Video of a Bear and a Book

Not both in the same video though

Last Friday, to celebrate 34 years since the night we met, my lovely wife and I went for a bike ride in the mountains. The last three times she’s ridden that road with me we’ve seen bears, and she’s starting to get used to them. The first time she saw one he was just a wee fellow and a couple hundred yards away, up the side of a hill. She said for her that was the perfect bear encounter.

But with the road being closed to cars this month we see a lot of them up close. This was our second bear of the day. When you see a bear on the side the road munching away, it’s best to just call “Hey bear” to them so they know you’re there, then keep on going. In the past three years I’ve seen close to 50 black bears, and four grizzlies. Only once did I need to stop because a grizzly the size of a Smart Car was in the middle of the road walking toward me. I slowly turned back the way I came and he eventually took off up the side of a mountain.

Anyway, here’s a short video of our bear encounter.

And now to our other video.

I have an MBA and worked in marketing for a dozen years and kinda fucking hated it. I hated how it assumed customers were idiots and used ham-fisted schlock to sell crap. One of the reasons I sold so many copies of my sweary history book is because I treated readers like sapient beings and not walking wallets and did my best to tell them a story that actually fucking entertained them a bit and maybe after doing that forty-eleven times they would say you know what this James guy is alright ima buy his fucking book. 

Now that I'm working with a big publisher they're doing all kinds of stuff marketing and PR wise, including making this promotional video. At first I was like okay but I don't know if this sort of thing is going to sell MY book (cuz I'm special). But I watched it and went well that's not necessarily the way I would create a video (I don't create videos because I hate it and I suck at it) but actually I kinda fucking love this. Yeah, it's a little cheesy but still, it's about my book and I dig it. So please watch it and yeah also buy my fucking book. Here is the fancy video from the fine folks at Penguin Random House:

On This Day in History Sh!t Went Down is published on October 10. Pre-order it now.