I DONE A TOUR (and I will do more) (omg that rhymes)

Well, this is remarkably late. LOOK I WAS WRITING LOTS OF POSTS FOR NEXT WEEK AND I BARELY GOT BACK ON TUESDAY SO STUFF. But holy shit, I went on tour and it was a success?!??!?! No one’s first tour is good, and I know that from experience. But somehow, unbelievably so, not only was my very first tour for Mark Does Stuff an overwhelming success, but I am not broke and I came home with money. THIS. NEVER. HAPPENS. WHEN. YOU. TOUR. Unless you’re U2 or something, but who wants to be U2? Not this guy.

Okay, that’s not the point of this post. I wanted to share some of the rad stuff people captured from the Intensity in Ten Cities Tour, and talk about touring to come. So, first things first!

Pittsburgh, PA

This was from my reading at Eljay’s Used Bookstore, an AMAZING place that I highly recommend any of you go if you live nearby. I had not planned to read any bad fic or books, but right before my event started, I found Fabio’s Commanche sitting on a display table made up for Valentine’s Day. I had to read it. Out loud. Oh god, I regret nothing.

So, this actually set a standard for the rest of the tour. I wanted to give people a chance to see me react to discovering something live, and bad fic is a beautiful gateway of entertainment. By “entertainment” I mean “watching Mark’s soul get crushed.”

Cleveland, OH

I was shocked at HOW MANY PEOPLE showed up to the Cleveland date. IT WAS SO MUCH FUN. A fabulous young woman named Stephanie brought me a terrible book to read aloud that honestly set the bar for bad fiction, only to be destroyed many days later in Chicago by ORPHAN BY CHOICE, written by Clara Verner. Anyway, here’s a video of me reading from that. Where this video cuts off is where things went downhill forever and it was all awful. God.

I may regret reading this.

I also took this photo with my BFF Sara:

no regrets. NONE.

New York City

I finally got the chance to meet yazzydream, who I follow on Tumblr, and she helped assure me I am a true Internet celebrity by MAKING GIF SETS OF ME. I AM SO PROUD OF THESE.

“Let’s get a party started!”

“Draco Malfoy. Ooooh!“

“Which is saying a lot of things already.”

I’m a real success now.

D.C./University of Maryland

Oh my god, I gave a lecture, and the theme was DRACO IS A RACIST PLANET. I can’t explain myself.

Deanna took some lovely photos, which you can view here.

I was re-enacting very bad vampire fic. Don’t ask.

Lindsay filmed quite a few segments during my stop at the University of Maryland, including the following:

A live reading of a horrific vampire fic that I try to re-enact.

A live reading of “Jedus,” a Jesus/Judas fic.

A live reading of an utterly horrifying fic that ships Jesus and Hitler. Yes, it is every bit as absurd and ridiculous as one would think.

A live reading of one of the funniest, most poorly-written books in the history of the world.

what have i done

If you came to any of my events, please feel free to link to any photos or videos you took in the comments so others can check them out!

BOOKS

If you read this far, enjoy a physical copy of Mark Reads Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone. DO IT. YOU WON’T REGRET IT.

MARK DOES STUFF TOUR 2012

So, I’m booking my next set of tour dates, and I’d like to share with you a TEMPORARY itinerary that I’m working off of. If you live in any of these cities and can recommend a good venue or have connections, please comment or email me at markreadsandwatches [at] gmail [dot] com. I’d like to book this as cheaply as possible because travel in the western half of the US is VERY EXPENSIVE, so free or cheap venues are a huge plus to get me to come to your city. So, here’s what I’m thinking of:

4/19 San Francisco
4/20 Los Angeles
4/21 San Diego
4/22 Las Vegas
4/23 Phoenix
4/24 Tucson
4/25 El Paso (This used to be Las Cruces, NM, but more folks who read my stuff live in El Paso!)
4/26 Albuquerque
4/27 Denver
4/28 Salt Lake City
4/29 Boise
4/30 Portland
5/2 Spokane
5/3 Seattle
5/4 Vancouver

Let’s do this, everyone! I’m looking to do Texas, the south, and the southeast around my Ascendio date in July, so if you live in that part of the US, PLEASE LET ME KNOW so I can start booking dates! And you should also thank the 586 people (I COUNTED) who showed up to my ten events and showed me that the PAY AS YOU LIKE policy really fucking works. That means I’ll continue to make all events have optional door fees with no set price so that more folks can come. SO THANK YOU. Thank you to Ashly, Eljays, Literazzi, Nessa, Adam P, Stephanie and Lexi, the anonymous person who paid like $250 for my event in Cleveland (!!!!!), to the AMAZING PEOPLE OF DETROIT who found a new venue for me at the last minute, to Graham, to Toks for the venue, to Gwen for Templar, to the small group in Montreal who were FLAWLESS HUMANS, to Melissa for good vegan food in Cambridge, to Reidan for hanging out twice, to Jonathan Rosenthal of hp-nyc for the ridiculous game of Quidditch and the fucking fantastic event he set up, to the Last Drop in Philly for allowing us to take over their basement, to my new friends in Philly who got to watch me watch the Buffy premiere (<3), to Liz for the D.C. tour, to Maggie for the horrific novel, to every goddamn one of you in Chicago who made my last date so much fun, to Gabs the lying banker bodyguard, and to every single person who took time out of their day and spent any money to see me: thank you FOREVER.

OH GOD SO MUCH BAD FIC TO READ TO Y’ALL. Let’s make this happen!