Ultimately i went up and down the border 2000 miles this way in 2000 miles that way. Then i went deep into mexico. They were very hospitable and wellconnected. It was really such fun and so illuminating and so anti trump. The prejudice against immigrants is so severe its a joke. Immigrants pissing on other immigrants. Two of them are immigrants. He is sort of say they are rubbish. All of those motivating factors. The anticipation of destroyed a stereotype. The spirit of americans. The first time it happened was in mexico city. I have to pay bribes. He said follow me i said whats the problem. Your license plate. Is there some way that we can solve this. I said no, how. He said dollars. 300, whats your name. Antonio know. Do you know what i can do to you. He have taken me into islam and the people going by and he was just screaming at me. That seems like a lot of money. He just took everything out of the wallet which was about 200. My total and bribes was probably 11 or 1,200 altogether. Ive been asked for bribes everywhere. In order to get a visa gift of three months on your passport. Is there some way that we can resolve it. Im retired. Dont let anything there. I said this when he threw it at me. You have to do better than that. Im in a put you on the next plane. My wife just went through customs. This is in indonesia. , bali. So i said, probably on the next plane. He came back and said okay. Gave me the visa. You know what happened. Youre so lucky. There was a chinese guy here last week a cost of 900. Select im not a ceo i am a retired jogger free teacher. Dont let that color your idea of mexico. I have problems in texas in mexico city you decided to hold a presiding workshop. They said you have to know the reality of it. I recommend to your writers. Do something pro bono you are a very unimportant person. What im gonna do is i need friends and allies. I volunteered to hold a master class in writing. I dont want to be paid anything. But lets had lunch. Improve my spanish. I had two big boxes of books. That were in my basement. They are just books in spanish. I handed them out. In any country you need to earn respect and one way of earning respect is you dont go there to take something away you bring something there. That worked, and it was a way of earning respect. If you have a friend you have a true friend. And everyone is respectful. And much more respectful to older people than americans are. Old people in the seats are treated like they dont really exist. They dont go to the movies, marketing is aimed at the 18 to 35 yearolds. This marketing has filtered down and its made older people somewhat unimportant. The marketing impulse. As an older person i was, i got respect. I liked being a teacher. The last teaching job i had was in singapore. I was a little rusty. I lived in hawaii for 30 years. No one has ever asked me to live there. Theyre more interested in the hawaiian subject. I hadnt gotten in. Teaching is fun. What are were they writing short stories. Half of them were published novelist is not translated. Mexican abrading writing is immense amount of it. Its wonderful writing. You know who Carlos Fuentes is. Most mexican writers were all published in mexico. They were both terrific. One prize is in spain. They were accomplished writers. We will do it bilingual. Based on our class. Teaching is exhausting. Teaching is exhausting. Its very timeconsuming. Its exhausting. As is not as exhausting as studying. So that was the motivation. Go to mexico hundreds of books are written about mexico. Name a writer. Theyve all gone there. And generally they criticized the sunset english person reviewing the sunset. What a disgusting little sunset you have. Its a really rancorous book called. In bram green his book is called i hate mexicans and i hate mexican food. Here are a very good novel has travel book i hate it. They were treated. With the vatican. I had had probably shouldnt mention this i have the peace corps. It became malawi why i was there. I wrote several novels. The more to the point the Mosquito Coast was banned in south africa. He still have a white supremacist government there. The racial angle to it. Its getting along pretty well. When mandela got out of prison this is 91 or 92. I got a phone call from my editor at Penguin Books and he said we just had a substantial order. For 200 thousand copies. I said whats the story. It has been chosen by the new government in south africa that was in the early 90s. If you know anyone who is in school in south africa from 93 to 97. They have read the Mosquito Coast. We read your book in school. So what is more satisfying your book is banned. It will be an apple movie. Apple is making movies. So the Mosquito Coast is going to be a ten part a lot of respect. When you make a movie people really respect you. And my nephew is going to be in it. These married to jennifer aniston. Hes going to be in it. And when the tv show is on i will get major points i met robert frost. No one cares about that. I have always been interested. In 1984 when nafta became official january 1, 1994 and apparition appeared in a man on a horse followed by a lot of other masked men and women came and rode into town on that day. The nap today. They had been living in the jungle for 11 years. This is fidel castro couple of months and then them plunging in. These are serious revolutionaries learning the language. No one has ever seen his face. In the class i have. They said what would you like. Introduce me to people. I want to go to the main chapel. The chapel of holy death. Youve heard of them. She is the state for people people who are hopeless. The brothels and mexico in mexico always had her portrait. It is a growing faith. To worship both. You ask. I would like to meet some of them. One of the guys said i know him my father was one of his mentors i can arrange this providing you do something he said we speak at a secret event yes i will write it out. Yes i will write it out. We dont know has his movement. I went. I went with a threeday event. They were all mask. It was a secret location. I talked about the boulder about the border. Quarter Million People and one high school. And those people making seatbelts for you. And all this sort of junk. They are exploited underpaid workers. I talked about that. They dont kill civilians. Everybody else