How this trip came about
From the introduction to the book

I was sadder this time around; sadder than I had been a year ago at this time. A year ago at this time I had been packing my bags and getting ready for my first tour of Germany, that one almost a month long and taking me all over the country, from Frankfurt to Berlin to Munich and with another dozen smaller cities along the way. That trip came about via sadness as well; sadness over the bad economy, the lack of jobs, my literary career, an ex-girlfriend. So much sadness, in fact, that one of my online readers in western Germany said, "If you can raise the money to come to Frankfurt, my wife and I would like to host you for a week, and pay for all your food and drinks and train tickets, just so you have at least one good experience this year."

Which is how it is that my friend Garth Katner in Chicago suggested opening a Paypal account, and asking all my freeloader readers at the website to donate five bucks towards me having a hell of an adventure that I would write about and post in real time for all their vicarious enjoyment. And so many people sent money that I ended up staying in Germany for almost an entire month, and traveling all the way around the country instead of just the Frankfurt region. And a hell of an adventure was in fact had, and a rather entertaining little ditty called Das Ist Kool was written about it, and I ended up mailing electronic copies of the book to everyone who had donated money (and the physical, paper copies are coming, I swear to GOD they're coming, just as soon as someone in this godforsaken country can finally be convinced to give me a job.)

Everything worked out so well, in fact, that I decided to try it again this year, but this time to spend a month in the UK and Ireland, where a huge chunk of my European readers unsurprisingly live. Scheduling the tour wasn't difficult; by April I had set up over 15 performances, had managed to work out free places to stay in each town, had discovered a chance to possibly perform on the BBC, and had received the unsoliticted help of the actual British Foreign Counsel here in Chicago. Fundraising wasn't difficult, either: like the year before, I ended up raising a total of around $1,000 in cash, and another $300 to $400 in donated goods and services. No, the difficult part was the currency conversion rates: a thousand dollars had been just enough for me to squeak out a month-long trip under the euro the year previous, but not nearly enough this year for that powerhouse economic giant currently known as the British Pound. With pounds going for twice the amount of US dollars in autumn 2004, an American had to realistically raise an absolute minimum of $2,000 to weather a month in the Isles (and that's only by sleeping on locals' couches the entire time, relying on them to provide most of your food and drinks, etc).

So I had to cancel the tour, and write to fifteen hosts and cancel out of fifteen paid performances, and write to dozens of British and Irish online readers and tell them that I wouldn't be able to visit them after all. And I was sad. I was crushed, really; things had gotten no better in my life since getting back from Germany a year previous, so this UK tour had been my one brightly-shining lamp of hope in an otherwise broke, lonely, dreary life. So yeah, it was crushing to have to cancel it. Plus, I was going through another major change in my life at the same time; I had recently decided to put my artistic career on hold, after fifteen years of doggedly pursuing it, and instead try to raise a quarter of a million dollars and open my own small business. It was simply time, for reasons I go into later in this travelogue; it was still an extremely tough decision to make, though, and at the time of this tour cancellation I was facing a lot of hard questions from my own brain about whether I really had what it took to succeed at what was for me a pretty radical departure in my life.

So I wrote to Dirk Huelstrunk, co-host of the Frankfurt poetry slam in Germany, and told him my woes. Dirk and I have an interesting history that is now a couple of years old; it started back in 2003, when he became one of the first German poetry hosts to write back to me when I first announced the tour, and helped me contact other people and get other shows set up. And then when I got there, he had a great place for me to stay and interesting people to stay with (Kerstin and Michael, who you will get to know ever better in this year's book), and free food, and free drinks, and lots of English-speaking German poets who wanted to know all about Chicago, birthplace of the poetry slam and Mecca for poets around the world, and sexy blondes hanging on my shoulder and saying outrageously weird things to me, und so weiter, und so weiter.

So, when Dirk decided to make his own American poetry tour in summer 2004, I of course gladly volunteered to be his host while in Chicago. And he stayed for eleven days altogether, and we had so much fun, and saw so much of the city, and my friends here (international travellers all) sorta adopted Dirk and kept taking him out to do fun things, and one of them threw a party for him the afternoon before his main performance, and then Garth and Dirk and I decided to all drive up to Madison, Wisconsin, site of Dirk's next tour stop, because it's only two hours from Chicago, and we had a crazy day up there as well. So, Dirk and I are on even footing now - we've both gotten to host the other while that other was in an utterly new, foreign environment. So I wrote to Dirk, and Dirk said, "Oh, Jason, that's so sad to hear. Why don't you take your money and come to Frankfurt for a week instead? It's time for the Book Fair again... [the largest on the planet, for anyone who didn't already realize this] ...I could set up some fun shows for you...and everyone in Frankfurt remembers you from last year, and would be excited to see you again..."

So I went to Frankfurt. Fuck it, why not? I mean, I wrote first to all the people who had donated money to me, and made sure it was okay to take their money and go do this new thing with it. (They all said yes; one person, in fact, donated even more money when she found out about the itinerary change, simply because she loved the book I had written the year before on the same subject.) When life hands you lemons, make lemonade; it's pretty simple. Yeah, you can dwell on what might've happened and what didn't happen your whole life if you want, but I've always found it more productive to forge ahead and try to make something else work if the first thing won't.

But still, I did have this lingering disappointment over the UK tour not happening. And of course was in the midst of grappling with a lot of angst over the recent career change, and not having gone public with the news yet, and what people were going to think, and what I thought of it all. Which brings us to the only real thing you need to know about the first entry of this travelogue before you read it: That I wrote it after not sleeping for 36 hours straight, and not eating for 36 hours either. And I was so tired, and so hungry, and so confused, and so unable to think logically or even straight, that everything started going wrong; I started forgetting basic information, ignoring signs, the works. And for my first 24 hours of the tour, I was overwhelmed with emotions over what a mistake it had been to come; how I really was the manifestation of my worst fears, that endless dreamer who really will never be able to get his shit together, and how therefore all these new plans I had made for myself back in Chicago with the new arts center were ridiculous as well, because I obviously don't have what it takes to pull them off.

A remarkable thing happened to me over the eleven days I was in Europe this year, and to my capacity for believing in these new plans for my life. But I guess I'll just let you discover that for yourself within the actual travelogue. Next year, by the way (2005), I plan on shrinking my travel plans (to twenty days instead of thirty) and to split them up into two ten-day trips, so that hopefully I won't have to raise so much damn money in advance to go on either of them. Likely the two trips will be chosen from the following four options: Milano Italy, to perform at the art gallery of my new friend Bruno (but more about him later in this book); Lisbon Portugal, to stay at a new hostel owned by someone I met in Amsterdam (but again, more on him later); Sydney Australia, to visit all my online readers down under and to soak up some sun in New Zealand; or Capetown South Africa, to visit my online reader Caro and to simply say that I've been to South Africa. Why yes, I would appreciate any amount you could see fit to donate towards these upcoming trips. You can always find my Paypal link, along with the latest about the next upcoming tour, at my website, located at jasonpettus.com.

On with the naughtiness! I hope you enjoy reading about this 2004 tour as much as I enjoyed living it; and as always, please feel free to drop me a line whenever you want, at ilikejason [at] hotmail [dot] com.

Copyright 2004, Jason Pettus. All rights reserved. Although this material is presented here for your enjoyment free of charge, it is still illegal to repost this material without my permission, and especially so if you charge others money to see it. I am usually happy to let others reprint my work in the context of a free artistic publication, so please don't hesitate to contact me at ilikejason at hotmail dot com if you are interested in doing so.