to make the party a success, so give them things to do. For example, should you run out of ice, send a guest to a convenience store for more. This will help the guest feel like part of the effort. In fact, you might find errands for all your guests. Once they're gone, you'll have your clean house and all that food to yourself.

And that's the way to finish off a summer.

Home again, drunkenly

I'm back home from four days of debauchery, I mean networking.

The Left Coast Crime Conference in Denver was tons of fun, and I got to see a lot of my favorite people. Special thanks to Twist Phelan, who put together the panel I was on: "Writers on the hot seat." We got lots of laughs, and I expect my seat to cool off within another day or two.

As always, the after-hours poker game was the highlight for me. Some of the funniest people I've ever known sat around that table: Bill Fitzhugh, Parnell Hall, Donna Moore, Steve Stillwell, John Billheimer, Troy Cook, etc.

Chris Goff and all the other volunteers in Denver threw a great party.