kills civilians. The red army fraction. They only engage the mexican army. They never killed a civilian. You find this right thousand people in the uk. They are all there. I can admire them. As postmodern humane revolutionaries as luck would have it and also bribing them as you get there. Marcus was there. It was another wonderful experience. They go to mexico to have a mosquito in cancun. There is that mexico of the enduring tradition of revolution of social concern and antigovernment. They hate their government as much as we hate trump. It feels as if their government has let them down. Im driving around the border. We will see marcos. It was wonderful. I will open it up to questions. Can you give us a clue as your writer regime. Is it the number of words per day. Is a religious thing. I started off i was a premed student. I could not afford medical school. And i was afraid i was getting be drafted can be drafted into the army. I joined the peace corps. Joseph conrad once said before i was a mere animal before i went to africa. I could see the same thing. Also if i named ryan oneal and Jesse Jackson is there any link there that you see. Were all the same age. Imagine dick cheney in a car if you cant driving up and down mexico. You cant do it. I am the same age as bob dylan. We would love to send you Business Class but youll had to go coach. Imagine i am dick cheney. Or bob dylan. That is a fact. I collect people who are born in our graduated from high school. Mike bloomberg was at my haskell. I knew him. And dylan and 61 or 62 i think i saw him in harvard square. Thats the kind of name i would collect. Look at cheney. He is kind of a monstrosity hes a zombie. And dylan is all right. Ryan oneal is he still alive. And then in mexico and met a guy. He was my age. We live through the same time. Same disruption. When i meet someone my age im kind of thrilled. We saw the same world. This is related to that. I join the peace corps and it have something to write about. I published a book when i was in africa. They came and 67. Fiftytwo years ago before any of you were bored than i applied a guggenheim fellowship. I did not get it. That was a winter i started with the reber viewbook. And then i met a guy. I have gordon raise here. And i have any money. I have an angry wife and two little kids. And then i published four novels didnt get it. And when they rejected me they spelled my name wrong. I always felt i have to make a living i cant turn anything down. Some will write a book about my favorite piece of luggage. No one ever suggested the travel book. A publisher came to me. Write a book about albania. It is a necessity of making a living and it forced me to become every morning and write something. I never have a graduate student or a typist. I would have gladly had them. My living the necessity of raising a family and living my life meant i have to produce a book every year. I never turn any work down. After i left singapore. When you send them there. And sometimes happens again. I sold the options something in the 60s before your time. I was gonna be a movie. The optioning of books some of which became movies others not. Became an annuity i was making money just by people renewing the options on the books. You dont make a ton of money writing a book. They made me focus more and focus on finishing a book. So thats how it happened. I never had any interest. Writing is curious. Here hundreds of books. The make great books. I feel very strongly that the more you write the more capable you are of writing. If you cant write probably you have nothing to say. He is a hispanic greater. He wrote one book. Emily wrote one book. They gave a talk where he was tormented. He cant seem to finish the book. This guy is such a great guy. He is a writer and resident at mit. Has it occurred to you that maybe has nothing to write. Maybe he doesnt have an idea in his head. It is legitimate. You write a book if you dont have an idea know how much money you get. You wont like write the book. s having something to write helps. I come from a large confident family. I never found it difficult im not complaining by the way. I dont think you need money to write. I have proved it. What you need is friends, you need a sympathetic editor someone who believes in you. People say to me. Im living in my mothers basement. Move and go away. Go away from your stupid family. Leave. What they will say is who is in a publish it. Get away from your family. Having someone who believes in you that helps. Going away helped me. I recommend it. Get a job somewhere. Be a teacher or Something Like that. I will repeat the question. They need to be able to hear everything. My question is what was the trajectory of your first book versus this book. I was in shira lanka. It was so profound. It didnt get political or anything like that. If they have to market something important. Have they changed over the last 50 years. Marketing has changed. I sat in the 60s and before them. It was a lot of guys in tweets i remember having lunch with an editor. We will just send it straight to the printer the marketing of it. The business side. That kind of took over. I understood your question slightly differently which was the trajectory of writing. Lately i had been reading nathaniel west. They wrote the day of the locus. Two masterpieces and he wrote two other books one called a cool million in the dream life. He died when he was about 37 years old. Near the next and mexican border. When i was in high school and college i read it nathaniel west. And lately i had been rereading the day of the locust. Let me tell you something. Do yourself a favor. Read this book. It is the best book ever written about hollywood and los angeles general. It is a true masterpiece which you can believe in. As a Great American novel. He has never named. Hes always called ms. Lonely heart. The west was jewish. He was nathan weinstein. My first book was deeply influenced by my reading of bithynia west. The schools and cultures teach such crap. There was a core of American Literature that was so great but so neglected. They have never studied. They wrote for the new yorker. This one deeply influenced me. Of the 1930s and 40s you teach the great gaps be. Fitzgerald died at the age of 41 years old. All of his books were out of print. These are books and they