(50 My Trip Down the Pink Carpet by Leslie Jordan

Thursday June 5th was a much anticipated date at store 2184. Because Leslie Jordan was coming to town!!

Now, for weeks, booksellers & customers alike would say, "Who is Leslie Jordan?" Then we pulled up the book on the computer & would say "OOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOHHHH, that is the guy from Boston Legal" Or "OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHH, that is the guy from Will & Grace!"

Well, Mr Jordan was originally supposed to be in our store on Saturday, which would have been ideal for us, but instead, the publicist pushed his book signing to Thursday from 5-7pm. Um, hello. Have you BEEN to Kansas City on a Thursday between 5-7pm. If you have, then you know that that is the time when the highways & byways are full of commuters. In other words, no one shops between 5 & 7 unless they are buying gas. (At $4 a gallon).

So, we did some promotion for this signing. Flyers at all the gay bars. Flyers at KC Pridefest. Posters in the store. Anything in hopes of drawing a crowd.

And guess how many people showed up (besides employees & their spouses). Three. THREE people. *sigh*

Mr Jordan was very gracious & just pulled up a chair & started telling stories. The people who were there & got to listen to him, thoroughly enjoyed his stories. The man is so stinking entertaining, he could read the telephone book & make you giggle just by the accent & inflection in his voice.

So of course, I bought a copy of the book & had my picture taken (camera phone, sorry for the poor quality) I sat down last night after finishing the disappointing "tearjerker" and laughed my ass off.

Leslie Jordan was blessed with the talent of comedy. He didn't get too graphic or too raunchy about his wild days before getting sober. But he did talk about being a rather, um, obvious gay man in Hollywood. He talked a lot about various auditions & the effort he made to "butch" himself up in order to land a roll.

He told some stories about famous people. Beverly DeAngelo & Luke Perry to name a couple. He told even better stories about James Spader & William Shatner after the "crows" dispersed & it was just managers standing around.

I would say My Trip Down the Pink Carpet is exactly what you need to be reading on the beach this summer. An entertaining look at behind the scenes in Hollywood.