{"id":2000,"date":"2008-06-27T09:42:26","date_gmt":"2008-06-27T17:42:26","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/?p=2000"},"modified":"2009-05-20T10:40:24","modified_gmt":"2009-05-20T18:40:24","slug":"meet-dan-white-cactus-eater","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/06\/27\/meet-dan-white-cactus-eater\/","title":{"rendered":"Meet Dan White, Cactus Eater"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0061376930?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=twhedrabaarhi-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0061376930\"><img loading=\"lazy\" src=\"http:\/\/www.assoc-amazon.com\/e\/ir?t=twhedrabaarhi-20&#038;l=as2&#038;o=1&#038;a=0061376930\" width=\"1\" height=\"1\" border=\"0\" alt=\"\" style=\"border:none !important; margin:0px !important;\" \/><img src=\"http:\/\/cdn.harpercollins.com\/harperimages\/isbn\/medium\/1\/9780061376931.jpg\" class=\"alignright\" border=\"0\"><\/a>Dan, who shares the unfortunate name of a <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Dan_White\" title=\"Wikipedia entry on the man who assassinated Mayor George Moscone and Supervisor Harvey Milk\">notorious San Francisco double-murderer<\/a>, has a new book out about his long-ago adventure up the Pacific Crest Trail. It&#8217;s called <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/gp\/product\/0061376930?ie=UTF8&#038;tag=twhedrabaarhi-20&#038;linkCode=as2&#038;camp=1789&#038;creative=390957&#038;creativeASIN=0061376930\">&#8220;The Cactus Eaters,&#8221; <\/a>alluding to the time when, in an extreme expression of green-horniness, he tried to draw moisture from a cactus, with prickly results. <\/p>\n<p>Rick at Best Hikes <a href=\"http:\/\/besthike.com\/blog\/2008\/06\/26\/recommended-hiking-book-the-cactus-eaters\/\">mentioned the book<\/a> yesterday,  so I&#8217;ll pick up where he left off. Short summation: &#8220;A Walk in the Woods&#8221; with better scenery. I poked around at <a href=\"http:\/\/trailforums.com\/index2.cfm?action=forum&#038;roomID=11\">Trail Forums<\/a> and the <a href=\"http:\/\/mailman.backcountry.net\/pipermail\/pct-l\/\">PCT-L archives <\/a>and saw nothing on the book so far, but if Bill Bryson&#8217;s example is any guide, before summer&#8217;s out the PCT purists will have combed over every comma in search of reasons to get their feelings hurt because he didn&#8217;t  hike their hike.   Or they&#8217;ll be all Zenlike with acceptance, or they&#8217;ll get back to reliving old hikes and planning new ones. <\/p>\n<p>Googling the book title yielded a raft of links: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/cactuseaters.blogspot.com\/\">Dan&#8217;s blog.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.harpercollins.com\/books\/9780061376931\/The_Cactus_Eaters\/index.aspx\">His publisher&#8217;s site for &#8220;The Cactus Eaters&#8221;  <\/a>(Harper Collins, no less).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.amazon.com\/review\/product\/0061376930\/ref=dp_top_cm_cr_acr_txt?%5Fencoding=UTF8&#038;showViewpoints=1\">Amazon.com reviewers <\/a>(12 so far; nobody hates it).<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/blog.oregonlive.com\/books\/2008\/06\/interview_author_dan_white_on.html\">Interview in the Portland Oregonian.<\/a><\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.salon.com\/books\/feature\/2008\/06\/09\/summer_reads3\/\">Salon.com review <\/a> (It&#8217;s one of their recommended summer reads.)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.gtweekly.com\/a-e\/the-lois-and-clark-expedition-1\">Profile in the Good Times Santa Cruz.<\/a>  (Dan was reporter for the Santa Cruz Sentinel for many years before running off to New York to get a fancy MFA in writing). <\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.powells.com\/ink\/danwhite.html\">Interview at Powells.com<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>I&#8217;ve never met the guy and didn&#8217;t know he existed till yesterday, but we have an odd collection of connections: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>He worked at the Sentinel; my employer owns the Sentinel. <\/li>\n<li>His <a href=\"http:\/\/www.amyettinger.com\/\">wife<\/a> worked as a feature writer at the Mercury News; I used to edit features copy at the Mercury news. (Our paths never crossed).<\/li>\n<li>He and I both saw John Prine and Nick Lowe at the Hardly Strictly Bluegrass Festival, and both mentioned the song  &#8220;Your Flag Decal Won&#8217;t Get You into Heaven Anymore.&#8221; (<a href=\"http:\/\/cactuseaters.blogspot.com\/2007\/10\/recap-on-steinbeck-fellows-reading-plus.html\">His<\/a>, 2007 | <a href=\"http:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/index.php\/2004\/10\/03\/hardly-strictly-speaking\/\">Mine<\/a>, 2004).<\/li>\n<li>He lives in San Francisco and commutes to San Jose; I live in San Jose and avoid commuting to San Francisco (OK, this one was a stretch, but I can see why it&#8217;d be productive for a professional writer to live the city. Lots of material). <\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Just like <a href=\"http:\/\/www.orwelltoday.com\/jfkcoincidences.shtml\">JFK and Abe Lincoln<\/a>, eh? Let&#8217;s start us a conspiracy theory.<\/p>\n<p>Upcoming Bay Area bookstore gigs: <\/p>\n<ul>\n<li><strong>4 PM, Saturday, July 12, 2008<\/strong><br \/>\nBOOK PASSAGE, 51 Tamal Vista Blvd Corte Madera, CA 94925<\/li>\n<li><strong>12:30 PM Tuesday, July 15, 2008<\/strong><br \/>\nSTACEY&#8217;S BOOKSTORE, 581 Market ST San Francisco, CA 94105<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/cactuseaters.blogspot.com\/2008_05_01_archive.html\">More events at his blog.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>A couple just-for-the-heck-of-it links:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li> Dan tells <a href=\"http:\/\/cactuseaters.blogspot.com\/2008\/02\/more-information-about-getting-drunk-in.html\">where to find great beer at Muir Woods<\/a>.<\/li>\n<li>\n<a href=\"http:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2007\/08\/03\/travel\/escapes\/03mammoth.html?_r=1&#038;pagewanted=print&#038;oref=slogin\">He profiles Mammoth Lakes for the New York Times.<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>(At some point I may actually read the book, really). <a href=\"http:\/\/www.bookshopsantacruz.com\/NASApp\/store\/Search;jsessionid=bacxk6VIYd6--b_FjplRr?s=results&#038;initiate=yes&#038;ks=q&#038;qsselect=KQ&#038;title=&#038;author=&#038;qstext=cactus+eaters&#038;x=0&#038;y=0\">Buy yours at Bookshop Santa Cruz.<br \/>\n<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dan, who shares the unfortunate name of a notorious San Francisco double-murderer, has a new book out about his long-ago adventure up the Pacific Crest Trail. It&#8217;s called &#8220;The Cactus Eaters,&#8221; alluding to the time when, in an extreme expression&hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"more-link-p\"><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/2008\/06\/27\/meet-dan-white-cactus-eater\/\">Read the whole thing<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0},"categories":[67],"tags":[305,150,512],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2000"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2539,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2000\/revisions\/2539"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2000"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2000"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.tommangan.net\/twoheeldrive\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2000"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}