were defiant books. They were also very funny. I did not realize at the time. When they were first published. They did not sell very well. My work was that and then i i went to africa and as i said away for my family from my family and my United States was a perspective with the vietnam war going on. And it was decolonize. That affected me a lot. I have something to write about. Not my pathetic little salt in my family but a big subject. In africa. Big events were taking place. The perspective that Joseph Conrad head. And met a lot. Do you think your spirit defiance. Is that still alive. Even when youre writing today. It is your current age. Something has changed. I would say more than ever. Im not going around as some angry person. See things as they are. See the world as it actually is. By doing that and being unsparing i have a lot of bad reviews. You can see im not cranky. Im not harass a bowl. If to be fairly congenial. When i was a student we regularly took the bus to white house. The war of vietnam. I was in the white house. And 63. It was picketing the is picketing the white house now. We have the biggest jerk in the white house. I said i did it. If kennedy was not a saint. He was a good guy. We are protesting that. Democrats in the white house we were angry students im indignant now. Why is the opposition. And we know who trump is. Why are they so ineffectual. Why couldnt they completely hammer away at it. Why are they so pathetic. There is a debate to tonight that we are all missing. They should be going after trump. Im disappointed there is not more social location. And just throwing things at trump and making his life miserable which is what we did with johnson. He didnt run for a second term because he was so unnerved. Johnson was a good guy. He was unnerved that the vietnam war was going on. And people were protesting. In big numbers. He said ive had enough of this. You have to to actually do what writer should do. Then things change. Your say okay i will take that. Oh we need a freezer. You can see im contemptuous. You dont need money to write. You need defiance. In spirit. So me and the legalists in the country. With all of the italians suspected here. How can you participate. Most people you know get arrested. One of the problems obviously is some of you have students and children who are there. There is a lot of trouble in a university life. They have utterly failed to promote real literature. In aid of a diversity or correctness. We can teach that. Everyone knows that. Students and parents our customers. The marketing aspect is so intense it not like youre getting an education. You are a customer. Was can happen he needs a job. Hes going to get it. You paid the money you got it. I never thought of myself as a client. Im listening to the teacher that i havent bought anything. I never felt like the university owed me a job. I thought i have to find my own work. At gets a real problem the customer aspects of the money factor is a fact. You learn a great deal by going to another country and being small. People are so concerned about getting a job. How am i gonna buy a house. What am i gonna do. You have this one life. Send them away. Tell them to go make a living somewhere else. Individuation is fighting out about who you are. Find out away from your community and your village you go and you find out who you are and what your life should be. That is my concept of education and i suppose im becoming. And how you become something. Its amazing how this is the option of get a job. It is so important to people that they forget that there is a big world out there and they think maybe will go on a honeymoon to this place. Maybe ill go away and stay away. Maybe well just find a spot for yourself. A lot of people go to mexico and they never come back. This is a great place. Its not very expensive. Its an irony because we are so it is hospitable to mexicans here. There are communities all over mexico. That is a different story. Im talking about the younger people. The question about defiance. Its to do with the way we are looking at ourselves in the world. Although we picketed the white house kennedy in his much quoted in our gross beach there are doctors graduating today from american universities. They should consider going to ghana to work at hostels and donner. Have a great education when i go to another country and be a teacher. Bring your expertise there. You go somewhere and bring that. You not get a make people in that country healthier. But you will be different for it. Thats my advice to young people but also to someone that wants to be a writer that speak how you become a writer by being uprooted from your circumstances and then you see the world anyway. We will get you signing books. I hate to be rambling. I think there is a lot of insight into the handover. If you are pulling your own in hong kong today what would your daily be like. I would be doing what they are doing. And what theyre doing is amazing. Its because of social media that theyre all linked up. They are getting very little encouragement from it. Tim cook comes from alabama. Makes the stuff in china. Millions of chinese out of poverty. He said he was going to give some money. I thought alabama is defunding schools tim cook was going to give them some money. What they need is work. And people in the south are to work. So what is apple doing in the fate of homophobia persecution of the week in suppressing the Democracy Movement theyre just is making more stuff. All you want us to remove this app. They are americans. Theyre supposed to believe in democracy and freedom. They are interested in money and the idea that they will use their fortune to uplift poor people in america is bull, utter bull. I would be indignant about that. Some americans are just going along with the chinese line of suppression. Putting clamps on the press. And persecuting minorities. Or other ethnic minorities in china. You may be interested to know when they were published they got very bad reviews. Hes grumpy, he doesnt believe it. China is reforming. They dont seem to realize that these people really try to modernize china. When i was in china at 1986 and 1987 there was a Democracy Movement in 86 and 87 they were being persecuted. That was before i came there. I would hook up with them. The element of a poem cal