eric nuzum dot com

The mystery of the moped-riding dude with no legs

no wings...just legs
Originally uploaded by spareorgan

Sometime after moving into our neighborhood, I began noticing this guy riding a moped around all day long. He was kind of hard to miss, if for no other reason than his riding style. He doesn't stop moving for any reason.

I've never seen him come close to hitting a car or a person--not even remotely come close. But he's like a shark or something. You know how sharks supposedly die if they stop swimming? Well, the moped guy seems to have a similar aversion to stopping his moped. While I do recall seeing him stationary once or twice (chatting with people he knows in the neighborhood), all the rest of the time he darts through intersections, zips up alleys, and down streets--at 6:15 am, 11 at night--all the time.

After I got used to him zipping by, I noticed two other unusual things about him. First, he never wears a helmet. Given his desire to avoid basic traffic laws, you'd think he'd be more concerned about covering his head with something other than a bandanna. He is not.

The second thing is that he has no legs, from at least the knee down. I know this because he always wears shorts. He does have thin metal poles with blade-like feet on the ends. I have no idea if they are functional or if he can walk, as I have never seen him off his moped.

The "no legs" thing just adds to the weirdness of seeing him tear ass around the neighborhood all day. I mean, I can't help but wonder if his lack of legs is somehow related to his driving habits. He is a two-cylindered enigma.

This past week I'd realized that he hasn't been around for awhile. In fact, I can't remember seeing him since probably mid-October. It's strange--something that you are so used to seeing every day, sometimes multiple times a day, yet when it's gone it takes you weeks to realize.

Anyhow, his sudden and complete disappearance has made him even more of an intriguing mystery to me. Where did he go? Did he stop riding for the winter? That makes no sense. I remember seeing him out there in a rain with a blue poncho, puttering around Petworth. I can't believe he doesn't have the grit to handle some colder weather.

Maybe his moped broke and he needs someone to start up a fund to repair it? Maybe high fuel prices finally got to him? Maybe he was in a terrible accident (or another terrible accident) and now has no arms either.

Maybe he goes south for the winter, like a migratory bird, and spends his winters driving around Sarasota or something.

Having our own no-legged moped speed demon made the neighborhood feel a bit more special. I miss him.

Enough already

Vampire cat
Originally uploaded by dokidokilove

I was at work on Friday, wrapping up before taking a week off to visit with my nephew and decompress after the last few months.

Then I received an email and phone call from the local Fox station, wanting to interview me about vampires.

I mean, I am grateful for the interest, but I'm ready to be done.

So I told them, "I plan to walk out of work to head to the airport at exactly 5:10pm. If I walk outside the building and see a TV truck there, I will give you five minutes to interview me...on the sidewalk. If I walk out to leave and there is no TV crew--I will keep walking. If there is a crew there, I will talk to you for exactly five minutes."

Despite how that sounds, I really wasn't trying to be a diva. I kept saying no, and they just kept trying to make it easier. After a few minutes of back and forth I came up with the above, my final offer.

I walked outside at 5:10 and they were there. So I talked to them outside in the windy cold for exactly five minutes.

Click here to view the finished story.

CNN

Me on TV...

The link has been acting funny. So if you don't see it embedded below, click here instead.

PoP guest post: My Petworth Inauguration Package

Zilly Rosen of ZILLYCAKES in Buffalo, NY,
builds a likeness of presidential candidate
Barack Obama using 1240 cupcakes.
Originally uploaded by shastio

There is a thing happening in Washington now--people talking about renting their homes out for inauguration week. While I'm sure this does/will/can happen, many people are asking/expecting outlandish prices for doing so--up to $50k for the week.

I made this hysteria the focus of my latest guest contribution to the Prince of Petworth Web site.

Quote:

“What could go wrong?” my people ask. Well, let’s not go there. However I’m willing to bet real actual cash (you know, the kind I already have) that people willing to shell out thousands a night aren’t going to be a bunch of old lady spinsters from Iowa who go to bed at 7:30. Call me crazy, but even $20k won’t wash away the vision of some Fortune 500 executive screwing a coked-up hooker in my bed.

Link to the whole thing.

USA Today

Halloween 2008
Originally uploaded by Kent Newsome

Because the movie Twilight is coming out this weekend, some interviews I did around Halloween are just surfacing now.

If you have nothing better to do, watch for me on CNN's American Morning Friday a.m.

The excerpt below from USA Today is about the long and short of my contribution. But hey, they got in the book name, which makes me happy.

"Very rarely are vampire stories about vampires," says Eric Nuzum, author of The Dead Travel Fast, which examines society's enduring fascination with blood suckers. "They are often about desire, love, forbidden pleasures, forbidden fears that people are too scared or embarrassed to admit. Put it in the guise of a vampire, and you can talk about it. They are the perfect metaphor for anything that challenges you or makes you lose control. You create a creature with absolute control."

Link to the whole thing.

Sign o the Times

Hooters wi-fi
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

You know things are getting bad when Hooters decides it needs to add free wi-fi to draw people in.

When boobs and flesh-toned pantyhose aren't enough to bring 'em in, then you know the apocalypse is at hand.

Dispatch from my preteen diary: March 25th

When I was 11, I started keeping a diary. The effort lasted four months. You can see the whole series here.

Now, the 3rd installment:

It would not be hyperbolic to think that March 25th was probably one of the most significant days in my life--let alone my 11th year (spelling as written):

Today I got to new singles: One is Blinded by the Light and the other is Danceing Queen.

