Story, those of you who have not been here before its where the 20s in the 60s and 70s were the ukrainian socialist club. The owner actually dennis, in fact he was a defender and is now surrounded in a transition apparently. So were going to introduce someone who does not need an introduction but it fits. We have something really extravaganza, we have opera, discussions, bellydancing, down the bank if you notice a lady with a typewriter, you can go up and say anything and shall write one for you. Lets stop with the conversations and please welcome paul theroux as we celebrate his 51st book apparently,. There are 31 novels, 19 troubled books and one criticism. The wall street journal actually says 56. But anyway he just celebrated his new book on the plain of snakes. And in any case [inaudible] can you hear me. Can you hear me, did you hear the joke. [laughter] thank you very much for being here. I have never been here before to this particular place, it is delightful. I know tony so this should be fun. We can guarantee it. Normally when we do this tragically in the groups but theres always interesting in the highlevel books. What was it that makes you go where the explosion of crazy then expert is going to be donald trump. I was working on a novel and was trump talking about the border, it reminded me of something that had happened, i wrote a book called deep south, a road trip around the south of the neck and they went to mexico, and for the first time at, i had been to mexico a number of times but never gone or walked across the board. Except maybe long ago in tijuana. But in this occasion, it was 2012, 2011 2012. And i saw, how many have been a new balance arizona . Okay not too many. Go there sometime, it is more dramatic than other places on the border. You will park your car outside of a drugstore indicate remember the name of the street and the street is down the hill and then theres a fence and had formally been from a Landing Strip during the gulf war. They repurpose them for offense. Its 30 feet high, you cannot see through its a big rusty fence. As far as you can see in both directions and going up or down the hill, you know who crystal is, it looks like that, i really amazing. So the crystal sense that you cannot think engines either rested at that time there was a turnstile in the door so i was with another good and nice and what are we doing he said go through so shows his drivers license and he went to the fence and stepped into mexico and on the other side there was music playing in dentist a lot of people went to the dentist of the teeth white. But walking down the street through the door i was in another country. I have traveled in 1963 and i never seen anything like it. Ive never seen a board with a giant fence and i had never seen a border we just open the door and walk there in your there. Its a most amazing world we live in an dramatic experience. And on the same visit i went to a korma door, kitchen and admit migrants at the kicked out. Thats another story. But i kept that in my mind which is when they talk about the border i say a been to the border, ive seen the fence you walk through it and its different on the other side another country and this experience of walking across the border into another culture is a rare and wonderful experience. I crossed every border china, russia, brazil, venezuela, name it into canada, into italy, name a country, this is totally different so trump was talking about mexicans and rapists and murderers and bringing drugs in trouble. And i thought, what are the reasons for travel to destroy stereotypes. And to show life as it should be and to show the human side and human face of another country. So i thought we know trump is wrong but because i have totes fun with the retreat because im sure all of you have taken a road trip at one time or another, its not like taking the train or bus, you wake up and you have your froot loops in a styrofoam bowl and put groups in the milk on the froot loops in the motel and then again the car and hit the road and drive. I thought that the ultimate freedom. The other thing people said dont do it and dont do it is a motivator. Dont try to mexico or you will die. And i thought i like that, thats a challenge. I can meet that challenge. Even if they say it is bad, theres something to write about. Its great the food is great, the people are friendly and its wonderful, its like home, thats a place i dont want to go but if they say its difficult you might die and you need a vehicle importation permit and all of these challenges motivated me, what if something goes wrong, all right about it writers have the last words. So well take a road trip just like i did in the south, i could go anywhere in my car and there is a tradition to mexico and on the road there in the car driving around to go to mexico city. I also thought the border has two sites. So if i drive along the border i could go back and forth drivein or go out or driving a walker crossed and i could see the whole border so ultimately went up and down the border 2000 miles this way, 2000 not way and then went deep into mexico and ended up there were very welcoming. It was such fun and so illuminating and so antitrump. But what were clarifying instead of saying is a joke. You see immigrants posting on other immigrants. All of the wives are two of them and anyways are immigrants and he sang the rubbish. That is a long version, all of those were motivating in the excitement of the anticipation of destroying the stereotypes and also the challenge, meaning cops and the police in the spirit of america. The first time happen was a mexico city and i have to pay bribes but the first time happen the guy was on a motorcycle and he said follow me and i said what the problem and he said its about your license plate and is there some way we can solve this he said no, i said how and he said 300. Youre joking, whats your name. Antonio. [speaking in foreign language] you know what i do to you, i believe you up and he took his motorcycle people are going by and he screaming at me. You have the gun and the mace he said show me the wallet and he took everything out of the wallet which is 200. In the next one was 300 and that cost me, my total and bribes was 11 or 1200 altogether and that such rich. [laughter] last time i was in bali the guy said your passport is going to run out and i said so and he said