Spoiler alert.

Three earth guys shoot an alien.

Then Allen T. Alyan, an alien, goes on a book tour promoting his political fiction novel, Wake the Eff Up From the American Dream. He stays with people who put him up, or in chain motels out by the interstate. He drives a brown Honda with 170,000-plus miles on it. He gets lost easily. He worries about not showing up for a reading, or showing up and having nobody be there.

Disclosure. I have been to readings where nobody showed up. Once, the people who ran the venue didn't show up. Did I have the wrong place and time? Did somebody change the place and time and not tell me, the author?

All Alyan wants to do is drink beer, pee, and watch sports on TV. He'd really like to be driving, alone, listening to folk music on his iPod.

That's my favorite part of being on a book tour. Driving, alone, listening to folk music, in my headset.

One book, I went to Vermont to see my brother before he died.

I stayed in motels, I ate in restaurants like Applebee's and TGIFriday's, I watched cable television, I read USA Today. Free in the complimentary breakfast room.

It was endless.

The banality of evil. That's what Hannah Arendt's book about Eichmann in Jerusalem was about, or Richard Grayson's Eating at Arby's.

Crackers have fun just like you do. We eat at Arby's, we ride pickup trucks with Rebel flags on them, we drink beer and fish in the canals and listen to country music. We watch our boots turn blue with mildew.

Richard Grayson has an article at Quarterly Conversation, on "Why I Joined the POD People."

POD stands for publication-on-demand.

He summarizes a 30-year career as a veteran of the small press/little magazine wars, culminating in his having old story collections brought out by lulu.com.

He's not for it, exactly. But he ain't again' it.

If you can get a publisher to bring out your book, that's better.

Even a small, independent publisher like CWG Press.

The book you are holding in your hands is a real book.

Mike Palacek's Speak English is a book like I like to read.

Crackers and aliens. The crackers are from Iowa. In the American heartland.

I don't think about my troubles for awhile, or the shape the country is in, or things I don't know about, like who caused 9-11, or who killed Senator Wellstone, or was the election-were two elections-really stolen?

Aliens wouldn't be any stranger than the last eight years. In fact, they explain a lot.

Bigfoot, too.

At my web site, this picture is an animated gif file. You can see Bigfoot cutting a chogie. Looking back over his shoulder.

Don't look back.

Keep on truckin'.

They're gaining on you.