First, I’ll be at Towne Center Books in Pleasanton, CA (May 30), where I’ll be interviewed by Penny Warner. The event kicks off at 5:30pm with a happy hour complete with cocktails and finger foods, so bring your thirst and your appetite!

Next I’ll be signing at Inklings Books & Things in Capitola, CA (June 2) from 2-4pm in the Capitola Mall. A week later, I’ll be at the Barnes & Noble in Dublin (June 9) signing from 1-3pm. Both of these latter two will be meet and greet events.

After that, you can find me back in San Francisco at The Variety Preview Room (June 16), where I’ll be doing a reading and discussion at 7pm along with Lev Grossman, NY Times Bestselling author of The Magicians and The Magician King.

Times, locations, and all other relevant information for all of these events can be found on my website page for Lucky Bastard Tour Dates.

I’ll also be attending San Diego Comic-Con July 12-15, signing at Dark Delicacies in Burbank on July 17, and reading at the KGB Reading Series at the KGB Bar in New York on October 17. More details about these events will be forthcoming, so stay tuned.

And as always, thanks for reading!

As writers, we spend a lot of our time indoors in front of a computer, which is not what humans were created to do. Throw in all of the Facebook updates and the Twitter posts and the online social networking and you can become so connected that you forget to unplug.

Even when we go out, we’re still plugged in, taking our electronic leashes with us, be they cell phones, smart phones, iPads, laptops, etc. We’re always checking our e-mail, our Twitter feed, posting what we’re doing and when we’re doing it and who we’re doing it with, calling friends and family while we’re out and about. We become these share-whores, unable to experience a moment without wanting to post about it or tweet about it or talk about it.

So in effect, while we strive to stay connected to all of these people who are not there to share the moment with us, we become disconnected from experiencing the moment ourselves. It’s impossible to be in the present when you’re constantly connected somewhere else. But we’ve become conditioned by technology to take us out of where we are and electronically connect us somewhere else.

And so I took John’s advice and went outside to enjoy the afternoon sunshine of San Francisco. Granted, my sky wasn’t nearly as beautiful as his, for it lacked the clouds to give it texture, but I don’t have any photos of it to share because I left my smart phone and my laptop at home. That’s not to say I didn’t jones for my phone, but for a couple of hours, it felt good to disconnect.

“I just wanted to say hi.”

Naturally, I reach out and shake his hand because that’s the polite thing to do in this culture. Plus, being a published author of three novels, I’m always under the delusion that people who recognize me are fans who have read one of my books. It doesn’t occur to me that I have one of those faces that looks like about 10% of the population.

So when I ask him for his name, because I have no idea who this person is who just walked up to me to shake my hand, he gets this slightly puzzled expression and says he thought I was someone else and apologizes for troubling me. He also says his name is John, or that he thought my name was John, I can’t recall. Either way, I’m not who he apparently thought I was.

I tell him no worries and say it’s nice to meet him, anyway, then he walks out with his female companion and doesn’t look back or smile, apparently embarrassed.

It’s not until he walks out of the Cup & Saucer that I realize he could have been a luck poacher who just stole my good luck.

Like Nick Monday says, most people will shake a stranger’s hand without giving it a second thought, so you don’t even have to think twice about what you’re doing and poof! Your good luck is gone. And you won’t notice a thing.

I’m just hoping this guy really did think I was someone he knew. Or else recognized me because he read one of my books and didn’t realize it. The delusion lives on.

I realize there are those of you who feel that a book is a book is a book, whether digital, audio, or hardcover. I disagree. I feel there’s a definite difference, just like there’s a difference between MP3s, CDs, and vinyl. When you go digital, you don’t capture the complete sound wave, losing richness and warmth that can’t be duplicated no matter how much remastering you do.

To me, it’s the same with books. Real books are warm while eBooks are cold. I realize eBooks are the future and that the future is now, but that doesn’t mean I have to like it. I also realize that as an author, I earn money from the sale of the electronic versions of my novels. I even have a short story collection that is only available as an eBook.

So I’m not here to say you shouldn’t buy eBooks. Buy books in whatever format you prefer. However, if you are an eBook fan, I encourage you to purchase eBooks from local independent bookstores who have partnered with Google. You can get eBooks for your iPad, Nook, Android devices, and Kindle Fire if you do a side load. At least that’s what I’ve been told. So support independent bookstores rather than Apple and Amazon.

