Not my words, I hasten to add - I wouldn't be so immodest - but I liked the pun when somebody described me this way in an email!
And last night I was made to feel like a star of sorts - we had a fantastic time at the presentation in Menlo Park. The room was meant to hold no more than 75: nobody got an actual headcount, but according to estimates there were around 120 people there. We didn't have enough chairs, so people were sitting on the floor, standing at the back of the room and in the corridor outside.
They were a great audience - they laughed in all the right places, asked intelligent questions... and generously came forward with much advice and encouragement, over $2500 in cash, an offer of a speaking engagement, two potential sponsorship leads, and a stuffed dolphin.
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Photo: shot of me with Sher Dhillon last Sunday - Sher just pedalled (yes, PEDALLED) from India to Africa with Jason Lewis of Expedition 360.
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I will be giving a presentation tonight in Menlo Park, at the Recreation Center at 701 Laurel Street. It starts at 6pm and will finish around 7.30pm.
It should be easy to find - you'll see my boat parked outside!
I'll be talking about my Atlantic experience, showing my video, and taking questions. Open to all and entry is free, but space will be limited so get there early.
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The price of fame...
Well, not exactly fame, but I'm working on it. A busy week for media activity here in sunny California. Over the last 7 days I've been on the front pages of at least 3 local newspapers (The Almanac, Palo Alto Daily News, and San Jose Mercury News), been filmed sweating it out at boot camp and on my boat by NBC 11 (due to screen tomorrow at 10.50am PST) and have been booked for two more radio shows and a TV chat show. I cancelled my exploratory meeting with a PR agent, as it seems I already have more publicity going on than I can handle. Funny how there was nothing for ages, and then it suddenly starts to snowball. As I've said before, progress is not linear...
The most fun media happening was Saturday night's photo shoot for the New York Times Magazine (Play section, due to appear in June unless something much more important comes along).
On the face of it, doing a photo shoot in the pitch dark, on a boat in howling storm (pouring rain and winds of up to 20 knots) may not sound like the most fun way to spend a Saturday night, but the photographer and his 3 assistants were such great guys that the time passed quickly. Jason was a demanding boss - one poor assistant was crammed into my cabin with one flash head, another desperately trying to comply with Jason's demands for "More light on the [effing] water!" while a third held an umbrella over Jason and his cameras, trying to protect them from the hostile elements - authentic, at least.
The results justified the means - when Jason showed me the pictures on his laptop, he had indeed delivered on his promise of a "rock star photo". (And they say the camera never lies?)
It then required two whole hours in a nice warm pub to emerge from my hypothermic state... purely medicinal, of course.
[photo: I do have photos from Saturday night, taken by Eric, but don't want to steal Jason's thunder, so here is a pic of me in sunnier times at the KKMI boatyard]
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