My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Book Expo 2012

Well, it's June, kids, and once again, here I am, your faithful media personality, filing a report from Book Expo of America, NYC's annual galaxy-sized smut carnival clusterf*ck showcasing the best, the brightest, the most random, and the most embarrassing that the World O' Books has to offer. As you can see from the picture above, Satan himself was on hand promoting his new book, The Seven Hats of Devilishly Successful People, with a Foreword by his twin sister's anchor baby Ann Coulter. Everyone was selling something, so let's dive right in with SeeTimBlog's totally blinkered and blurry BEA coverage and try to discern something, anything.

Did you know that President Barack Obama is both a rank amateur and a great destroyer? Well, he is. Don't think about it for too long because you might tilt your head and wonder, "hmm, if he's such an amateur, shouldn't he be more of a sloppy destroyer?" But no! Because Obama is such a scary idiot oppressor, his amateurishness just naturally, clumsily brings about perfectly calibrated destruction. Get it? Don't think, just say yes!

Beaver Books Publishing is in the children's section, isn't that surprising? Oh look, it's Lemony Snicket!

A cardboard cutout of Arnold Schwarzenegger was on hand to sign copies of Ruth Rendell's new book. (Or something, I don't know what's going on here.)

Had to get a pic of Satan's tail. It's a lot like Ann Coulter's, but thicker. (Ann's is skinny and gnarled, like her fingers.)

WaveCloud.com is apparently some new "Goodreads"-type site whose mission is to bring authors and readers together, or some such. Do we care? Only kind of! I just searched for my book (Tune in Tokyo, buy it!) on their site and turned up nothing. Nothing! BURN THAT SITE DOWN. Anyway, one of WaveCloud's gimmicky ways of getting notice at BEA was hiring folks to walk around with a big box of hot coffee on their back and a paper cup dispenser, so folks could give themselves a little pick me up. This, I think, falls in the "random" category of BEA happenings.

A very effective line of questioning. The government trusts God, so what's your problem? Also, the government trusts banks, the blindness of justice, and the U.S. Postal Service. So why are you always bitching?

Okay, here we go. It's truth time, y'all, so put on your aluminum veracity visors. Circling back to President Barack Obama, did you know that he plans to go house to house and murder all the white babies who aren't union thugs if he gets re-elected? Then he will turn around and just stone cold walk away, like he's doing in the cover photo above. Don't be fooled twice, sheeple! Because did you know that he also plans to take away your last remaining freedums, like the freedum to eat deep-fried butter while soaking in a tub full of melted Country Crock, the freedum to stand your ground against Skittles, and the freedum to go bankrupt because you can't afford the hospital treatment for your chronic butt rot condition? And that he will make Fox and Friends' Gretchen Carlson illegal? Obama will do all this and more, and so if he is re-elected, it means the end of days, because who can start their morning without the spastic absurdity of Gretchen Carlson smirking her way through an interview with some like-minded shill or other? (On the plus side, if you want Gretchen to be illegal, vote for Obama early and often!)

So, this book Fool Me Twice will lay all this out in words that the great unwashed masses of our country's greatest insane asylums can understand. And the publisher's gimmick for generating buzz about the book at BEA was to hire some poor handsome young black man who from behind bears a striking resemblance to our president. (Look at him on the lower right corner of the photo above. They have very similar heads!) He had the perfect sheen of gray on his hair, it was quite amazing. Sadly, the illusion falls apart when he turns around and shows us his handsome face, which bears absolutely no resemblance to our president's handsome face. Still, he's got the gestures and expressions down.

I hope he's getting paid well for doing this, because it can't be sitting well with his poor mother. Also, here's another thing:

I didn't take the opportunity to briefly have the World's Largest Afro, because I won that prize in high school. And now it's time for the most important photo of this entire blog post.

That's right: it's Michael Bolton and his aquiline nose. The woman in front of me was simply losing her shit. Losing it. Completely. In her defense, he did look pretty handsome. So anyway, he's got a book coming out in November called My Life, My Music. I can't think of anything I'd like to read less, but hey, I'm not his target market. His target market is millions of women like the woman who was standing in front of me. Good on him. (My target market, by the way, is illiterates.)

So! That's all I have for the floor show, but because I'm not just an intrepid reporter but also an author, I happily twirled on down to the Press Lounge for the Amazon Publishing swaray with my friend Alyson, where there was much free booze and opportunities to pose once again in front of the magnificent Gotham cityscape.

After a few photos, Alyson and I decided it was probably time to conjure some hell beasts to get the party started.

Alyson's hell beasts were better than mine because she used both hands. Anyway, they arrived, went straight to the bar, drank all the booze, and stole all the women, the end.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Book Expo 2011

Since the big rapture DJ party didn't happen on May 21, Book Expo of America 2011, the publishing industry's annual smut festival of doom, went on as planned this week at the Javits Center in NYC with all of its scheduled special guests. This year they included Jane Lynch, Julianne Moore, John Lithgow, and probably some other people, all appearing to meet their fans among the disgusting and depraved book people in attendance from across the globe.

Also! This year, unlike previous years, I was at Book Expo not just as an (un)official BEA photographer but also, thanks to the good people at Amazon, as an author OMG! Yes, as I mentioned previously, next fall Amazon Encore, an imprint of Amazon Publishing, will be publishing my book Tune in Tokyo: The Gaijin Diaries, which I self published last summer, and to celebrate their growing publishing program they invited all of their authors to come to Book Expo and look sexy/tired. So on Tuesday I trolled on over to the Javits Center and got my Exhibiting Author badge, above for your viewing pleasure, and started exhibiting myself all over the damn place.

Onwards to the hot pix. Warning: they are often blurry.