Okay, that’s it for the eBook PSA. Now, without further ado, here are my 10 Reasons Why Real Books Are Better Than eBooks:

1. Real books don’t run on batteries.
2. If you spill water on a real book or drop it in the pool, it still works.
3. Bookcases are windows into a person’s soul. When I go to someone’s house, I’m not going to browse through their Goodreads shelf or their iBooks library.
4. You can’t sign an eBook.
5. eBooks rob me of the thrill of seeing someone reading my book out in the wild.
6. Real books are conversation starters. I’ve never seen anyone ask someone with a Kindle if they liked what they were reading.
7. Real books have historical gravitas. They connect me with all of the writers who came before me.
8. There’s no such thing as a Used eBook Store.
9. You can’t own an eBook. You can only purchase a license that gives you the right to read it.
10. Real books smell like home.

That’s my argument for real books vs. eBooks and I’m sticking to it. You can take my old-fashioned Luddite novel from me when you pry it from my cold, dead hands.

Now, about the only thing you can do in 20 minutes is work your way to the front of the line at Pink’s or Tommy’s.

But I love coming back and visiting friends and enjoying the warm weather. That’s one of the most rewarding benefits of going on the road to promote my novels. Not the warm weather. But the friends. Old and new. People I wouldn’t get the opportunity to spend time with otherwise.

Plus, when you spend a lot of your time alone in front of a computer making up imaginary stories about imaginary people, it’s good to get out once in a while. Helps you to manage your sanity.

While I’m now down in San Diego, which has its own charms and appeal, the highlights of my three days in Los Angeles included:

• drinking too much and staying up too late Thursday night with a college buddy and his lovely wife;
• reading and signing Lucky Bastard on Friday night at the new Mysterious Galaxy Books in Redondo Beach, which has an awesome staff and cheese popcorn;
• signing at the L.A. Times Festival of Books on Sunday, where I had the chance to meet some fans and hang out with fellow wordsmiths Chuck Wendig, Stephen Blackmoore, Maria Alexander, and Matt Funk

Once LATFOB came to a close on Sunday, I made it from USC to San Diego in 1 1/2 hours, a personal best, and have had the good fortune to spend the past thirty-six hours with some old, dear friends who treat me well and make me laugh.

Tonight, I wrap up my southern California Lucky Bastard tour with a reading and signing at the original Mysterious Galaxy Books in San Diego. The fun starts at 7:00PM, so if you’re in the hood, stop on by. Maybe you’ll get lucky.

There were more than a dozen entries that incorporated a monkey theme, including Chimply, Chimp Charlie, Mr. Monkeypants, Banana, Bananas, Bongo Bananahands, Sir Simian, Howler, Bonobo, Thelonious Monk(ey), and Chunky Banana Monkey (which played to my love of Ben & Jerry’s ice cream).

Some entries offered up full names, like Walter Lamar Booth and Charlie Buckhead, while a handful provided regal names like Princess Consuela Banana Ha-mach and Captain Reginald Carpaccio of Winchester that resonated with royalty.

Several entrants who are very secure with themselves suggested I name my monkey after them. Another thought I should name my monkey Jason Bateman (which played to my love of Arrested Development).

The majority of the names were of the Madonna or Prince variety—single names that needed no surname to complete them. Xavier, Maynard, Feldspar, Rasco, Rufus, Schroedinger, Calvin (which played to my love of Calvin & Hobbes), Mercutio, Barnaby, Grums, and Beppo, who is apparently Superman’s pet monkey. I had no idea Superman had a pet monkey. But if he did, his name would be Beppo.

Half a dozen people suggested the name Spank, Spankie, or Spanky, while another threw out Slappy, just in case spanking my monkey grew tedious. Three offered the names Lucky, Son of a Bastard, and Dirty Bastard (which played to my love of my new novel). And one entry suggested I name my monkey Balboa Browne (which played to my love of myself).

But after careful consideration and mulling and rolling the names around on my tongue and in my head, I finally settled on a winner: Reginald Muffintop the 3rd, suggested by Cassandra Rose.

Congratulations! You’ve won signed copies of all three of my novels, a copy of my eBook short story collection Shooting Monkeys in a Barrel, and a $50 gift card of your choice to Amazon, Barnes & Noble, or iTunes.

Thank you to everyone who participated in the contest and who took the time to come up with a name. I appreciate you playing along and helping to make the contest a success.

