I don’t spend nearly as much time on this blog as I used to, because:
-I need to devote time to books
-I’m doing Instagram, which I like a lot, and each Instagram post gets put on the blog (and Twitter) automatically. The trouble is they look a bit weird, with hash tags, and too-large type. For which I apologize.
-I wish I had the time to do blog posts like I did a few years ago, but I need to focus on projects that bring in income. I told Stewart Brand a few months ago that I’d done over 5,000 posts, with no corresponding income and he said, what took you so long to figure that out?
Guess what just came on the radio (playing at this moment)? “I’m so tired, Lord, of bein broke all the time,” by Canned Heat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xU209vIy0KI
Cosmic timing, eh?
My “Tour” I’m writing this from Courtenay, a (real) town I like a lot on Vancouver Island. I’m in the early stages of a tour of bookstore appearances with my new book. I just did the Community Hall on Hornby Island; the place was packed — young and old kindred spirits. Before I left, I did Mollusk Surf Shop in San Francisco and started by showing a few old scratchy B&W photos from surfing in Santa Cruz in the’50s, before wet suits and polyurethane foam, it was so much fun! Beer, cider, great music. Standing room only, some people couldn’t get in. A couple of angels made it possible.
Dates:
-Thursday (tomorrow): Russell Books, 734 Fort St, Victoria, 7 PM
-Tuesday, May 23, 7PM, Vancouver Public Library, Main Branch, 350 West Georgia St, Vancouver
-Thursday, May 25, 7:30 PM, McNally Robinson Books, 1120 Grant Ave, Winnipeg
-Saturday, May 27, Toronto: 11 AM, the Public Library at Parkdale; 2 PM, The Public Library, Danforth/Coxwell
-Thursday,June 1, Spoonbill and Sugartown in Brooklyn, 7PM
I’ve booked 6 flights for this sojourn. Sheesh! Booked into AirBnB places in Vancouver and Toronto to avoid high hotel bills.
New book: I’m working on a book on the ’60s. Someone told me a few weeks ago that it’s been 50 years since the “Summer of Love,” and there are a bunch of exhibits, articles, a lot of attention on the era, and most all that I read or see about it doesn’t correlate with what I saw happen. So I’m writing about it from my own perspective, with my own photos. I grew up in San Francisco, went to high school in the Haight Ashbury district, and was 10 years older than the group (baby boomers) that caused it all to happen. I dropped out of the insurance business in 1965, partly because I felt I had more in common with young people than I did with my own generation. I’m not sure if it will come together as a book, but I’m following my modus operandi of: If you don’t know what to do — start. We’ll see.
Other books “The Half Acre Homestead,” a scrapbook on barns, a book on Baja, possibly a wild book on building by a French friend of mine…
Print-on-demand or short run books A lot of things that don’t require a major book. The first one will be a 48-page book: Driftwood Shacks: Anonymous Architecture of the California Coast. In past years I put together a bunch of handmade, hand-lettered sort of scrapbooks on trips: roaming through the southwest deserts, LA, NYC (both visually rich), Southeast Asia, the Greek island Lesbos (on a motor scooter)…I’ll see if it makes sense to do limited editions.
I feel like’ I’m just getting rolling.
I love it here in Canada. So many wonderful people + a bunch of true and lifelong friends. I told Michael the other day it feels like a “separated at birth” situation, it’s all so familiar and friendly and tuned into my sensibilities.
If you think that your time has been wasted on 5,000 blog posts, you are mistaken. The blog is as much a part of your "brand" and anything else that you do. Unfortunately, we lost you to social media bight lights and glitter.
The best way to not be disappointed is to lower your expectations to the point that they are already met. I no longer expect much from the blog, and haven't been disappointed yet…
Still coming to Portland?
Yes, I agree with Anonymous. Writing a blog is a sort of an act of faith… that it's worth it even with no pay. I try to do at least a seasonal post, so four times a year. If I can get someone, anyone to leave a comment then that's my pay. And I do check my stats constantly so I guess that's pay too. My readership (like yours no doubt), is world wide.
P.s. I enjoy your writings and am drawn to the Native Funk and Flash sensibility that you in my mind are at least tangentially a part of.
I entirely understand. I much enjoy your blog AND buy your books, so I guess I am paying you back for the pleasure in some small way. I probably would not even have known about you or your books if it had not been for your blog, so you have not wasted your time.
I was interested to hear that you were in Courtenay. We live in Powell River, so we could have looked across Georgia Strait and almost seen you. No point in your coming here, though. The only real bookstore in town (Breakwater Books) closed a couple of years ago, despite my support, and we are left with a big chain bookstore that has few real books, but shelf after shelf of lurid trash that is probably written by prurient computers. Don't really like Amazon much, but it's all that is left here now.
I agree with the other commenters here in that your blog is what drew me to you and Shelter books (of which we have 4). And, it is the first blog on my roll that I open every day. I have Instagram but there's something about your blog (or any for that matter) that is slower in pace and deeper in content. We really do have enough fast food media out there already, people like us, your people really, savor a slower, more connected take on your world.
By all means, expand your reach through other media but maintaining your blog should be viewed as a labor of love rather than a economic endeavor. Thank you.
Lloyd Kahn said…
That you, Sharkey?
Jeez, is it that obvious? I drop in once every few months when the rest of the Internet seems dull and lifeless. My timing seems to be impeccable, as it always seems that you've just posted another post-mortem eulogizing your blog.
People change, I'll get over it, but don't think that you've wasted anything here ever.
We miss you, but we can't force you to miss us.
Every so often you write an apologetic entry like this as if you feel you have not given your best to this blog. I want to let you know that I eventually catch up with every entry you do. I have been reading this blog for many years now, it has great value for me and I believe it is the first blog I followed religiously. I have always wished I had friends like you and Louie, guys who are out of the box creative and demonstrate the fine qualities of living right. Nobody I know, certainly myself, has the level of game that you guys exhibit. It's like reading a transformational book, there's real wisdom here. So I think of you as a cool friend who can always blow my mind and turn me on to something new. I am on to better and freer things for reading this blog, I am going on to 63 now and to have a new and ever better life going on at this age is amazing and joyous. Tend to your path as you need to do, and no apologies are necessary my friend.
bayrider: Thanks!
Anonymous, Haven't got a date yet for Portland.