I don't know what booth this was, but it's impossible for me not to take a picture of a table full of adorable stuffed animals. It's why I always get kicked out of FAO Schwartz.

This fancy gentleman is walking around with a box on his head pimping the book Proving God. Glad I decided not to wear mine.

Good Lord, Scientologists are weird. There was a poor girl, obviously kidnapped, dressed as a pirate and forced to hand out flyers at the giant L. Ron Hubbard booth. Right after I took this picture, the blonde woman on the right looked over at me with an expression that said, "I am going to eat your face." I returned her hungry gaze with my own that said "I will not let you eat my face."

Look at this photo of the Wimpy Kid sitting in a large snow globe surrounded by dark figures who don't seem to even notice him. I mean really look at it. It's saying something, isn't it?

Gross.

Winner of the Hottest Promotional Book Poster Award is up there on the left.

I'll give you three guesses what the title of the book in the middle of this picture is.

Pretty sure you didn't guess that right.

This is the Librarians At Play orgy booth. Things got a little unhinged right after this picture was snapped.

Just when I was giving up on seeing any celebrities, Dr. Ruth shows up at the Amazon booth to talk to Larry Kirshbaum, who has just been named vice president and publisher of Amazon Publishing's New York office. It took me a few tries, but I got my photo. She's very small and blurry.

Then, right after seeing Dr. Ruth, I walk outside and see this car that appears to be waiting for Ice-T. Did they write a book together?

Up next: the Amazon party at the Press Lounge! Above are little cookies with the titles of Amazon books on them. For some reason mine wasn't included (I was a late addition to the author list), which is sad because my book is delicious.

My ladyfriend Alyson looking awesome.

Me trying to get enough booze in me to get up the nerve to talk to some of these people.

The view from the Press Lounge's veranda.

Me and Alyson with any increasingly distopian midtown behind us. 

There's Larry again. 

Larry again.

Book Expo 2011, everybody!

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Book Expo 2010

It’s that time of year again, book f**kers. Time to get out my new Droid phone and snap some shots of the filthy goings on at the blood opera of death known as Book Expo, the annual carnival of dingbat celebrity books, publishing-is-not-dying pep talks, and virgin sacrifices. There was a lot of smut on display this year and I did what I could to capture a few golden nuggets. (Troll down memory lane and read my roundup of last year's monster's ball here.)



But first of all, I must say that there was some grade-A drama on Wednesday morning at the Children’s Author Breakfast, which I attended because I wrote Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. The master of ceremonies was none other than Sarah “Gimme Yer Monies” Ferguson, who is (hilariously) a children’s book author and who is also, of course, embroiled in a “pay-to-play-with-my-ex-husband-Andrew” scandal. Needless to say, the press was out in full force because they are tedious children.



When we were in line for the breakfast, some dingbat CBS reporter of the NILF variety started asking folks what they think of the controversy. The first group she asked was clustered in line behind us and none of them knew what she was talking about because, duh, they read their children’s books in caves. If she had asked me I would have said I don’t blame Fergie at all for wanting some money, these are tough times. If I could sell access to Jimmy and my cat Stella I totally would because money means power (and better 3-day weekend options because, you know what, screw Coney Island). But they didn’t ask me.



I must say, she was a total pro. She made a few oblique references to her recent troubles, but otherwise did her best to keep the spotlight on the author panel, which included the guy from Boing Boing (who teared up when talking about his campaign to get books into the hands of kids in poor countries IT WAS VERY TOUCHING), Mitali Perkins, whose new book Bamboo People looks pretty good, and amusing old codger Richard Peck.

It was great, though I can't help but feel that I got the short end of the stick because in the very same room on Thursday morning Jon Stewart was the MC and Condoleeza Rice was one of the guests. But so what/who cares, I got to see the Duchess of York, so whatever.

More disgusting photos below.



Celebrity books are a terrible, terrible thing unless Kristen Schaal writes one.



Or Bernadette Peters.



Gross.



Grosser.



Hey, isn't that NBC's Peter Alexander? I think it is. Since when do reporters read books?!



Stormtroopers! Their memoir Don't Tase Me, Bro is out in paperback soon.



Lord Vader descends the escalator, just like in Return of the Jedi.

My Camera Phone Will Not Be Denied: Book Expo 2009

This banner says "Harlequin celebrates 60 years of pure reading pleasure." Gross.


The annual debauched bakesale known as Book Expo--or BEA, for those needing to save time--took place this past weekend at New York's original den of sin, the Javits Center on 11th and 34th, where Andy Warhol used to hold his quiche-eating contests. The Javits Center, y'all, is depraved enough to charge $2.25 for a banana at one of their snack kiosks--the same snack kiosks where they sell chocolate crack to children--so you just know they're not gonna scrimp on the crazy. Sponge Bob was there giving lap dances = proof.



Just like at Studio 54 during olden times, the stars were out and ready to party, trolling the various booths of the Center looking for pills and poppers. I saw Julie Andrews being interviewed by C-SPAN and she was so strung out I'm surprised she was able to even sit up. Witness it:



She is simply dying to snort some blow off of that woman's breasts. It is so obvious.

There were also aliens:



I availed myself of one of those free probes while thumbing through Johns Hopkins University Press's Fall 2009 catalogue. And shivering.

Naturally, up next was my date with destiny: Bob McGrath, the main pimp from Sesame Street, out promoting some awful kids sing-along CD. I bought five, which I'll be giving to my future children, if my boyfriend Jimmy ever has the decency to get pregnant.




Oh, and you just KNOW there were scantily clad dancers and drums. Someone had to break the sexual tension.



In conclusion, at BEA this year I learned that the future of publishing is coming soon.