in order to get a visa you have to get three months on your passport and i said isnt there some way to resolve that. [laughter] and he said what do you do for a living and i sit and retire, i dont do anything and he said what did you do and i said i was a geography teacher. [laughter] so i gave him 20, i gave the cop 20. But in volley he said you have to do better than that. So i got 100 i think it was 120 and he said im going to put you on the next plane and i said that would be very inconvenient because my wife just went through customs and he said i dont care this is indonesia. Paradise of people dancing and flowers in their hair so i said heres 120 and if f put me on the next plane, i dont care. Anyway long story, he came back and said okay i gave him the visa. But then they said how much did you give him and he said what happened and i said you know happen and he said how much did you give him and i said 100 and he said you are lucky, you are so lucky. He said there was a chinese guy here last week and it cost him 900 and i said what does a guy do for a living and he said energy, a ceo and i said im not a ceo im a retired geography teacher. So if anyone asked abroad what you do for living just say im a freelancer. [laughter] but dont let that color your idea of mexico, its driving anywhere. Problematic. I had problems in texas. [laughter] in mexico city you decided to hold the wor woodshop. That was the same one i was going and my friend said you have another reality. What i did was, i recommend this to you where you go to a place and do something pro bono, your very own important person in your going to a place or people are important in your observing. I thought i need friends, i need allies and need to understand the culture. I volunteered to hold a master class in writing for nothing. I said i will not charge you anything and i dont want to be paid anything. But lets have lunch, improve my spanish and by the way i have my car and in the trunk i have two big boxes of books of mine in spanish that were in my basement but i dont know what to do with them. Theyre all books in spanish. So i handed them out, i gave him a ways and handed them out. And because in any country you need to earn respect and one way of earning respect, you dont take something away, you bring something there and i brought myself and two weeks of studying and reading the essays and stories and so forth, so that worked and it was away of earning respect, mexican respect to the matter will happen but if you have a friend in mexico, you have a true friend and everyone is respectful and much more respectful to older people then americans are. Old people in the states are treated like they dont really exist, the worthless, they dont spend money, they dont go to the movies and marketing is aimed at the 18 35, they will buy stuff, they will buy music and a retired person will not by an album or justin bieber, so this marketing attitude has filtered down and made older people on important, they do not matter. Mexico does not matter their marketing impulse does not affect them. And its an older gringo, i got respect and then a teacher and i realized i like being a teacher the last teaching job i had was in singapore, i was talking to cheryl who wrote a book in singapore and i left there in 1971 so i was a little rusty. [laughter] but i was in hawaii for 30 years and nobody has asked me that and ive never been to the university. Because they were interested i am too but i realized teaching is fun, its really wonderful and was responsive students it is just great. What were they like . Half of them were published novelist and another problem mexican writing is not translated so mexican writing is an immense amount and its wonderful writing so you know who carlos is, but most mexican writers were published in mexico and one is called guadalupe in ontraffic and wonderful writersn guadalupe is in prizewinning and spain so they were accomplished writer i have them all right and were gonna drop bilingual based on class. I had not taught at all, teaching is exhausting too, are you a teacher . No im not. [laughter] so its very timeconsuming and exhausting but not as exhausting as studying. I think of ground students, studying is really critiquing in the language. Anyways they would go to mexico, hundreds of books, name a writer and he or she has probably been to mexico, name a writer they have all gone there and generally mocked mexicans, huxley criticized and english person reviewing the sunset. What a disgusting sunset you have. So the mexicans had a shady little sunset. And he was there in the 30s when he was president and his book is full of i hate mexicans i hate mexican food, hit this country and hate these people he wrote a novel but her trouble book i hated. [laughter] i didnt realize you had a book in singapore. And this is a trouble book. I have had something where you should not mention this i was in the peace corps and it was called it became malawi when i was there it became independent. I wrote several novels and malawi but more to the point the Mosquito Coast was banned in south africa in 1981 and 82 here when they had a white supremacist government. So there was beyond and the coast is a harmless book but its racial angle and other race getting along ben mondello got out of prison and this was in 91 or 92, i got a phone call from an editor Penguin Books and he said we just had a substantial order for the Mosquito Coast for 200,000 copies and i said holy crap, really i dont know wire said holy crap but i did. [laughter] and he said and i said what the story he said its been chosen by the new government in south africa as a set book and that was in the early 90s, so if you know anyone who is at school and south africa from 93 to 97, they have read the Mosquito Coast. [laughter] so ive met people and they said your name looks familiar oe read your book in school but had been banned so whats more satisfying your book is beyond and then you sell 200,000 copies, its wonderful. Its going to be an apple movie book. Apple is making movies to do no, so the Mosquito Coast will be a ten part tv. When you make a movie and youre on tv and you meet so many people that respect you. [laughter] you on tv, my nephew is going to be in it his name is justin hes married to jennifer. [laughter] and is going to be in so were all happy about that. And when the tv show is