Minty Stem's Date With Bill Clegg

Group Home Resident Assails Lit Agent with touching plea:
Beck out my Clog ! Beck out my Clog !


Date: April 12, 2012
Author: Bill Clegg, moderated by Katherine Lanpher
Agents: Bill Clegg, Marly Rusoff, Anna Wiener
Venue: Barnes & Noble, Union Square
Neighborhood: lower Chelsea, upper mid-Village
Free Drinks -- no
Q & A -- yes
Book signed -- no
UE Check Number -- benefits expired

This is another one of those posts I thought I'd get out of the way before the event occurred. I've been going to readings now for three years to meet writers, agents and editors so I know how this event will play out.
Now that I've pitched Jonathan Galassi (see below My Date with Jonathan Galassi) and blew it, I might as well pitch Bill Clegg. If nothing else, I'll learn how to pronounce his last name.
I'm really not scared to walk up almost anybody and ask them to publish the book that this blog is the warm-up for. Especially now that I have the arrangement with Salman's peeps (see below Rushdie’s Rejects).
Yeah, I'm the Samuel Pepys of the NYC readings scene, clawing my way up the slippery ladder of the media food chain one Google Alert at a time.
With Clegg, I'm going to roll out my Minty Stem personna and see what he makes of it. I'm not going to even start the courtship process of Clegg becoming my agent if he doesn't know what a Minty Stem is.
My Minty Stem character is a Rick Ross rapper guy transposed to the NYC readings circuit. He's like the Nas - Samuel Pepys of the scene I've been inhabiting at KGB and McNally Jackson.
Right after I introduce myself to Clegg, I'm going to describe myself as the James Kunen (an author who just published a book about boomers getting the boot out of their cushy, corporate gigs) combined with my pal Jon-Jon Goulian, albeit with a much less impressive body fat ratio, with a bit of Anis Nin thrown in.
If Clegg gives me a blank look after that associative challenge, I might just start squawking "Beck Out My Clog, Beck Out My Clog" and start looking around wildly for the mini-bus from the group home.
My pal Lou, a KGB bartender, had no trouble figuring out that this is just Martian for “Check Out My Blog.”
So that’s my plan for Clegg.
With the moderator, Lanpher, I plan to not try to stike up a converation. I saw her at the Maud Newton - Alex Chee reading last night at KGB.
Sometimes when I try to meet people I admire on this literary readings circuit even if my opening line is, as it was to Lanpher, a slam-dunk, I manage to alienate them.
When I met Lanpher, I mentioned that I worship the work of her friend Trish Hampl. I’ve been a fan of Trish’s ever since I was working at the Strand in 1985. Like when Our Lady appeared at Fatima, I stumbled onto Trish’s work in quaisi-religious moment when a shaft of light penetrated the gloom of the bookstore’s basement and pointed me toward her first prose book “A Romantic Education.”
Oddly enough, I’d just gotten done raving about “A Romantic Education” to my tablemates Alex, Jean and John when I saw Lanpher come into KGB last night.
I dunno, maybe I should get my teeth fixed, maybe it wouldn't amount to losing my hillbilly muse
Anyway, when Trish and Garrison Keillor were undergrads at the University of Minnesota, he probably thought of her as the bright one. Her latest book is “The Florist's Daughter.” It has this great scene where after meeting Trish’s mom, the agent Marly Rossoff says that Trish’s mom is so Irish that she’s Jewish. That observation is so profound, I can’t get my head around it, but attempting to, has been great fun.
The agent Anna Wiener was at the KGB reading. I didn’t talk to her but if I had, I wanted to mention that the composite client at her shop is a young mom novelist who wears colorful footwear to their readings and writes about animals, upstate communes or doctors in New Jersey.
Finally, here’s the first “Row, Dole” bonus challenge:
one free Baltica beer at KGB for anybody that can tell me what a Minty Stem is. (Google it, but that won't help.)