back in the latter part of may, i interviewed, & then got to meet up with an old college chum, the underground legend & literary icon, "dishwasher pete" jordan, who i hadn't seen in about 12 years. pete was on a tour for his first book, dishwasher: one man's quest to wash dishes in all 50 states, which is out now on harper perennial.
dishwasher pete & i got to hang out for a bit on friday night, may 25th, in los angeles. i went to his reading at book soup that night, and then onto the cat & fiddle on sunset boulevard, with a friend of mine & some of pete's chums from the city of angels, including pete's fellow dishdog from his little rock, arkansas days, jim (pictured, above left, at book soup, with pete).
the turnout at pete's appearance at book soup was the weakest of his entire tour. i was a little disappointed by that. but, still, it was on a friday night, on the sunset strip -- where there's not a lot of parking and NO good mass transit (haha... this is LA, are you kidding?!) -- on the first night of a holiday weekend, no less. (& it seemed like just another event for book soup to get through, to be honest: sandwiched in between don rickles and some other "real" celebrity author... bleh. : / )
what's more, i couldn't help but think of the stereotype of angelenos as being shallow, and all of that, however much i didn't really want to go there... i dunno. i don't live in that megalopolis...
anyways: the book is terrific. pete's writing always has been -- some of y'all may be familiar with his legendary zine, dishwasher, & with his contributions to the classic non-fiction radio program, this american life.
(the night of our reunion was memorable, too, because it was also the only occasion i've had so far to meet up with fellow blogger & buzznet heartbreaker, desiree, the dvl... sigh... ;)
anyways. i'm finally getting around to posting this photo from book soup because TONIGHT, friday, july 20th, dishwasher pete is going to be making an appearance on late show with david letterman, on cbs television here.
a ways back, in the late '90s, pete & his friend jess hilliard perpetrated a hoax on letterman & his staff. then pete exposed it far & wide...
so, with that in mind, here's how pete himself is setting up tonight's appearance:
"Hey,
The last time I was invited to appear on the David Letterman show, I sent my friend Jess to go on in my place (see the video of that on my home page). With the publication of my book DISHWASHER, the question was: Would they have me back to promote it?
Turned out that the producers weren't so hot on having a guest who had already duped them once. But apparently, after reading my book, Dave himself wanted me on the show. When I got word of this a few days ago, all I could think was that they would try to pull something over on me, like by having a Letterman impersonator interview me.
Tune in Friday night to find out..."
(here's pete's appearance on "late show" last year -- but there were running gags about him all night.)
