Public speaking 101
June 15th, 2004 | Posted by Shannon
Where do I begin? It’s been a bit of a crazy time the past few days. So I think I’ll start at the end, and go backwards.
Last night I spoke at the Distant Lands Bookstore in Pasadena. Odd that I would be speaking in front of a group (at least one that I do not know) in the same town that I was born in. I only lived there for the first year of my life, but I think I must have viewed the Castle Green Apartments at a very young age, and the viewing of these apartments directly affected my view on life. The Castle Green is a giant structure covering at least one city block, all stucco and crazy Arabic windows. It is bleeping fantastic. It’s the kind of building you drive by and say What the Hell is That and How do I Get In. I have a crazy fantasy that I was conceived there.
So before I went to speak at Distant Lands, I stopped in one of my Pasadena accounts, a wine store with a tasting bar. This was a good move as I was able to kill a couple of pre-talk hours there and therefore, feel less nervous. There were a couple of older, rich, wine-drinking dudes at the bar, and me. There was a girl and a sort of schizo dude working at the shop/bar. Between the four of them there was enough stimulus that I could effectively not think about the speaking in public thing. I drank a glass of New Zealand Riesling, and one of the older wine-drinking dudes told me about his life. He reminded me of my dad – a guy who is aging yet, he still thinks he has a way with the ladies. He actually said to me – “stick around – I’ll wine, dine and line you.” Dude. 1985 is over, nobody is packing an eightball in the glovebox of their Datsun 300ZX any more. Those days are gone. The girl working behind the bar told me how stressed she was and how her co-workers and her customers were treating her. Her life is a living hell, pretty much. It was an odd couple of hours and then I left and checked into the Pasadena Inn, changed and walked to the bookstore where I was to speak.
I was shocked to find that there were over sixty people coming to hear me talk, that it was the largest crowd in many a moon, according to the bookstore personnel. I was worried about people looking at my toenails! I did not have to worry about that. The crowd gathered, I was announced, and we were on.
I started out talking about the way Venice has two parts, the tourist part and the local part, and how they were invisible to each other. It didn’t take long before the crowd began asking questions, and then it was easy – they asked, and I answered. This went on for some time until the bookstore staff made us stop. Some of the questions were good (“what do the Venetians drink?”) and some not so good (“I went to a restaurant on an island that served all you can eat seafood, we were part of a tour, do you know that restaurant?”) It all moved quickly, only one guy fell asleep, two people left early, but the other sixty-two seemed to enjoy themselves.
It was a good night. Tomorrow I will write about a fantastic 36 hours in New York City.
