Do you read David Sedaris? If you said no, give yourself a slap on the wrist. You must! No, I take that back. You need to listen to him. All his books are available on CD and are downloadable. Matt found out that David is giving a performance  at the Apollo Theatre in November and I was lucky enough to get tickets! Ticketmaster is blocked at my job so I had to get them the old school way – I called from my cellphone. After only a few minutes, nearly the entire orchestra was sold out but we were able to get pretty good lower balcony seats.

It may sound strange to be scrambling for tickets to see an author “perform,” but it’s memorable. He is as funny as any stand-up comedian and reads from both his published and unpublished stories. He has a very distinct, nasal voice with a slight lisp (which he wrote about in Me Talk Pretty One Day) and once you’ve listened to him, it’s hard to read his stories without hearing his voice in your head.

When his last book came out, the closest signing to me was at the Union Square Barnes and Noble. It was on a weekday so Matt and I jetted over there after work and arrived nearly two hours before the signing began. It wasn’t enough. Not only was every seat taken, but there was a line around the entire store. The staff had hooked up speakers so people waiting on line could still hear him. We passed on listening to him from the self-help section and had some margaritas at Agave instead.

The last time we saw him perform was November of 2008 at the Bardavon in Poughkeepsie.

I threw elbows big time to haul ass out of the theatre and hop on line for the book signing. We only had to wait about twenty minutes. Sedaris spent a part of his childhood in Endicott, NY, just a few minutes from Binghamton. When I told him Matt and I graduated from Binghamton we had a nice chat and he signed my book:

(Vestal is the town where Binghamton University is located.)

If he’s new to you, or you just want a chuckle, check out his performance on David Letterman from a few years ago. I have to warn you, this one has a little potty humor  🙂