Cincinnati & Dayton

Dateline: Dayton, OH -- A great new Books & Co. store, which put on a real party — lemon bars and chocolaty “magic bars"... An enthusiastic crowd, several of whom drove quite some distance (I guess people just drive more out here in the Midwest) and had bags of my older books to sign.

Boston songs — the first time Books & Co. has ever had Aerosmith’s “Sweet Emotion” blasting over its speakers. Guster a hit – who’s that? I had to explain the principle behind the Boston songs — that either they’re songs about Boston (“Government Center” by Jonathan Richman and the Modern Lovers, “Charlie on the MTA”) or by artists who got their start in Boston (Tracy Chapman, Bonnie Raitt, James Taylor, Aerosmith, Guster) or songs irrevocably associated with Boston (Neal Diamond’s “Sweet Caroline,” played at every Red Sox game or the Dropkick Murphys' “Tessie”). A lot of requests for copies of the CD, which unfortunately I can’t do, because of copyright restrictions (and frankly, how would I feel about, say, Stephen Tyler giving away bootleg copies of POWER PLAY at one of his concerts? Actually...)

Awoke to an e-mail from my editor telling me to read a review of the book in today’s (Sunday’s) Chicago Sun-Times by David Montgomery.

Off to Memphis this morning. Clair Without an E, my devoted webmistress, tells me to make sure I go check out Graceland. I hope I can.