It’s out there

Last week my agent sent out the Where am I wearing? book proposal to a number of editors, one of whom happened to work as Eric Clapton’s editor, which, you know, is super cool. I may be a bit premature in imagining sipping a drink at the publishing house’s cocktail party talking with EC, but I can’t help it…

Me: That Layla is some song.

EC: Thanks.

Me: We named one of our dogs Layla. She liked to roll in poop and sometimes she did that crazy dog thing where she would drag her butt across the ground. In fact, sometimes she drug her butt on our concrete block.

EC: …

But seriously, I’m realistically maintaining my level of hope. I’m cautiously pessimistic. This has served me well thus far in my writing career. Expect nothing, so when something actually happens it’s more of a pleasant surprise.

In general, I try to be a positive fella, but when it comes to writing you’ve got to have some way to deal with rejection. I figure there are two ways to handle it: alcohol or cautious pessimism.

And I don’t like hangovers.

Right now, hopefully, editors are reading the proposal and thinking that it sounds like a good idea. Then they are sharing it with their editor buds at their publishing house. And eventually with the powers-that-be who decide what works to take on. This process could take a few months before we hear anything.

A book deal would be a nice Christmas gift, but if Christmas comes and goes and my house hasn’t burnt down, my wife hasn’t left me, and I’ve managed to not be ravaged by flesh eating bacteria, I’ll consider myself lucky book deal or not. This is cautious pessimism at its finest.

The not sucking has begun

Hopefully.

The Bangladesh chapter is about 90% complete. I’m in the process of pulling at and strengthening the narrative thread to make it stand out a little more. I’ve also been toying around with the Honduras chapter, which I’m completely rewriting from the “Made in Honduras” chapter you’ll find to the right, and also the introduction.

Several agents have requested the book proposal and it’s my goal to get it to them before the end of the month. Apparently, the publishing industry is dead in August, which means agents have time to read proposals, but there is not much they can do with them until September.

I’ve posted the rough draft of my intro below the cut. I’m not sure it’s the wisest thing to encourage people to not read your book in the introduction, but in this draft I did.

(more…)

Where am I wearing? highlights

Here are all of the audio slideshows and “Made In” summaries in order:

The Quest

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Made in Bangladesh - My underwear

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Made in Cambodia - My all-American Cambodian blue jeans

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Made in China - because going barefoot sucks

Heading Home

I spent today in Hong Kong snapping photos of glass towers and trying to find the longest escalator in the world. Tomorrow I fly home.

But fear not, the quest is far from over. Now the processing and research begins. I hope to be able to start discussing the apparel industry more in depth: the problems, what is being done, what we can do about them, etc.

I’ve only been able to share a little about my exploits with the factories and the workers and what I think about it all. I felt like I couldn’t post too often about the workers because it could hurt my chances of getting into factories. I do think the posts that I wrote on the workers and factories accurately reflect my thoughts – it’s not like I was holding back. It’s just that if the factories knew I spent weeks getting to know the workers and their lives, they would get nervous.

A new quest begins…

Taking all of this info and experiences and writing a book.

As I mentioned in a previous post, I’ve been approached by a literary agent and we hope to work on a book proposal when I get home. I’ve never worked with an agent, written a book proposal, or even a book for that matter. I hope to write about the hurdles, mistakes, and triumphs of the process.

I’ve been toying around with an outline as the trip has progressed and I think the story of my shirt, pants, underwear, and blue jeans is a complete one. But there is always a chance that I might have to chase down something else I’m wearing. A friend suggested that I visit Italy where one of my designer Italian shirts was made. One problem: I don’t have any fancy Italian shirts. The agent who contacted me thought that it might be interesting to track down something a bit more high-tech such as my wrist watch – Made in Finland.

I’ve even tossed around the idea of going back to Honduras and tracking down Amilcar, who made my t-shirt, which I gave him. (Maybe I’ll take the shirt back. I thought I would be able to find another Tattoo shirt. I haven’t been able to yet and I’ve tried.) The first time I met Amilcar, I was too nervous/shy/guilt-ridden to ask if he could show me where he lives and introduce me to his life. The Honduras portion was much more of a whimsical afterthought than a quest. Going back may allow me to bring the story full circle. But I’m just thinking out loud here. If you have any opinions please share ‘em.

In the next few months I hope to track down the factory and workers who made my favorite pair of shorts – Made in the USA. I’m sure the factory is closed, but I’m sure there’s somebody still around who used to work there and it would be real interesting to talk to them about the people who they lost their job to.

Coming Soon…

My interviews on the World Vision Report. I’ve done two and will do my last one (maybe) this week.

And hopefully, many, many, pieces from this trip published in many, many publications. My second mortgage told me it’s time this trip starts paying for itself.