Oh, and just for the record, Reginald Muffintop the 3rd’s gangsta rapper name is Reggie M3.

So yes, today is the launch of Lucky Bastard, my third novel and the first one to be published in hard cover. I feel so grown up.

If you’re wondering how I’ll spend my day, I’ll likely meditate, go to the gym, go grocery shopping, then hit up a bunch of local bookstores to sign stock copy and whore myself out. If I have time, I might even see a movie. I’m also planning to grab dinner with some friends before my book launch party.

The official celebration takes place tonight at The Booksmith in San Francisco and you’re all invited. There will be readings, discussions, questions asked and answered, and giveaways. So if you’re in the neighborhood, come on by to see if you might get lucky.

The festivities start at 7:30pm but I’ll be there early to chat and hang out. Plus, the first twenty-four people who show up will get a Mission mini cupcake, courtesy of The Booksmith. So bonus.

Oh, and my monkey will be there, too.

The Booksmith
1644 Haight St.
San Francisco, CA
415-863-8688

Unfortunately, I wasn’t able to enjoy that experience when I went to Harry Denton’s Starlight Room, located on the 21st floor of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel. Before I could take any photographs of the interior of the night club to post on my blog, I needed permission from someone who wasn’t available at the time. And since I waited until Wednesday night to take pictures for the final Lucky Bastard San Francisco Blog Tour installment, the best I could do was take a picture of my monkey in the elevator.

However, if you click on the link to Harry Denton’s above, it will take you to the official website, where you can see photos reserve a VIP booth, or book your reservations for their weekly Sunday drag queen performance brunch.

While no drag queens appear in Lucky Bastard, the Starlight Room makes several appearances in the novel—the first near the end of Chapter 18, when Nick Monday is escorted up to the nightclub by one of the Beefeater doormen.

When the doors open, he gestures for me to exit, then follows me out of the elevator and into Harry Denton’s Starlight Room,the nightclub atop the Drake with a 360-degree view and 1930s throwback style.  Decorated in ruby reds and Egyptian golds, with deep-velvet booths and rich crimson silk drapes and signed celebrity photos in the bar, Harry Denton’s looks like something you’d see straight out of a noir film. Standing at the bar with a half-finished cigarette and a full set of curves is a long-haired brunette in a formfitting, long-sleeve, black shirt, a tight, leopard-skin-print skirt, black stockings, and high-heeled shoes that match her skirt. But I only notice her shoes because they’re connected to her long, sleek legs. Which are connected to the rest of her anatomy.

As for who the woman is, you’ll just have to read the book to find out. But I will say that I had no idea she was going to show up until Nick walked into the bar and saw her sitting there.

We end up visiting the Starlight Room in Chapter 37 and again in Chapter 40, both near the end of the book.  So it’s the appropriate place to end the Lucky Bastard San Francisco Blog Tour, as it plays a significant location role in the climax and the dénouement.

As is often the case in fiction, I’ve taken some liberties with the reality of Harry Denton’s Starlight Room:

1) The office for the Starlight Room is downstairs on the Lower Lobby level of the hotel, which would make for a rather boring location.

2) Harry Denton doesn’t own the nightclub in my novel. It just kept his name.

3) Although the elevators are right across from the bar, there isn’t a wall of signed celebrity photos.

4) There’s no EXIT door that leads to the roof. But since I started my story out on the roof of the Sir Francis Drake Hotel, I had to find a way to get Nick Monday back up there. So I did some interior decorating to suit my needs.

And that concludes our virtual blog tour of the San Francisco locales that appear in Lucky Bastard. I hope you enjoyed your trip. Please feel free to tip your tour guide on the way out.

So here were are, in the next to the last entry for the virtual blog tour, and rather than picking a single location, since there are so many of them remaining and I just don’t have the time to do a blog post about all of them before Lucky Bastard comes out next Tuesday (can I have a Woo Hoo!?), I decided to combine them all together in a single post.

We kick things off at  the Green Street Market on the corner of Green and Laguna at the edge of Pacific Heights, where Nick stops in to buy a pack of Mentos. It’s also where his day starts to get complicated. Not because of the Mentos but because of the Asian woman in the red coat. I don’t know if the proprietor of the grocery store/deli is named Sam and has a shaved head, but he does in my book.