That was the day I bought my first records.

Now before you laugh too hard, think about the first records you bought. Okay, then.

When I first re-read this entry, I was struck by why I'd write that I bought two "new" singles--doesn't that imply there were others before it? Then I remembered why that was kinda true. While my parents coveted their James Taylor, Tom Rush, and Judy Collins albums, they had two small boxes of 45 singles from their teen days that they would let my brother and I do whatever we wanted with. If we wanted to wear the grooves off on our tiny plastic record player--go for it.

Since I thought my parents were ancient, I kinda expected their teenage singles to be what I considered to be equally ancient music: Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins, and the like. However, when I went through the boxes, I didn't encounter a single name I recognized. It was just stuff. Stuff that my parents probably heard on the radio, liked, and bought. No worries about street cred.

My brother and I didn't care if we knew the music or artists, we just played them for fun. I can even still hum a few of the melodies and recite the lyrics--even though I have no idea who wrote or sang them. Every once in awhile I Google some of the lyrics hoping to find out what they are. Nothing yet.

Well, after listening to the boxes of 45s for a few years, I decided to do exactly what may parents had done: I picked a few things I liked from the radio, took my allowance down to the record store, and bought my two favorites. I also was completely unconcerned with street cred, I just liked the songs.

These two were just the beginning of my long dependency on and love affair with music. I still buy a lot of music today--I've bought 96 albums so far in 2008 (and yes, I am the type of person who keeps track of these things). Some albums I'm on my sixth or seventh copies because I've worn them out, spontaneously given them away, or lost them as I traveled around. Every few weeks I discover something I love just as much as I loved "Dancing Queen" back then. I guess as long as that keeps happening, I'll know that I'm still vibrant and alive.

I have no idea where those two singles ended up. But I have no doubt that someday my kids will find them digging through a dusty box, pull them out, and...well, first off they'd wonder what the fuck they were. (At first I thought they might make some comment about the funny looking CD--but CDs will probably be my kids' versions of 8-tracks--some odd, wildly inconvenient and outdated technology that baffles them with its utter lack of usability).

Anyhow...

Once they found the record--and figured out what a record was--they'd look at the label and have a reaction similar to their own father's reaction a generation before. "Manfred Mann? Who the *&#$@ is that?"

Postage Due

Postage Due
Originally uploaded by josephgene

So back in August I wrote about a new thing I'd fallen into doing--sending postcards. For awhile there, it was hot and heavy--one a day. Now I've settled into sending 3 or 4 a week, which is still fine.

As I travel, I buy postcards to send out. I even had some mailable postcards printed when The Dead Travel Fast came out in paperback, though I forgot to leave any room for a message on these cards.

Not that the message is terribly important to me. Often the messages I write have nothing to do with me, but are just random pieces of trivia and fun facts I stumble across: like Donald Duck's middle name (Fauntleroy), the origins of rye bread, or the name of the first woman to guest host Saturday Night Live (it was Candace Bergen). No updates on how I am or what I'm doing--just...stuff.

Well, I always put a 27-cent postcard stamp on them and send them off. I never even think that some of the larger postcards are too big for a 27-cent stamp. In fact, unless a postcards is 4x6 or smaller, you have to pay extra.

"I really appreciate learning about Jupiter and all," my friend wrote me the other day. "But the stupid card came postage due for 13-cents."

"But isn't it worth 13-cents to know that Jupiter is twice the size of all the other planets combined?" I responded.

"No, it is not," came the reply.

I'm sure this has happened more than the two times I've heard about. Oh well.

My friend Meghan has too much free time

Meghan made these for, well, everyone she knew. It is an automated engine called Make Me Super, so it isn't like she filmed it, etc... But still, by her own admission, she found photos of all her friends (and I do mean all) and made superhero movies about each. And, of course, she picks the least flattering photo of each person. After you've viewed it, you can make yourself super, too.

Fini, for real this time

Attendees at my writing workshop in Portland
Originally uploaded by ericandkatherine

I was in Portland this past weekend to read stories and teach a workshop at Wordstock, a massive literary festival in Portland. It marked the last entry on my travel and promotional schedule. Amen.

It was a brutal trip. I got up at 3am ET, got to the airport, and flew across the country to Portland. After a quick stop at my hotel, I had one hour to spare before my writing workshop was supposed to start.

While the real draw at Wordstock is the top-shelf list of authors they pull in (plus a few tag alongs like me), I really had no idea what to expect from the workshops. People pay $30 to $50 each, depending on the number of workshops they are taking. When I was invited to do one, I was told I could pretty much whatever I wanted, so I pitched a proposal called "Don't Be Boring"--focused on how to tell good non-fiction stories.

I was prepared to walk in and have two people there--or no people there. Thus turning this brutal cross country trip into a complete farce. When I arrived, I asked if anyone had signed up. My escort said she had no way of knowing. Then we asked the workshop lady, who said my workshop was almost sold out. I figured she'd gotten me confused with someone else.

But then I walked into the workshop--and there were 40 people there. The first thing I said was, "Who the fuck are you people and why would you ever pay to see me?"

They laughed. We started. They laughed a lot. Many took notes (which is a sign that they are hearing things they find interesting--or that they are so bored they'd rather draw bunnies than actively listen). One even blogged about it later.

It was fun. Even considering the trip, I'd do it again in a heartbeat.