Alphabet City is recruiting dozens of friends and fans for a seriously fun mission—hosting Alphabet City Book Club House Parties with about 20 of their friends.  Coast-to-coast, I’ll consider any city, and most importantly, I plan on attending every event!  It’s a chance for you and your friends to get all those questions answered, including:

Preview of the book cover--thanks Sam Griffin!

• Are Tyra’s boobs real?
• What celebrities didn’t make it into the book?
• How can I find the no-pants bar in Berlin or Babylon in Bangkok?

Plus, I’ll reveal salacious tidbits that got edited out for fear of lawsuits—like the down-on-her-luck celebrity with an eating disorder.  Or how I handle my mother reading about intimate details of my sex life.

Forget Pride & Prejudice—Jane Austen’s not coming to your house.  But I am! It’s like a Tupperware party with a humorous edge.

The wonderful thing about technology is that it’s allowing emerging artists to go directly to fans.  That’s not to say that it’s easy—you don’t just punch a button and boom you’re a published Kindle author.  There are all sorts of unimagined hic-cups.  But at the end of the day, it’s a blast being charge from top-to-bottom.

All right folks, the Alphabet City Book Club House Party Tour runs May-November 2010.  Now, I’ve got some books to sell.

Who’s going to step up and get the Alphabet City party started?

Chef and I decided a few years back that if our little dog Frida were ever an animated character that she would be voiced by singer-actress Kristin Chenoweth.  They both share the same sense of perky spirit and sometimes curls, although I imagine  Kristin has a little more drive—we often refer to Frida as the “laziest dog in the world.”

Frida and Kristin, the resemblance is uncanny

So I follow Kristin’s career with considerable Glee (when is she coming back to my favorite show?), even devouring her memoir A Little Bit Wicked.  Of course I’ve already set my DVR for this Saturday’s Lifetime movie “12 Men of Christmas” where Kristin stars as A NEW YORK PUBLICIST casting a male pinup calendar!  Alessandra Stanley in today’s New York Times refers to it as “a watered-down reworking of Jane Austen’s famous comedy of manners (call it ‘Pride & Pectoral’).”  Sign me up!

Remember the literary agent who told me that a publicist wasn’t a familiar figure in people’s lives?  Well, I’m sure Kristin and Lifetime are about to change all that.

But if not, and you’re still wondering what publicists do, I thought I’d give you more of the behind-the-scenes tales of book tour with Tyra Banks.  You’ve seen only a snippet of this story, and if you forgot how I landed the job with the supermodel then you should probably read Episode 4 first.  Then delve into Alphabet City’s Episode 5: The Bodyguard.

As I was reading the chapter this morning, the non-stop cross-country travel reminded me of George Clooney’s character in the new film Up in the Air.  Would the suave Oscar-winning actor be the right choice to play me in the Alphabet City movie?  Nah, I’d probably ask Frida’s permission to let Emmy-winner Kristin Chenoweth step into the role—she may be the wrong sex, but the attitude is all right.