Next we have Tommy Wong’s undisclosed hideout in Chinatown. Since not even I know the location, it’s represented here by the Lucky Cats in the photo up top. While the Lucky Cat is actually a traditional Japanese sculpture, it’s a ubiquitous staple in Chinatown gift stores and in Chinese restaurants and shops to help beckon in good fortune. That’s what the Lucky Cat is doing. Not waving but beckoning. Depending on which paw is raised and who’s doing the interpreting, the left paw raised brings in customers, while the right paw attracts good luck. The Lucky Cat appears several times throughout Lucky Bastard.

In another chapter, Nick is dropped off in North Beach on Broadway in the strip club district, across from The Hungry I Club, The Roaring 20′s, and Big Al’s—which used to be an adult super store selling skin magazines, edible underwear, and porn videos but which is now a deli and grocery store that peddles a more traditional kind of salami. Next to Big Al’s is The Condor Club, former hot spot featuring the famous Carol Doda that claimed to be the world’s first topless and bottomless entertainment venue when it opened in 1964.

Nick also contemplates his problems as well as a girl in a bikini in Huntington Park at the top of Nob Hill, goes into the Searchlight Market on Hyde and Union to pick up some Advil and Mentos (he’s got a thing for Mentos), has lunch and one too many Bellinis at Scala’s Bistro with the cute and vexing Scooter Girl, and meets with wanna-be gangsta rapper Bow Wow on Market Street across from the Westfield Shopping Center.

Those of you who have read Fated might catch a reference to a scene that takes place in my second novel at the Westfield Shopping Center. Nick also mentions the full name of Fate’s alter ego.

Finally, we visit Union Square, the only other iconic San Francisco landmark that appears in Lucky Bastard. Nick comes through Union Square on a couple of occasions—first while following Tuesday Knight after she leaves his office and again when he goes into Caffe Rulli and poaches luck from a douche bag on a cell phone. Not to be confused with Alex the Vegan Douche Bag, who is Nick’s personal chauffeur.

By the way, in the photo of Union Square on the right, that’s the Sir Francis Drake Hotel towering above Saks Fifth Avenue, with Harry Denton’s Starlight Club perched atop it. As The Starlight Club appears in several chapters and plays a somewhat significant role in the novel’s climax, that’s where the Lucky Bastard San Francisco Blog Tour will come to an end on Friday.

On a typical weekday afternoon (yes, writers drink during the week in the afternoon—it’s one of the perks of being a writer) the Nite Cap is fairly quiet with several regulars sitting at the bar. Chances are when you arrive, you’ll be greeted with a “hello” and a smile from the bartender. It’s a friendly place with cheap drinks and good people. At least that’s been my impression the few times I’ve been there.

Admittedly, I’d never been to the Nite Cap until I wrote Lucky Bastard. The first time I went inside the bar was for research, as was the second time. The third time was to take the photos in this blog post. I hadn’t planned on the bar playing a role in my novel until it seemed like a good idea. And that happens in Chapter 33, when Nick Monday walks out the front door of 636 O’Farrell to find his cab gone:

I wait a few minutes for another cab, but the only ones that pass are taken, so I glance up O’Farrell and see the sign for the Nite Cap bar at the corner of Hyde. Not that I’m expecting to find a ride there, but the two pints of Guinness I had at O’Reilly’s and the mocha from Peet’s are kicking around in my bladder like a second-trimester fetus, so I head that direction to make use of the facilities before my good luck starts running down my leg.

When Nick sees the Nite Cap and decides to go there to use the facilities, that’s because when I have him leave 636 O’Farrell (which is a fictional address that just showed up in a previous scene like magic) I needed someplace for him to go next. So I did a Google map search of that block of O’Farrell Street and used a street view to find out what was nearby. It just so happened the Nite Cap was half a block away. So that’s where Nick decided he wanted to go and I followed along to document what transpired.

In real life, I don’t know if the crowd I imagined inside the bar in Lucky Bastard is anywhere close to reality, but then I write fiction so it’s my job to make things up. But every time I’ve gone into the Nite Cap I’ve encountered nothing but good conversation and friendly peeps. Like Courtney here, the bartender who’s been working at the Nite Cap for nearly a year and who was nice enough to pose with my monkey and give him something to drink. Me? I had a Guinness. Naturally.

By the way, you still have time to enter the Name My Monkey Contest on Facebook for a chance to win signed copies of all my books, plus other goodies. (Just click on the contest name for the link). So think up a good name and play before April 16. You might just win.