Featured Book: Money Changes Everything

Thought about running a feature deal on Sunday...for the next 11 Sunday's, I guess.

Just to get my thoughts down on the books that I've written. As you can see the first one featured in Money Changes Everything and that's because it was first.

There are a lot of interesting things about this unbelievably horrible book. And I say horrible because of so many reasons.

1). When I started to write things I was living in San Jose, California with the entire family, at first, but once they returned to Buffalo because of school, it was just me with Jim, Dad and Scott Weiser...who was a permanent fixture then. I was scratching notes on a yellow legal pad and Jim and Scott were reading along...laughing. I was also sending some of the stories back to my college friends including Fluffy, Rosie and Lisa.

But there was a problem.

I didn't know how to type. I didn't own a typewriter and I had no clue about how to get a book published. I was working on Money Changes Everything at the same time I was writing a book called Limits.

It's funny, but the 400 page Limits is in a box underneath my bed. All typed neatly...on a word processor that I purchased, with the help of my buddy, Al DeCarlo. Al had a credit card and I didn't. I keep telling myself that I may grab Limits and read it one day, but I'm certainly afraid to!

2). When I returned from Buffalo I was broke and without a job. Yet I received one last check from California...a two-week paycheck that was owed to me. I don't remember how much it was for, but when I retrieved it from the mailbox at my parents home I skipped towards the house. I was singing the Cyndi Lauper song, Money Changes Everything.

I had a title.

3). Typing the books was an epic event. I employed the hunt and peck method...that I still use now. The difference was back then I could only type three words a minute. Now I have to be able to do at least 70. I can really move! I did all of this work in a little room in my parent's basement. I was stuffed in beside the hot water tank. My brothers and friends were always there, with beer, and I kept pretending that I would be John Steinbeck and someday we'd laugh about that little room. (Pops remembers those days well).

4). I finished both books at the same time. I had huge piles of pages with writing on them. Limits was going to be my serious effort and Money Changes Everything would be my comedy. The world was waiting for me! I imagined having the top two books on the NY Times Best-Sellers list. I wrote a letter and typed a hundred of them, changing only the publishers name on the top. It said:

I wrote two books. You'd be lucky to have one of 'em. I'm the best.

Or something like that.

5). I received a number of responses - a few that were downright depressing. I remember that one guy really went off on me...telling me I was a dopey bastard. But there were two that said: "Send me the funny one."

6). I don't recall a whole lot about the time waiting for the book to come out. I know I was antsy. I also remember that I had to send 500 names to the publisher so that he could mail out little postcards that allowed people to order the book.

(What a freaking nightmare!).

7). The absolute worst memory of the book comes from the day I spent sitting in the grocery store in North Collins - Avery's Bells - for a book-signing. I learned a lesson that day...really...people who knew you as a dope don't change their opinion of you because you wrote a book.

8). Finally, I remember a guy I worked with a year after the book came out. He said:

"There are glimpses there, and you have to start somewhere, but I have a feeling that years from now you're going to feel like a real idiot for having had this published."

He was right.

But I'm smiling about it.

Next Sunday:

Eye in the Sky