on i will get major points. [applause] peoplesoft did you make under meet her son ford i met robert frost and nobody cares about that. Did you intend to me or was that your plan in 1994 when it became official january 1, 1994 and apparition appeared in a man on a horse followed by a lot of other mass men and women came and rode to town on that day. They were living in the jungle for 11 years. This took al castro a couple of months and amounts. These are serious revolutionary living and learning the language in the jungle. Serious guys. No one has ever seen his face in the mask. In the class they said what would you like and i said introduce me too people i want to see i want to go to the main chapel the trouble of holy death shes a skeleton, youve heard of her. Go to any home of a drug trafficker and there will be a portrait or image on the wall. She is the saint for people who are lawless and outside the law, hopeless pork and people dont have a clue. The chapel is a growing faith. To worship holy death. I said i want to go they said it might be dangerous and i said you asked, they said you can read about it in the book and i said i would like to meet and one guy said i know him, my father was his mentor and i arrange is provided you do some prepared when he said speak at an event, a secret event. And i said will lie, yes sure ill do it. [laughter] yeah sure wome win. He said in april. Anything we dont know his movements i guarantees there. But to make a long story short i went with the threeday event they came out of the jungle and wore masks it was a secret location and i talked about the border and you go where theres a quarter a Million People one high school and those people are making seatbelts for you and headphones and all this junk and they said its great its great. Actually there exploited underpaid workers and i talked about that high go to the average village they were Clinic School and a possible court, they dont kill civilians, everybody else kills civilians. They only engaged the mexican army. They never killed civilians. And you find the 5000 people in the uk were killed by the protestants. The putting bombs and buses and they never did that. I admire the most post modern humane revolutionaries and as luck would have it i made a friend and also bribing how do you get there, i said i drove and he was there and i give them a hug and again, my talk and we chatted, it was a wonderful experience. People go to mexico to have a mojito in cancun something i dont do but that sealer mexico and then theres the mexico of this tradition of revolution and social concern in antigovernment. They hate their government as much as we hate trump. They dont even talk about trump because they feel as if the government has let them down. So i ended up and driving around it was wonderful. Im going to wrap it up for questions in a minute. But the 51 books, can you give us a clue of you reaching is it a religious thing customer. I started off, i was a premed student and i cannot afford medical school and i was afraid i was going to be drafted to the army, i drafte graduating 1953 i joined the peace corps and went to africa, before i was a mere animal before i went to africa if i had ryan oneill jesse jackson, martha stewart, cheney, bob dylan, mike bloomberg, is there any link there that you see . Were all the same age. Imagine cheney in a car driving up and down you cannot do it. Martha stewart, im the same age as bob dylan, sometimes magazines send you Business Class but you love to go coach, i cannot go coach im too old to fly from honolulu to madagascar. Imagine cheney or bob dylan. [laughter] but that is a fact, i collect people who are born people who graduated from high school in 1959, thats when i graduated. Mike bloomberg was in my high school, i was in boy scouts with him. And bob dylan and 62 i saw him in Harvard Square in the top 47 anyway 41. [inaudible] thats okay but thats the name i would collect, hes a year older. But look at cheney, his monstrosity, hes a zombie. [laughter] he looks like he is from a Cohen Brothers movie with tubes coming out. And ryan oneill, is he still alive . But we cannot talk about, and then in mexico i met a guy who was my age, we lived to the same. See music, same disruption in the vietnam war. And when i meet someone my age i am thrilled because we sell the same world, my writing habits, this is related to that, i joined the school and i had something to write about, i published a book when i was in africa, a novel came out and 67. How long ago was that, 52 years ago before any of you were born, and then i applied i went to singapore and applied for guggenheim fellowship. And i did not get it. So i had to work very hard, i started a review book and was working on a book in england and then i met a guy and he said i know a guy called gordon ray, i said i dont have any money, im an angry wife and two kids in it and got no money. Im just working and then i published four novels, three novels and a book. He said youre in for guggenheim and i did not get it and when they reject me they spelled my name wrong is anything worse than that. [laughter] so it turned out in a way i always felt i have to make a living as a writer and i cannot turn anything down. Someone says write a book about a favorite piece of luggage, okay or short story about christmas, great. A childrens book, fine, no one suggested a travel book they were all based on ideas i had, i want to go to china, pacific, write a book about albania or whatever, no went over said the print so basically the necessities of making a living forced me to get up every morning and write something. I never had a day off, i never had a graduate student, typist or secretary or grant i applied for them, and i wouldve gladly had them but i never got them. So in a way my living i made a living by writing in the necessity of raising a family sending the kids to school and living my life that i have to produce the books every year. And i never turned anyone down. Any reasonable offer i was okay. And i had a lucky break, and 72 i left singapore and lived in england and i saw the movie in when you sell a movie is sometimes happens again. But it was my idea and i sold the options Eleanor Perry made a film called david and lisa in the 60s before your time and she had a book that was going to be a movie so the optioning of books which became movies and other