Movies. An audio slideshow about China and one about the entire trip. I hoped to post the China one before I left, but, as I mentioned in the previous post, my computer is FULL!

If you thought this was a vacation…

It wasn’t. I worked my tail off.

The old laptop I brought on this trip has a grand total of 714 Kb left on the hard drive. That means it has room for about half of one photo.

Some more stats…

I’ve taken some 3,000 pics.

Written 2 Mb worth of notes (trust me that’s a lot).

Posted over 22,000 words on this here blog in the last 3 months.

Recorded over 12 hours of audio.

This hotel room has lots of stuff…

…including…

…2 fire extinguishers in it and 8 more waiting outside.

…2 fire masks so, in case you use all 10 fire extinguishers and there is still a fire, you can dawn a mask and, instead of passing out from smoke inhalation, you will be fully conscious as you burn to death.

…2 nightstands with switches. I am truly the master of my domain. There is not an appliance or light that I can’t control simply by rolling over.

…midnight phone calls: “You want girl for massage?” I guess it’s hard to find a hotel in these parts where “massages” aren’t offered at all hours of the night. And NO I didn’t get the midnight massage. I’m hurt. Do you even know me?

So why is this one of my all-time favorite hotel rooms? This is why…

And if you want to learn more about “Where I Am” checkout this interview over at WorldHum.

WAIW? to hit the airwaves

I taped my second interview for the World Vision Report on Wednesday. The first covered the premise of my quest and my experiences in Honduras and Bangladesh. Wednesday’s just covered Cambodia.

When I look back at all of the interviews I’ve given over the years….wait, these were my first two. Anyhow, I think they went well, but I don’t have anything to compare them to. At the end of both interviews, I felt like I should have mentioned something that I didn’t get a chance to work in:

I should have told Peggy, the host, that the most surprising thing about Cambodia was getting a shoulder massage at the urinal. Or when she asked me what else I’ve been up to I should have told her about visiting the dump and playing Frisbee with the kids who collect plastic for 25-cents/day.

So on and so on…

In hindsight, some things, like the dump, I probably should have mentioned and, other things, like the urinal massage, I was wise not to bring up. All-in-all I think I do well enough for the professional producers and editors to make me sound semi-intelligent. Of course, I haven’t heard the final cut yet.

There hasn’t been a date set for the first interview to air, but you can be sure that I will keep you posted. The 3 interviews (I have one more left to do on China), once started, will air over a 3-month period, mirroring my trip.

I’m looking forward to hearing them. You should too. How often do you get to hear a guy that sounds like Joe Dirt talk about his Bangladeshi boxers?

Not often enough, my friends. Not often enough.

— Here’s a link to my first ever radio contribution for the World Vision Report’s Reporter’s Notebook. In this one, Joe Dirt (ME) talks about playing soccer in Honduras.

Same Bangkok, New Perspective

6 years ago, Bangkok was my introduction to the developing world. I was half-way through an around-the-world trip in which I spent the first 3 months in Hawaii and Australia – not exactly roughing it.

At the time, my senses were overloaded:

Sight – everywhere people and chaos
Touch – running sweat
Smell – stinky, polluted air
Hearing – horns and tuk-tuks
Taste – dirt and exhaust
Spidey sense – tingling.

I arrived at 6 in the morning and I got the hell out of Bangkok as quickly as possible and tried to locate the most isolated beach I could find.

Now things are different. I’m coming from Bangladesh. Bangkok looks like a manicured, peaceful city with order and luxury. On the cab ride to my hotel I felt lonely, “Where’s all the people?”

In some sense, I know I will miss the crowds of people in Bangladesh. They were my security. And I was their celebrity. I walked around a little tonight and didn’t notice a single person staring at me. Tom Cruise no more, I guess I’ll have to get used to being just another touron.

I catch a flight to Phnom Penh tomorrow evening. I’ll spend the majority of my day tomorrow wrapping up my notes, posts, recordings, audio slideshows from Bangladesh. Expect to see a lot of activity here tomorrow.

Also, I’ve got some cool news for all of you geeks out there. I hope to share it some time this week. Stay tuned…

WAIW? Plugged

WhereamIwearing.com got mentioned on several cool sites recently:

TheCleanestLine.com (Patagonia’s blog)

So it costs $15 more to buy a Patagonia t-shirt. They are one of the few companies that think about their environmental and social impact. I blame (read: credit) them for planting the idea of this quest and I wrote them a letter thanking them. They posted the letter.

Jaunted.com the pop culture travel guide

They liked the socially conscience aspects of my quest. They posted an awesome photo of a clothing tag that reads:

DO NOT TUMBLE DRY
DO NOT SOAK WARM IRAN
FIRST WASH SEPARATLY
MADE IN CHINA

Calling about my underwear

It’s not the most exciting audio-slideshow ever, but it gives you an idea of the runaround that I get trying to locate the factories.