Liar, liar. That's me!

Today I was kind of called a liar. Kind of because it was an unattributed source on Daniel Goldin's blog for Boswell Book Company.

Seems a nice lady came into the shop and complained to him about my book "Milwaukee's Live Theater." I take it from the blog post that Daniel put up today that the nice lady thinks I'm a boob. She's pointed out some inaccuracies in my book to Daniel. Daniel wrote about the encounter on his blog (which you can go to by clicking the many link trails I've peppered into this paragraph), but didn't mention what the lady takes issue with vis a vis my book. I'll just assume it's everything, right down to the spelling of my own name.

I'm not gonna deny the lady her day. I have also found a couple of mistakes since the book's publication. I wish i could go back and tinker with just one or two things. Nothing glaring, just a little more support and explanation.

Well, I'll put the lady who thinks I'm a pathological slob at ease in case she's worried that I'm the literary equivalent of Wikipedia's explanation of the Franco-Prussian War (I think they claim something about a dispute over salad dressing--oh, look at that, there I go lying again). I'm pretty sure that my future as a writer has little to do with the absolute truth. My goal for getting this book published was to create as thorough of a story on the history of live theater in Milwaukee as 222 pictures and 18,000 words allowed (Arcadia Publishing has it down to a science folks.) I also had an ulterior motive: to just be published. I hope to be published again someday, but perhaps the next book while be based on a collection of half truths and personal exaggerations of real life stories sort of like the ones all the super successful writers we all know and love put out for us all to lap up and enjoy. And hopefully the next one will be funnier than my first because, let's face it, lying through your teeth is a scream.

This is also a reminder to come to Boswell Book Company next Wednesday at 7pm to hear me talk about the history of live theater in Milwaukee. You may use the occasion to hang on my every word or heckle me mercilessly for my shoddy research and demented distortion on how things meant down drama wise in old Milwaukee town. Here's the low down:

Jonathan West Speaks (or lies, depending upon how you look at it) About "Milwaukee's Live Theater History"
When: 7pm on Wednesday, June 3
Where: Boswell Book Company, 2559 N. Downer Avenue at Webster Place

Not dead...yet

I never intended to take a month plus long break from mouthing off on Artsy Schmartsy. Things just got in the way.

I prepped my raised garden boxes for eventual planting. I don't rightly know how farmers do it day to day. I guess the promise of the juice from a tomato dripping down your chin from a chomp you take right after plucking a Roma straight from the vine has something to do with it. And it's fun to be dirty. (In every single way, if you know what I mean.)

I also went to New York City for 28 hours or so, saw a bunch of friends, walked across the Brooklyn Bridge, ate ice cream and cheeseburgers at two of my favorite places in the world, dreamed about all the things I didn't quite finish in the city I called my home for close to six years, and saw a super production of WAITING FOR GODOT with Bill Irwin, Nathan Lane, John Glover and John Goodman. John Glover is now my drooling aphasia inspired hero.

My wife has continued to train for an iron man triathlon, and I have continued to take notes on how this effects our family dynamic and what it means about my ever enthralling relationship with the stunning lady who married me. She finished her first marathon in 4 hours and 21 minutes, a full hour and two minutes faster than the one I ran several years ago. Having since sworn off these organized athletic events, it didn't mean much to me to be beaten by a girl. That's why I've now downloaded the application to the New York City Marathon. Try as I might, a life in front of the television is not in the cards for me.

There's also the job.

No more on that, really. It's a great job. Nuff said.

But the one thing that I hadn't anticipated that tends to take up a lot of my time these days is promoting my book, "Milwaukee's Live Theater." I'm not going to dwell on promoting it here on Artsy Schmartsy, but I did want to alert the book-loving world to a few new signings on the horizon. I sign the books, talk about live theater in Milwaukee, kibbutz with anyone who likes to kibbutz, and then talk about a new project I'm tackling (more on that in a minute). Here's the readings/signing I have on the horizon that I hope to see folks attend:

Wednesday, June 3 at 7pm (Boswell Books on Downer Avenue)
Friday, June 12 at 7pm (Barnes and Noble at Mayfair Mall)
Saturday, June 13 at 2pm (Sam's Club at 77th and Calumet in Milwaukee)
Thursday, July 16 at 5:30pm (Sunset Playhouse in Elm Grove)

The new project is something called "Your Live Theater Story." And rather than bore you here with details on that, visit the new site I set up for that at www.yourlivetheaterstory.com.

No more month long breaks...I hope. Nice to be back. This is a very nice place.